Conquering The Fear Of Judgement

Welcome to the Breakdown to Breakthrough Podcast.

My name is Lisa A.

Romano.

I am a life coach,

Best-selling author,

YouTube vlogger,

Meditation teacher,

And expert in the field of codependency and narcissistic abuse.

I am a believer in the power of an organized mind.

My aim is to help people learn what it means to live above the veil of consciousness rather than living a reactive life.

May your heart feel blessed,

Your mind feel expanded,

And your spirit find hope as you spend time with me here at the Breakdown to Breakthrough Podcast.

We're going to be talking about how you can free yourself from the fear of being judged by others.

This is a topic that is near and dear to my heart.

I never knew that I had a tremendous fear of others,

Others' judgments,

Others' criticism.

I never knew that at the core of me was this broken heart,

This heart that had felt very much pushed away as a child,

Not good enough,

And just flawed,

Like there was something terribly wrong with me.

I couldn't tell you what that thing was,

But I just always felt like there was innately something bad with whatever and whoever I was.

That translated into codependent thinking,

Codependent beliefs.

That translated into an identity issue.

I didn't have a healthy sense of self.

I certainly was not self-actualized.

I didn't know what it felt like to have a self,

To even identify specific feelings.

My feelings were all over the place,

And I really couldn't tell you from moment to moment what I was feeling because it sort of felt like,

If you imagine you had 100 pairs of socks and all of the socks were mismatched,

In other words,

You know how you fold your socks and you put them into a drawer when you match them?

Well,

My feelings felt like there were 100 pairs of socks and there was no match.

I just had emotions.

They ricocheted all over the place,

But for me to tell you that,

Oh,

I'm feeling embarrassed or,

Oh,

I'm feeling frustrated or,

Oh,

I'm feeling anxious,

It really was difficult.

I just knew that I didn't feel good.

That came from,

I believe,

Being taught that to survive in my home,

You had to pretend that you didn't have feelings.

You had to completely mask how you were really feeling.

If you were sad,

You had to pretend that you were happy because that made the adults in the home happy.

If you were sad,

You could never say that you're sad because that made other people angry.

In my case,

And I think a lot of people's situations are similar,

Is that we fear feeling not good enough,

And we're afraid of being judged because,

As children,

We have felt like we've been pushed away.

We have been taught that we're not good enough through being not nurtured enough,

Or if your parents were alcoholics,

If your parents were narcissistic,

If your parents were even codependent and highly immature,

And they were not nurturing you enough,

If they taught you that your feelings were irrelevant,

If they treated you with indifference,

Then you have felt like you're not good enough for love.

To make matters worse,

You can even feel ashamed of yourself if you're unable to gain the validation that you needed as a child.

Biologically,

The need to belong is wired into every cell of our being.

We are wired to belong to a community.

If you think about the earliest people,

Belonging to a community was tied to survival.

You could not be born inside a tribe and then be left outside of the cave.

You'd never survive,

And so the need to be part of a tribal community,

To feel accepted by your tribe,

Was very important,

And it was necessary to survive.

So if you have a fear of not belonging,

You're normal.

If you have a fear of being judged by other people,

You're normal.

Most people struggle with,

Oh my goodness,

What are these people thinking of me?

Most people fear not being accepted.

It's so linked to survival,

So if you're struggling with that fear,

I hope just learning that helps you feel less ashamed of your fear of being judged by other people.

So if this is your case,

If this is the situation that you find yourself in,

That you really worry about what other people think about how much money you make,

You don't feel like you make enough money,

Or you feel like people are judging you because you work at a certain place.

If you feel like people judge the house that you live in,

They judge the way you talk,

They judge your skin,

They judge your hair,

They judge the way you walk,

They judge your relationships,

They judge your children,

They judge your home,

I mean,

It is endless.

We can drive ourselves absolutely crazy worrying about what other people think.

Have you ever caught yourself worrying about what a stranger thinks about you?

Someone that you will never speak to,

Someone that is driving down the road,

And you have a cookie in your backpack,

And you grab the cookie,

And you're eating the cookie,

And you don't want anyone else to see you eat this cookie.

That's pretty deep.

You might be someone who was shamed as a child for eating or for enjoying sweets,

Or maybe you were taught that you weren't good enough as a child,

And one of the ways that you comforted yourself was eating,

But you got the message that food comforted you,

But there was also a sense of being ashamed because you were eating a cookie.

