Contemplation 7 – Overcoming The Fear of Other People’s Opinions

fear of other peoples opinion

Overcoming The Fear of Other People’s Opinions

The fear of others opinions is a fundamental hurdle for people in their personal development.

In the short clip, I discuss why we fear the judgement of others and what we can do about it.

 

Listen Here

 

Transcript

00:01 – Intro

I’m going to recording here about the opinion of other people and how fearful we are of that judgement that comes from them. When I do some coaching work, one of the fundamental hurdles that people have is actually this fear of what other people think of them, whether that’s expressed or not expressed, you can put your beliefs onto them, as in to say like, what you think they’re thinking of you, when in reality, they’re too worried about what you’re thinking of them.

 

00:31 – It’s a common hurdle

But, you know, people tend to think that they may be the only ones to actually experience this. And that, fundamentally, they’re not, it’s very normal for a human being to experience the fear of other people judging them. The vast majority of people have it. I’d suggest that it’s only the people were very narcissistic in nature, that wouldn’t experience it. Because it wouldn’t come into their awareness where anybody bought themselves.

 

01:03 – How I work on overcoming

I mean, to be fair, this is why I do talks like this, because the podcast allows me to keep on top of that niggling doubt of other people’s opinions and, and their beliefs, putting them onto me. So this is why I do talks such as this and put things on YouTube and speak to people on my podcast.

 

01:24 – Do you offer baseless opinions?

So there’s very few people that don’t have this, only the the most enlightened, don’t assume would actually be purified of it. The first thing I’d ask is, how often do you put your judgement onto others? Is your fear of their opinion, a reflection of your judgments elsewhere. Because after all, external reality is just a manifestation of our internal makeup. So if we have a lot of opinions projected elsewhere, onto other people onto other events, situations, you’ll seek opinions and judgments coming your way. Can’t be any other reality because your internal psychology by putting the opinions and judgments outside of you will attract opinions and judgments towards you as well.

 

02:21 – Peace

If we let other people’s reflections effect to us, then how are we meant to live a peaceful existence? If you imagine a person to be wonderful, and they offer a negative opinion, are you going to let that ruin your day, your week, your month, your life even? In the same way, if someone who you do not hold in high regard, offers a negative opinion on you the same as that the person who you do hold in high regard did? Would you care?Probably not as much. So it could be exactly the same opinion. But the differentiation between the two people whether you value that person’s opinion or not, decides how you feel.

 

03:08 – ?

So what’s actually the point here? Is it other people’s opinion? Or is it what value you’re putting on to that person in order to make their opinion valid?

 

03:21 – Example

And as a good friend asked me the other day, it was on Facebook. He said, I’ve got 99.99% of people really appreciate what I do. But I focus on the 0.01% that are judging me in the background.

 

03:41 – Ego

And I shared with him my understanding of the ego and its mechanics. The ego being a structure of safety and security, that’s its job. And by the mind focusing on this 0.1% of negative people, it’s keeping you aware of the danger that they’re imposing on your identity.

 

04:04 – Identity and beliefs

Identity is in their belief systems, what they’ve created for themselves and who they are, he is a musician, this guy, so he’s identities, I am a musician. So his ego is focusing on the 0.1% of people who may question the identity that he’s created for himself. His identity might get shattered. So his ego for its own protection is making him aware of that. The 99.9% of the people who are you know, egging him on wanting to do well. He doesn’t need to worry about because they’re no danger to him. So the ego doesn’t focus on them for their egos protection.

 

04:51 – Culture

Human beings are conditioned by culture to be this way. It’s not wrong. Just something that we need to become aware of because once you understand the mechanics of the defence mechanism of the ego, then you can shine your light of awareness onto it until okay become objective to it, know what’s going on. And you can separate yourself. Essentially, all it is is self preservation a survival mechanism that creates all sorts of stories for itself to survive, but that’s all it is.

 

05:25 – Ascending past the crowd

And another aspect of fearing judgement for the people is the fear of ascending past the crowd. Like crabs in a bucket most people fear crawling out of the bucket because the other Crabs will try and pull them back down. And I wrote an article on that called the number one thing holding you back and there’s three things you can do about it. So check that out on my website, my article.

 

05:58 – Age and Maturity

I think perhaps age plays a role as well. As we mature having been through different phases of life, other’s opinions seem to lose their grip, I’m reasonably young and i’ve noticed, even in 10 years it still plays a niggle in my mind every now and again, but compared to what it was when I was 18, it’s completely unshackled itself really, it’s not to say it completely disappears. But it takes on a whole lot less significant id imagine, particularly as you get into your older stages of life.

 

06:30 – Conclusion

So to wrap this contemplation up, we fear the judgement of others because our beliefs and identities are under attack by a perceived negative opinion of somebody else. The ego is doing its job of self protection. So it’s nothing to be vilified. If you’ve got a healthy ego, you’d understand what this is. Quite literally keeping your beliefs and identity alive, which are illusionary, they’re not real, they’re just what you perceive them to be. So that’s what your egos doing.

So now you know what it is you can become objective to the feelings that are routed in you and deal with it as necessary. build a relationship with them know what they are. It won’t happen overnight, but you know, keep working on it.

 

07:11

And in closing, I’ll share a quote by Marcus Aurelius that stuck in my mind from reading one of the stoicism books. He said, “The tranquillity that comes when you stop caring what they say, or Think or Do, only what you do, and that was Marcus Aurelius.” So I’ll leave you on that.

 

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