There's a woman that goes in for a job interview.
And about halfway through the interview,
The man asks the woman,
He says,
So tell me what one of your weaknesses are.
And the woman thinks about it for a moment.
She says,
Well,
I don't really care what people think about me.
The interviewer pauses on that for a moment and he thinks,
Wow.
Because I don't know if I'd really consider that to be a weakness.
Without missing a beat,
The woman replies,
I don't really care what you think.
Kind of a silly little joke.
But I think what's interesting there is just how many of us.
Really want to be the person.
That doesn't care what other people think about us.
And I think it's a natural.
A natural desire.
There's a lot of suffering and thinking and caring.
About what others are thinking about us.
That we can see this when we're in a conversation with someone,
And when the conversation is over and we walk away.
That immediately we're replaying the conversation in our mind.
And what we're trying to see is like,
Did I come across okay?
Was there anything that I looked foolish about?
What are they thinking about me?
Or if we're walking into a room.
Maybe a room filled with people.
And immediately there's this thought like,
Oh,
I wonder what everyone thinks about me.
Am I appearing okay?
Am I acting okay?
And so there's a lot of this narration about what do people think about me?
And it's exhausting.
It's exhausting thinking about what everyone is thinking about us.
And so we have a lot of different ways that we'll approach this problem.
And maybe we'll read a book.
Maybe we'll do a course,
How Not to Care What Other People Think About Us.
Maybe through spirituality,
We talk about this a lot as well and we use meditation and mindfulness and self-compassion to recognize when we're getting lost in those thoughts and to use self-compassion as a way to help let go of those fears,
Maybe to help let go of the concern about what this person thinks about us.
And it's very helpful.
It's very helpful,
Right?
Because we don't get caught up for as long.
We do let go more quickly.
And so it's helpful on one level.
But no matter how many times we soothe ourselves.
No matter how many times we let go of the worry,
We still find that we care what other people think about us.
I think part of it is because,
Actually the main part of it,
Is because the part of us that wants to not care is also the part of us that cares.
The same mind movement that's trying to fix the problem is the mind movement that creates the problem.
So.
In wanting to not care.
What people think about us.
We create an image.
Of me,
The one,
Where I'm not going to be concerned what people are going to think about me.
And so we imagine ourselves like this and it feels good.
It feels good for a little while to think,
Wow,
I'm going to be the one that doesn't care what people think.
I just got the book that's going to tell me,
You know,
How to not care what people think about me.
And so it feels good.
Until we find ourselves in a situation where we realize,
Oh wait,
I care what this person thinks about me.
And so the image building.
Is of course the problem,
Right?
We're creating an image of ourselves.
But I think there's also kind of a subtle little piece here that we miss because I think sometimes We imagine that there's two selves.
That there's this ego self,
The ego self that's not me,
It's the one that cares what everyone thinks about us,
It's the one that feels unworthy,
It's the one that feels insecure,
That has low self-esteem,
That always has that sense of unworthiness,
Right?
And we're kind of all quick to say,
Yes,
Yes,
That's not me.
But then we have,
On the other side,
This kind of other self that we imagine,
Like our our highest self,
Our highest potential self.
And so in this version,
We see ourselves as the one that doesn't care.
It's the one that has the high self-esteem,
That has the high confidence,
The one that does feel worthy.
And yet it's still the self,
It's still the ego.
Because in any way that we are thinking about ourselves,
Whether it's on the positive side of the ledger or the negative side of the ledger,
We are seeing ourselves through a self-centered lens.
We are seeing ourselves as the center of the universe.
And therefore we see everything is happening to me.
And we think.
That everything is about me.
So we can't not care.
What everyone thinks about us.
And when we.
Use our mindfulness practice or self-compassion to really come into those feelings when we're having those moments of worrying what someone's thinking about us.
And of course,
What we're doing is getting released from the stories much more quickly.
And it appears.
Like we're improving the self.
Right?
Because we are letting go more quickly.
We're not,
We're taking a lot of things less personally.
It appears.
Like the self is actually being improved,
That the ego is being improved.
But the ego cannot be improved.
It cannot not care any less.
It's just that we recognized it arising,
We recognize the ego here,
We recognize the what do they think about me,
We brought our practices to it,
Right?
We came in,
We felt it,
We brought our attention here,
And then the ego passed away.
The relief was that the ego is absent.
Not that we fixed the ego because we can't fix the ego.
It's a self-centered system.
You're not going to fix the ego.
It's like a.
.
.
Like we're in a hamster wheel.
And we might be thinking,
I want to get out of the hamster wheel.
But all the while,
In the hamster wheel,
We're saying,
Well,
Maybe if I just go more slowly in the hamster wheel,
Maybe then I'll get out.
Or maybe I'll.
.
.
Maybe I'll go faster in the hamster wheel.
And all the while,
What we're reinforcing is that we're still in the hamster wheel.
That's all we're doing.
And so I'll kind of paraphrase Paul Hederman here,
Because he says this beautifully.
And he's the one that kind of knocked this into me.
Every time that we think about ourselves.
So just thinking about,
I want to be the one that doesn't care what people think about me.
So every time that we're thinking about ourselves,
We are.
Using the self to try and get out of the self.
And thereby reinforcing.
The South.
There's no relief in that.
Whether it's.
.
.
You know,
Whether we're in the hamster wheel or we're in the selfing wheel,
You're only going to find suffering.
Because what we're going to find in there,
In that self-centered view again,
Is I'm either chasing,
Desiring the good image or the image of me that doesn't care what people think.
Or I'm pushing back on the unpleasant image,
The image of me that does care what people think.