Lots of women have this fear specifically,

That if they're caught eating a sweet,

Then they're afraid of being judged.

We can go to a party and be starving,

Men and women starving,

And not eat in front of other people because we're afraid that people are going to judge us for what we're eating.

People are watching us,

And this is a really,

Really serious fear.

And I think lots of us need to pay attention,

And we need to become much more conscious of the way our minds are operating around the fear of being judged.

I remember when it hit me that I was afraid of what people were going to think of me,

And these were complete strangers.

I remember walking out of the house without makeup on and being terrified that I was going to be judged by someone for not wearing makeup.

And I remember having this aha moment,

Like,

Who cares what people think?

And can I really ever know what someone else is thinking?

And so here I am anxiously anticipating rejection from people,

And it's tied to wearing makeup.

I hadn't yet put all the pieces of the puzzle together yet,

But I had such a fear of being judged that when I stepped out of the house without makeup,

I began to really,

Really get nervous.

It took me a while to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

My mom was someone who always wore makeup.

She would never be around my dad without makeup.

My dad would criticize my mother if she didn't wear makeup.

I remember I was a teenager.

I came down in the morning and just woke up.

I had no makeup on.

I walked down the stairs.

My dad took one look at me and said,

You better go upstairs and put some makeup on.

I was shamed.

I was judged.

I was criticized by my father,

The first man that I ever loved.

I watched my dad criticize my mom and the way she looked.

The fear of being judged by someone that I loved was conditioned and programmed and brainwashed into me.

I didn't even know it.

I didn't realize how far it had gone that I was now worried about what strangers thought about me.

Not even my dad or my husband at the time,

But complete strangers.

This is all below the veil of consciousness.

This is all our subconscious programs.

These are things that we really need to bring to the surface so that we can deal with them appropriately.

Why?

So they no longer emotionally arrest us,

So that we don't put out this energy into the world that is fear-based,

So that we can rise above the wounds of the past,

So that we can heal the wounded ego,

Even transcend ego,

Have an ego death,

Because the fear of being judged is all about ego.

Ego is wounded.

What you think about ego matters to ego.

And ego,

In some cases,

If it's a codependent ego,

Will fawn,

Will acquiesce,

Will subjugate their own needs for the sake of someone else so that someone else doesn't leave them.

A codependent ego will put the needs of others before their own for the sake of maintaining a relationship,

Even if the relationship is toxic.

A narcissistic ego is going to use and manipulate people and feel entitled to exploit other people to protect their wounds,

The ego's wounds.

A narcissistic ego doesn't like that it has these vulnerabilities and will work to mask,

Create a mask that will prevent these ego wounds from being activated.

And so it's really interesting when you think about this idea that whether someone is narcissistic,

Highly narcissistic,

Or highly codependent,

There is this fear of being judged.

And then there are people who fall somewhere in the middle where they're not necessarily codependent,

But they do struggle with the fear of being judged.

And you have someone who is not necessarily a narcissist or suffering with narcissistic personality disorder,

But there's this fear of being judged by other people.

So what can we do about it?

I think the first thing that we have to do is recognize that it's normal.

I think a lot of people do what I call layering.

It's not a psychologically accepted term.

And so if I recognize that I have a fear of being judged,

And then I judge myself because I have this fear of being judged,

I just layered.

And so instead,

What I could do is in the moment that I realized that I was worried about what the lady thought about me at the post office,

And I can accept it,

I can embrace that I had this unconscious fear of being judged by this woman that I'll never speak to.

I'll never see her again.

And if I do,

Who really cares?

Does her opinion really matter?

No,

Not really.

But I'm digressing.

The most important thing is to recognize that when you have the moment of awareness that you were just worried about being judged by someone else,

That you hold onto yourself and you just allow yourself that experience.

That's the observer in you,

Not the ego.

It is the observer in you recognizing this very egotistical response to this fear of being judged by someone else.

Remember,

Ego is below the veil of consciousness.

The mind is mostly subconscious.

It's below the veil of consciousness.

And so where there is a fear,

There's usually a belief.

So it's really not about this other person.

The fear is tied to some childhood experience in the past of feeling rejected.

Because the less you're rejected as a child and the more that you're accepted,

The more that you're embraced,

The more empathy you experience as a child,

The more times your feelings are important to other people.

In other words,

You're sad and you're embraced.

You're not humiliated.

