How to know if you care too much about people’s opinion

[no_name]

How do I know whether my obsession of what people think about me is too much? I just accidentally added someone on Facebook whom I don’t like very much, and had some drama with in the past, and cancelled the request right away. Then I ended up obsessing and worrying about it for 2-3 hours, crying and thinking about how my life sucks, how stupid and worthless I am to have been stalking their fb, etc. 

Anyone here who absolutely doesn’t care about what people think about them? Who purely lives life for themselves and their own enjoyment? How did you get to this point? 

[Raze]

Is your response consistent with reality? 

yours was not, you care too much. 

[Federico del pueblo]

17 hours ago, no_name said:

How do I know whether my obsession of what people think about me is too much? I just accidentally added someone on Facebook whom I don’t like very much, and had some drama with in the past, and cancelled the request right away. Then I ended up obsessing and worrying about it for 2-3 hours, crying and thinking about how my life sucks, how stupid and worthless I am to have been stalking their fb, etc. 

This definitely sounds like you do care too much ?

17 hours ago, no_name said:

Anyone here who absolutely doesn’t care about what people think about them? Who purely lives life for themselves and their own enjoyment? How did you get to this point? 

Not fully yet, but I'm getting there.

You have to put yourself out there. Expand your comfort zone, overcome trauma, limiting beliefs and emotions.

Everything that is talked here on the forum is supposed to get you closer to not caring about other people's opinions anymore.

But to be more specific you could devide this "not caring what others think" in two categories of strategies, the inner work and the outer work.

Outer work includes things like comfort zone challenges, desensitizing yourself = progressive desensitisation and/or confrontation (do the things that are uncomfortable while embracing the uncomfortable emotions), learning social skills like quick-wittedness, humor, frame control, free association etc.

Inner work is the stuff you do at home, where you actively work on your emotions, do emotional releases, maybe self-hypnosis, affirmations, visualizing. I like to use EFT/tapping, others here do shadow work. Some people have techniques to ground yourself/your emotions (the fearless man, sometimes mentioned in this section).

You need to know what limits you, your inner demons or negative programs (social conditioning), your limiting beliefs and corresponding emotions.

When you know what you're dealing with you can apply the inner work and outer work techniques in a purposeful way.

[Preety_India]

You have to love yourself first and foremost. 

 

This comes from a deep lack of self love. You're externalizing this lack. 

That makes you a people pleaser and you are constantly worried what people would think 

 

I was like you. I used to stalk the social media profile of my ex. He used to stalk mine too. Surprisingly these behaviors are pretty common and there is nothing to worry about. 

We normally look for social validation, it's in our social DNA. 

What you can do is practice detachment. Detachment will teach you how different your world can look when there is no need to please anyone. 

Stalkerish behavior comes from unhealthy attachment described as obsession due to low emotional maturity. 

When you reach higher levels of maturity where you realize that such suffering is born from attachment, you learn to drop it and drop the person. 

Here's what you need to do as an urgent action. 

Drop thoughts about that person and drop them too.

Thus they are no longer a part of your life. 

My favorite line is this - 

Don't give them rent free occupancy in your brain. You're doing unnecessary favors. 

 

 

Edited May 3, 2022 by Preety_India

[Prakhar]

Not caring about other people is unbalanced Wisdom, which needs to be balanced with Love. Caring too much about people is unbalanced Love, which needs to be balanced with Wisdom.

When Love and Wisdom are balanced, you care about the other but you don't care about their opinion of you.

How do you do that? Practice. Awareness and Love.