We're never going to get a break in a self-centered system.
It's never going to happen.
The best we can do.
.
.
Has recognized that we're not that.
We're not the ego.
I think it's fine.
And I'm totally on board with not not wanting to care.
Or I should say,
Not wanting to suffer.
About what others think about us.
I think that's totally fine.
But we've got to stop bringing selfing strategies to it.
Because every time we do that,
All it does is keep reinforcing the idea that we care.
And eventually it's going to trick us up.
We're going to find ourselves in a conversation with someone and all of a sudden we're realizing like,
Oh,
I'm trying to impress this person because maybe I feel like they're pulling away from me.
And then all of a sudden we realize we're like,
Oh my God.
I care what this person thinks.
So not only am I resisting the fact that I think this person,
I'm thinking probably they don't like me,
But now I'm also kind of getting all muddled up because I'm thinking,
Oh my God,
I thought I was the one that didn't care what people think.
And we can get so twisted up in that.
We're getting all twisted up in the wheel,
The selfing wheel.
Instead of just recognizing.
Oh,
That's right.
The ego's always going to care.
About what other people think.
But I am not the ego.
I'm not trying to convince it.
It's never going to not care.
And in the moment of recognizing that,
Instead of us getting all twisted up in a bunch,
We go,
Oh yeah,
It's always going to care.
Of course it is.
And maybe we're in the conversation and we just breathe a little bit more mindfully in those moments.
Feel some of the contraction,
The tension,
We let it go.
Ooh,
Yeah.
And in that release,
Right,
The ego now,
We've come into the body,
We felt what's here,
The ego now no longer here,
But we're still here.
We didn't disappear.
And now we're having the conversation with the other person,
Not because we're trying to impress them,
Not because their ego's up here whispering,
Oh,
You've got to get them to like you.
Tell them about this.
Tell them about this,
What you did,
Right?
Instead of having that kind of whispering in our ear and all this tension around the conversation,
Now we're just having a nice,
Pleasant conversation.
Maybe we're actually listening to the person.
Maybe we're hearing what they're saying.
And we're engaging in a way that actually feels good.
So I'm not denying the sting or the hurt.
That can come from thinking others don't like us,
Maybe someone's telling us they don't like us,
Or it's just very,
Very clear someone doesn't like us.
To also be clear,
99% of the time,
Nothing's going on.
It's just the ego just always kind of stirring the pot,
Thinking about everything is about us and everyone's thinking about us.
Of course,
We know everyone else is thinking about themselves,
But 99% of the time,
Nothing's happening.
But even then we still want to feel it.
We still want to come into it,
Right?
Maybe we can't in that moment.
Maybe we're in a conversation with someone in there.
And again,
We just apply some mindfulness.
And we just feel what's here,
Right?
We get a little bit of release,
But then later it comes up,
Oh gosh,
What were they thinking in that moment,
Right?
Kind of that thought comes back.
And then we can recognize,
Oh yeah,
There is something here.
Because I do think that a lot of us are carrying around a lot of wounds from being a child.
Right,
Of just those formative years when we were growing up and we all have had that experience where we just felt someone didn't like us or we felt left out,
We felt excluded in some ways.
And so I think we do want to be able to come in and feel what's here to feel what's here to be with what's here to bring our attention to what's here I think that's super important and the more that we do that the more comfortable that we get with that and recognizing yeah it's just the kind of the reaction and it's kind of.
Of picking on the wound of something a little bit deeper,
And so we tend to it each time,
And it becomes less are intense each time.
But it also allows us to be more discerning,
Right?
The more that we come in and we feel what's here and we ground ourselves because there will be a person that we do care.
About what it is that they think.
Maybe it's our partner.
Maybe it's your boss.
Maybe it's a colleague.
Maybe it's a good friend in your circle of friends.
And it's like,
Yeah,
You do care.
What that person thinks and we should care.
What that person thinks.
But by coming in and feeling it,
Not letting the ego distort it and get us all twisted up,
But by coming in and feeling and bringing self-compassion and bringing kindness to what's here,
Then we can recognize if we do need to act in some way or not.
Do we need to go have a conversation with that person,
Not to,
Oh,
Please like me,
Please like me,
I can't stand it that you don't like me.
But we can recognize like,
Hey,
I feel like something's off between us.
If there's anything I've done,
Please tell me because it's not my intention.
Right?
But it may just be also that sometimes someone doesn't like us.
And there's nothing we can do about that because not everyone in the world is going to like us.
Right?
And so the more that we recognize like,
Yeah,
We can be okay with that.
In the present moment,
The ego can't be okay with that.
It will never be okay with that.
It'll say it's okay with it because it's the image of me being okay with it.
It's not okay with it.
So it's not.
It's not about being someone who doesn't care.
Right,
Or becoming someone that doesn't care.
It's seeing very clearly.
That the ego is always going to care.
It will always care.
And whenever it does arise and we feel that tightening and,
Oh my God,
What do they think about me?
It's not to try and fix the situation up here.
Is to come in and feel.
To breathe.
To bring self-compassion.
And after a few minutes of that self-inquiry,
To whom do these thoughts belong?
Let it pass.
The freedom.
Is in recognizing the ego will always care.
But then seeing that we're not the ego.
We're not that.
We never were.
So with our mantras as well,
Peace is not chasing.
To recognize The chasing.
Of the image of me.
That doesn't care.
That's the same image that cares.
You'll never be free of it.
We don't want to use We're not trying to use the same system.
The same broken system.
To try and fix it.
Just accept it.
It cares.
It always sees everything through the lens of self-centeredness.
But that's not you.
That's not you.
