Other People's Opinions: How to Stop Caring About Them Without Hurting Yourself

AVAlexander Volchek

How do you stop worrying about other people's opinions? It isn't just worry. It's something that weighs on us enormously, depriving us of joy in life, freedom, creativity, and growth. You go to bed thinking about other people's opinions. You take a shower thinking about other people's opinions. You wake up thinking about other people's opinions. You eat breakfast thinking about other people's opinions. You work thinking about other people's opinions. You're in a meeting thinking about other people's opinions. You meet friends thinking about other people's opinions. You're constantly spending all your energy not on doing something, not on creating something, not on developing, not on being creative, but on thinking about what other people think of you. This practice means that every day you... Or did you bring other people expectations, aggression, malice, trauma, anger, domination, irritation, and rudeness? Love yourself deeply, truly. You seem to want to do everything only for yourself, but you don't love yourself. Interestingly, the amount of energy involved is many times greater than the energy spent on your own development. Imagine: the energy you spend on one unit of thinking about other people's opinions is equivalent to five extra units toward your own development.

I'll show you important actions and important factors now. What is the solution to this issue? How do we resolve it? It's important not to deceive yourself, and to calmly, clearly acknowledge that you've spent a great deal of time, many years, in this state. It isn't something that appeared yesterday and has already disappeared. Even if it disappeared today, that doesn't mean it won't return tomorrow. It's very important to understand the solution, and the solution is broad and multifaceted. Stopping thinking about others doesn't mean going dancing. Stopping thinking about others doesn't mean getting into a situation where you have to discuss some other subject. Stopping thinking about others doesn't mean taking up an activity that requires one hundred percent concentration. I suggest not pursuing that kind of solution, because it's very complicated, it pulls you in, and it isn't real. It's like fighting yourself, endlessly fighting yourself. It's a drug. The struggle and the very actions you take to resolve the issue become a drug. The first thing to do is understand that other people can have their own opinions. Absolutely everyone, without exception. Those opinions can be completely different from yours.

Remember this. Of course, we can't agree with everything completely, especially things that cross every boundary of our values. But allow for the fact that another person has the power to hold an opinion different from yours, even a very bad one. I'm not asking you to agree with it. I'm asking you to allow for it. Second, it's important to understand that you don't always actually know other people's opinions, conclusions, train of thought, or understanding. If you're thinking about someone else, that doesn't mean they're thinking about you. To understand this and truly make sense of it, you need an open dialogue with that person. At the very least, you need to enter a state of freedom and have no expectations. If you're worrying about other people's opinions, that's probably very difficult for you. So allow for the possibility, within yourself, that you simply don't know the whole truth. You may not understand the other person's truth at all, especially their thinking. The most important thing to do, the thing that will lead you to incredible growth, is reach a state where the question of other people's opinions doesn't arise at all. The question itself doesn't arise; you won't be able to bring it into being. That means stopping your own judgment of other people.

Don't judge other people in any situation. Don't judge anyone, anywhere. Judging another person amplifies your agitated worry about your own day and other people's opinions hundreds of times. There's an incredible practice you can do every day for the rest of your life. It definitely leads not just to broader perception, but also to incredible calm and a resolution of this issue. You're in harmony with yourself, in harmony with your own actions, and you try to hear and truly understand what other people are communicating. And understand that people often bring very harmful things into our lives. The practice is to set aside a little time each day and reflect on how you've treated other people throughout the day. It gives you an incredible sense of ease, freedom, and creativity. In fact, this practice gives a person perhaps one of the most important things they need: love for themselves. To love yourself deeply, truly. You seem to want to do everything only for yourself, but you don't love yourself. I'm talking about real love now. This practice means reflecting every day, every day, on how you treated others during the day, what you thought about them, and what you did toward them. Toward anyone: at work, in your family, in a store, on the street, with acquaintances, with friends, on the phone, in person, online, on Zoom, anywhere.

How did you spend your day in relation to other people? Did you bring them kindness, help, love, and compassion? Or did you bring them expectations, aggression, malice, trauma, anger, domination, irritation, and rudeness? Did you do something to spite them? Even if at first you can't agree that you should have acted differently, begin reflecting on this every day. After a few months, you'll feel an entirely different state, one that leads to true growth and expansion as a person. Simply doing this practice, without wanting to change anything, brings incredible results. Try it for even a short time: a few weeks, a few months, even a few years. You'll see incredible changes.