You're not chastised.

You're angry.

Someone outside of you,

A significant other,

A caretaker,

A mom,

A dad,

Someone asks you,

Tell me why you're upset.

They help you deal with your emotions rather than shame you for them and judge you for them.

So the fear of being judged is very oftentimes tied to a painful experience from the past.

And that's really important to remember because we give so much power to this person in front of us that they don't deserve.

We give so much of our sense of worth to people outside of us,

And they don't deserve that power.

No one deserves that power over you.

We should never worry so much about what someone else thinks about us on the outside that we are crippled emotionally,

That we have this tremendous anxiety attack,

This emotional trigger,

And we can't think straight.

None of us should feel that way,

But so many of us do.

So the next time you notice that you worried about being judged by someone else,

Just step into observer role and see if you can for a moment create a space.

This is a lot.

This has a lot to do with mindfulness.

See if you can create a space where you are able to observe that process,

That subconscious process,

Just observe it,

Then accept it.

Don't judge it.

The next thing you want to do is remind yourself that it is not necessary to give this person outside of you this much power over you.

What I mean by that is you want to make sure that you're consciously recognizing this person is not your mother.

This person is not your father.

This person is not anyone that raised you or is significant to you.

In lots of cases,

We're worried about what strangers think of us.

So remind yourself consciously,

You're going to find that space,

You're going to find that gap.

You're going to sit in the seat of the observer,

And you're going to remind yourself that no one is the boss over you,

That this person does not deserve this power over you.

And you're going to remind yourself that this person is not the person who originally wounded you.

Below the veil of consciousness,

We are operating through subconscious programs.

And so if I was wounded by my mother,

Then I make everyone else my mother.

I had this fear of being judged,

This fear of being criticized,

This fear of being punished for things that I did not do,

This fear of being persecuted,

This fear that someone's going to find something out about me,

And all hell is going to break loose.

That's how I grew up.

I never knew what was going to set my mother off.

And so I walked around on eggshells.

I knew my father wanted my mother to wear makeup,

And he wanted her to appear happy,

And he wanted her to look perfect.

That was my model for a woman,

And that was my model for a love and a relationship with a man,

To look and appear perfect.

That was all driven by the fear of being judged.

I didn't know it was happening.

I didn't know that so much of my anticipatory anxiety was tied to,

Oh no,

I hope that they like me.

I hope that I'm good enough.

So a few things that I want you to remember.

I wrote notes because I didn't want to forget anything.

So number one,

When we worry about being judged,

Number one,

We're giving our power over to another person.

Very,

Very important.

If you had a million dollars in the bank,

Would you give the first stranger you bumped into that million dollars?

No.

If you did,

You'd be giving your power over.

I use money as an example to try to make this concrete for people to understand.

So you wouldn't do that.

Your heart is your pump.

Would you give your heart over to the next person just because you were afraid of them disliking you?

No.

You're alive.

You haven't been in a car accident.

You're not an organ donor.

But would you give your heart over to someone else because you were afraid of being judged?

No.

That would be giving them power over you.

Number two,

When we worry about being judged,

We actually internalize all of these scary thoughts that we anticipate.

That's anticipatory anxiety.

All of these scary thoughts,

All of these scary judgments that we're anticipating other people are going to say,

We actually internalize them.

So I don't make enough money.

I'm not pretty.

I'm fat.

I'm not intelligent.

I'm not interesting.

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

We actually internalize these ideas and they become part of our inner critic's narrative.

It's important to also remember that feeling judged and being afraid of being judged is tied to a need to feel like we belong.

So if you're struggling with this,

Know that you're normal and know that you don't have to live this way.

So let's figure out what we can do.

So I wrote down some practical ideas that I'd like you to consider.

If it resonates with you,

That's awesome.

If something doesn't resonate with you,

Just leave it there and try something different.

Perhaps two of these things will resonate with you.

Perhaps all of them will resonate with you.

It's my hope that it raises your awareness around this idea that it's normal to worry about what people think about you,

But it's also possible to take back your power with a few different shifts in your mental mind.

So rather than what a lot of people do,

Rather than blurt out your insecurities when you're around people,

People can be self-deprecating.

And it really is to mask some serious insecurities.

And some of us think that,

Well,

If I tell everybody what I suck at,

Then I just put it out there and I don't have to worry about anyone expecting me to be good at that thing.

So we have a fear of failing at something.

The fear of failure is huge.

Also is the fear of success.

The fear of disappointing people.

The fear of being rejected.

The fear of trying.

And so if I put it out there that I'm not good at math or I'm not good in certain social situations or I'm not good at driving and I'm not good at this and I don't really have a nice house and I'm not that attractive and I know it.

So I put all that out there.

I'm self-deprecating.

What I'm really doing is I am reinforcing this idea that I should be worried about what these people think.

It's totally fine to have insecurities.

Everybody has insecurities.

We're human beings.

The goal is to not allow these insecurities to get the best of us and prevent us from becoming the leaders of our life.

So what I suggest doing is rather than putting yourself down,

Don't say anything at all.

In other words,

Sit back,

Listen to what's going on in the conversation.

Don't try to sell yourself.

Just listen.

Just be there.

Shutty shutty.

Just be there.

Hang out.

Listen.

Be curious.

Be inquisitive.

Ask questions.

If someone asks you a question,

Answer the question.

But the goal is to not be,

Don't be,

Put yourself down.

Don't be self-deprecating.

Don't try to sell yourself.

Don't lie.

Don't pretend to be something that you're not.

If you are participating in these behaviors,

You are reinforcing this idea that you need to worry about being judged by other people.

When you have this fear of being judged by other people,

You're making other people your higher power.

You're making other people your God.

It's a false God.

Because really the only person whose opinion should really matter to you the most is yours.

Sure,

You might have a wonderful relationship with your spouse and you trust your spouse,

And so therefore his or her opinion of you matters.

You take it into consideration.

You trust your children.

You have a wonderful relationship with your children.

When they say something critical of you,

You don't immediately push it away.

You chew on it a little bit because you trust them.

You have a best friend who is brutally honest.

You've been friends for a long time.

You can trust her opinion.

And so when she says something about you that is critical to you,

You chew on it a little bit.

I believe there are very few people whose opinions should matter to us.

The most important person that you should worry about impressing is you,

Your true self.

The most important person that you should worry about getting validation from is your true self.

And the only way to do that is to live with integrity.

And in order to live with integrity,

You have to know who you are.

So rather than worry about being judged by other people and while you're working on this,

This is a great opportunity for you to figure out who you really are.

It's a great opportunity to find out what you like to do,

How you feel,

What are your dreams,

What are your goals,

And take all of that time,

All of that amazing mojo that you spent worrying about what Tom,

Dick,

And Harry thought about you.

This is time for you to refocus all of that energy back on yourself and start asking yourself these very important questions.

Once you know how to answer these questions,

Then you live with integrity.

You follow through on what you believe is true for you.

And now your true self knows that you're walking with integrity.

Now you start acting on what you believe.

Now you start setting goals.

Now you start achieving goals.

And they don't have to be like ridiculous goals.

They could be very small goals achieved over a long period of time.

That's going to build your self-esteem and build your self-confidence.

I think sometimes when we shoot a goal that's too high,

We can get frustrated and we give up.

And it's not that we couldn't achieve the goal.

It's just that we weren't as realistic with ourselves as we could have been.

So that's why when you are achieving goals,

Make sure that these are achievable goals over a long period of time.

Next thing I'd like you to do is to make a list.

Become super,

Super aware of the people in your life that you worry about judging you.

Is it your mother-in-law?

Is it your mother?

Is it your sister-in-law?

Is it your spouse?

Is it your coworker?

Is it a friend?

Figure out who it is.

Is it a new boyfriend,

New girlfriend?

Who is it that you spend a significant amount of time worrying about this person judging you?

Once you write this all out,

I want you to do a couple of things.

The first thing that I want you to do is to bring this person into the forefront of your conscious mind.

Just bring them.

It's Tom.

I'm afraid that Tom's going to judge me.

What am I afraid of?

I don't think that Tom thinks I'm enough.

I don't think that Tom is pleased with my job.

I don't think that Tom thinks I'm attractive enough.

I don't think that Tom thinks that I am kind enough.

These are the things that I'm afraid of.

Whenever I'm around Tom,

I'm always afraid that he's going to judge me for the way that I look,

For the way that I talk.

He doesn't like the job.

He doesn't like my friends.

I'm always afraid that he's going to judge me.

Then I get all excited.

My stomach is all up in knots.

I'm constantly ruminating,

Worrying about what he's going to say so I can anticipate cutting him off or pushing him back,

But yet I'm so upset.

So you are already,

If this sounds familiar,

And I know it sounds familiar for me,

What you're doing is you're,

In terms of the law of attraction,

You're reinforcing this narrative.

You're actually using your mojo,

Your law of attraction mojo,

To imagine a situation that you do not want to manifest.

That's actually what you're doing.

You're ruminating,

And you're using visualization,

And you have such strong emotion,

And so you're actually not helping yourself.

You're making things worse.

So what I want you to do is gain a little bit more emotional control over this.

So once you have your list of people who you're afraid judge you,

I want you to write it down.

I want you to spend five or 10 minutes bringing these people to the forefront of your mind.

Just imagine they're standing right in front of you,

And you say to them,

I no longer seek,

Need,

Or require your validation.

You are not the boss over me.

You are entitled to your opinion of me,

And your opinion is no longer going to frighten me or terrorize me.

You are entitled to feel what you think and to see what you see.

If you practice this over and over and over and over,

You're actually recalibrating this fear of what other people think about you.

You're actually training your brain to be okay that people judge you.

If you can do this over and over and over,

The next time you're around Tom and he's like,

Hey,

You know what?

You're still dating that knucklehead.

I don't really like him.

You can't date anyone seriously.

You're just a joke.

This is just you.

You're never going to be happy.

I'm not going to date you to this.

And you can go,

Hey,

Tom,

Thanks for that.

Didn't ask you for your opinion,

But okay,

Right on.

You can be clever.

You can be cute.

You're actually helping yourself.

You're using your imagination.

You're using the creative center of your brain to your advantage.

At the same time,

You are also creating the reality that you want,

Which is to no longer be so wrapped up in the fear of what other people think about you.

Another thing that you can do,

And I know this was the best piece of advice or one of the best pieces of advice I ever received,

And that is to hold on to yourself.

When I first heard the term hold on to yourself,

I really didn't know what it meant.

But when I was divorcing my ex-husband and I found that my energy shifted whenever he walked into the house,

His mood affected my mood and I didn't like it.

And I knew that was enmeshment.

I knew that was codependency,

And I wanted to gain control over it.

I didn't want to feel like a child every time I was around someone whose opinion mattered to me.

I wanted to be adult-like about it.

And so when my therapist at the time said,

The next time you're around your husband,

Hold on to yourself,

I took that very,

Very literally.

So when I heard him walking in through the front door after work,

I deliberately took a deep breath and held on to my own energy.

And I remember saying to myself,

No matter what he looks like,

No matter how he behaves,

I am not going to let go of this vibration.

I am not going to let go of my peace.

I'm going to hold on to myself.

So the next time you're around someone that you are accustomed to worrying about being judged by them,

Remember to hold on to yourself.

Remind yourself to not,

Like I said earlier,

Do not just ramble.

Do not talk negatively about yourself.

Do not pick up the gossip baton.

Sometimes when we are afraid of being judged,

We will participate in conversations about other people who are being judged.

It makes us feel like we're more on the in crowd,

But it never works.

All we're doing at the back end of it is reinforcing the fear of what these mean girls or these mean men think and being afraid to go against them.

We're trying to liberate ourselves from the fear of being judged.

So you don't want to participate in gossip.

You don't want to lie.

You don't want to make up stories.

You don't want to just chat,

Chat,

Chat,

Chat,

Chat,

Chat,

Chat,

Chat,

Nervous chatter.

You want to hold on to yourself.

If you have to shutty shutty,

Just hang back and listen and enjoy the conversation.

Do everything you can to hold on to yourself.

Another thing that you can do is chew on this.

Chew on this idea that there are just going to be people who judge.

These are people who may or may not know that they're judgmental.

These are people who were most likely judged themselves as children or had parents who judged other people and taught their children entitlement,

Taught their children the sense that they are better than other people,

Or maybe even taught their children that they are victims and they have a right to be mean or cruel to other people.

So people who judge you usually come from backgrounds where their parents judged,

Judged them or judged other people.

It's really less important to focus on what is being judged,

And it's more important to focus on the vibration of being judged.

And so people who are around judgmental people for various,

Various reasons end up being judgmental adults.

We have to accept that we are just going to bump into bumblebees once in a while.

We're just going to bump into people that want to sting you.

We're just going to bump into people that no matter what you do for them,

You're never going to be able to make them happy.

It'll be your face.

It'll be the way that you talk.

It'll be the way that you walk.

It'll be just something about you that rubs someone else the wrong way.

This has to do with them.

This is not your problem.

If you're showing up with integrity,

If you are walking with integrity,

If you are trying your best,

If you're putting your best foot forward and it's not enough for someone else and they judge you,

That's on them.

There are just going to be people that say mean things about you.

There are just going to be people out there,

You know the deal,

That change the story,

That create narratives,

That meet the perception of you that they want other people to believe in.

If you have a friend that is narcissistic,

Passive-aggressive,

Unkind,

And gossips,

Chances are you're going to catch that once in a while.

It's important that you recognize that there are just some people you're never going to be able to please.

And as long as we're giving out this vibration that we need to be accepted by other people,

Then we are more likely to attract people who can smell that.

And they use that as a form of dominance and power and to exercise control over other individuals.

So it's really important to become aware of that.

So remind yourself that these people exist.

You're going to bump into them from time to time,

And that's okay.

The answer is not to subjugate yourself for them.

The answer is not to seek their approval.

The answer is to accept that they're judgmental and to know that they are not the boss over you.

Remind yourself that the need to be accepted,

The need to be validated,

Is rooted in the past.

So remind yourself when you're making this list of other people,

Or even when you're out and about,

When you're looking around and you're looking at other people,

Remind yourself,

She's not my mother,

He's not my father.

In other words,

We unconsciously give this type of child-parent energy over to strangers,

Over to relationships.

We have such a wound often that we don't recognize that we're entering into adult relationships with this abandonment wound,

This fear of being judged and rejected by our mother and by our father.

It hasn't healed up.

So it's like created this energy vortex,

And it's leaking energy.

But at the same time,

It's pulling similar energy into this hole within us.

And that's why so many of us who are codependent match up with narcissists.

This is why.

Or a wounded empath matches up with a narcissist.

This is why.

The hole is there.

It's leaking energy,

And it's also craving energy.

And unfortunately,

We end up attracting people who have similar energies to our mothers and fathers,

The people who wounded us when we were children.

And below the veil of consciousness,

We're seeking to resolve that wound.

And we think,

Because we're still thinking with the mind of the child,

We think that if we can get people to like us,

That is the answer.

That is what's going to fill up this void,

And that just does not work.

What ends up happening is we manifest dysfunctional relationships,

And this wound does not get healed up,

And we end up in toxic relationships and oftentimes just keep repeating this cycle.

We draw people into our life who judge us.

We stay married to people who judge us.

We have family members who judge us.

We have relationships with other people who judge us.

We feel judged.

We can't escape this feeling of being judged.

And that's because the fear of being judged is inside of us.

And the only way to heal this is to address it within ourselves and to find clever ways to trick our subconscious minds into no longer being afraid of being judged.

Because in order to really end this fear of being judged,

We have to change the subconscious mind.

I have to come to terms with the fact that I am enough as I am,

And you are entitled to your negative opinion of me if your opinion of me is negative.

And I,

As an adult,

Have to accept that.

I can no longer live my life like a puppy with my tail between my legs,

Bending down and cowering every time I meet someone new.

I cannot live my life that way.

All that does is make me a puppy.

It never makes me the master of my own reality.

It never makes me a person in my own right.

It never allows me to become self-actualized.

So the key to healing this is to really,

Really heal the need for validation,

To come into alignment with the self,

To fully integrate,

To have an ego death,

To embrace ego and say,

You know what,

Ego?

You had it rough.

And you fear being rejected for a reason.

You're not stupid.

You're not crazy.

You were rejected.

And when you have the fear of being judged,

It's because you were judged.

So you have a memory of being judged,

And that memory is painful.

And you don't want it to happen again.

So your mind has come up with clever ways to seek validation.

And so you ruminate,

This person doesn't like me.

So maybe if I say this,

They will like me.

Or maybe I'll avoid that person,

And I'll avoid being judged.

It all goes back to having an attachment to something outside of ourselves,

Making something or someone else our god,

Thinking that if we're thin enough,

Then we won't be judged.

That doesn't happen.

You lose 10 or 15 pounds,

Someone's judging something else about you.

Been there,

Tried that,

Doesn't work,

Right?

When you have the fear of being judged,

You inevitably bump into someone who judges you for something.

You know,

You get the great job.

And then you go home,

And you're excited.

You tell your mother that you got this great job.

She's got something else to complain about,

Right?

So you think that if I'm thin enough,

Or if I have a special job,

Or I have this job,

Then that's going to solve the problem.

No.

You're trying to solve an internal problem by controlling things outside of you.

You can only solve an internal problem by handling it internally.

And so the last thing that you want to do is you want to remind yourself,

Because the fear of being judged is tied to survival,

You want to remind yourself that your needs are pretty well taken care of,

Right?

You're not living in a cave anymore,

Right?

So if your tribe rejects you,

If you have a problem with your neighbor,

If your sister dislikes you,

Your mother dislikes you,

In most cases,

You're probably going to be okay.

Especially if you're an adult.

Especially if you're not living at home,

You have your own way of making money.

Really what these people think,

It no longer impacts whether or not you're going to live or you're going to die.

It's very important that your logical mind be activated because your emotional mind is going to feel,

In some cases,

Like your life depends on your mother validating you,

Or your father validating you,

Or your spouse validating you,

Or your kids validating you.

You can feel that terrified because it's all tied to survival.

Your brain cannot tell the difference between a fear that is actually going to threaten your survival and an imagined fear.

And certainly being so afraid that if we don't have our mother's approval and we're 35 or 36 years old and we're changing careers or we're getting a divorce or whatever,

We could feel like it's the end of the world.

The body's fight or flight response system,

Stress response system,

Can actually feel as if you are in danger.

Is this a real fear?

Are you really in danger or is this an imagined fear?

If you don't need your mother to survive,

It's an imagined fear.

It's tied to something that happened in the past.

So it's important that you remind yourself that if this person judges you,

It really isn't the end of the world,

Even though it might feel like it.

If this person doesn't like you,

It might feel like the end of the world,

But it really isn't the end of the world.

We need to gain perspective.

You can start living life again when you let go.

When you recognize that you're seeking approval,

When you recognize that you subjugate your needs for the sake of others,

When you recognize that you participate in gossip because you're afraid of being gossiped about yourself,

When you realize that you seek other people's validation,

When you realize that you people please,

When you realize that you ruminate,

When you realize that you repeat these negative scenarios in your head over and over and over again,

And you recognize that these people are not the boss over you,

When you recognize you really don't need their approval,

This all happens as you rise above the veil of consciousness.

When you're living below the veil of consciousness,

It is very easy to believe that you need other people's approval.

And that really does impede your ability to live the life that you could live.

What would you do if other people's opinions didn't matter?

What would you do if you could peel yourself off the wall and put yourself out there and do something courageous?

Maybe paint,

Maybe sing,

Maybe act,

Maybe do something you've always wanted to do,

Start a business.

If you struggle with the fear of being judged,

Know that that is not your fault.

Know that it's normal and know that very oftentimes the fear of being judged occurs in childhood through rejection,

Through being treated with indifference,

Through being raised by emotionally immature parents,

By being raised by narcissistic parents.

You could even be raised by very well-intended parents and still fear criticism.

You may have grown up in a particular culture that judges you because you don't want to do what your culture says you should do.

This is also very common.

You can live in fear of disappointing members of your church or your congregation.

You can live in fear of disappointing family members,

Your culture.

And so it's normal.

It's a natural,

Normal fear.

But when you start to recognize how often you seek validation and you stop doing it,

You actually make a decision.

That's what I did.

I made a decision to shutty-shutty and to stop seeking validation.

I told myself that when I'm around people,

I'm just going to shut up and listen.

I'm not going to sell myself.

I'm not going to pretend I understand something.

I'm not going to over-talk.

I'm not going to try to get people to like me.

Those days were gone and it was so freeing.

It didn't happen right away,

But I definitely practiced it over and over and over.

If you don't yet meditate,

I do suggest meditation.

Meditation by far changed my life.

There were times that I meditated for up to four hours a day.

How?

I would come home on my lunch hour and I would meditate.

When there was a break at work,

I would come home and I would meditate.

I woke up early and I meditated.

Where I went to bed,

I meditated.

My mind was such a knotted mess of thoughts and beliefs that were dysfunctional that I had to find a way to slow the thoughts down.

And meditation helped me.

Practice bringing the attention back to yourself.

Practice reminding yourself that it's okay to feel this way.

Don't judge yourself for it.

Practice setting goals that are achievable each and every day.

Practice on making your opinion of you more important than other people's opinions of you.