S2 EP330 – Obsessing Over What Others Think of You

Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Inner Bonding Podcast. I’m Dr. Margaret Paul and today’s we’re going to explore a topic that so many people struggle with – often silently, and often painfully, which is obsessing about what people think of you. Be sure to stay to the end because I’ll be sharing more about how you can completely heal this.

Have you ever found yourself replaying a conversation over and over in your mind, wondering, “Did I say the wrong thing?” “Do they think I’m stupid?” “Do they like me?” “Did I offend them?”

Or maybe you find yourself trying to anticipate what others want from you, shaping yourself to fit in, avoiding disapproval at all costs.

Or you need to attend a social event, but you don’t want to go because you are so nervous about whether the people there will like you.

If you relate to this, you’re not alone. Just about everyone I work with worries about what others think of them.

You might believe that this is about other people, but it’s actually about your relationship with yourself – about how you treat yourself rather than how others treat you, and which intention you’re operating from in any given moment.

For example, I was working recently with Glenn, who was going to be speaking at a conference and attending a dinner after, and he didn’t want to attend the dinner. When we explored why, it was because his wounded self was telling him that no one would like him. His focus was on how others felt about him rather than about what he had to offer others.

I asked Glenn to imagine changing his intention from getting approval to giving caring and support to others. I asked him what he felt he had to offer others and he had no problems coming up with various ways of being kind and caring with others. After imaging this, I asked him how he felt and he said he felt relief and was no longer worrying about going to the dinner.

Another client, Julie, had a similar situation. She had recently joined a prestigious tennis club and was going to be playing tennis over the weekend and then attending a dinner. She was judging herself for being too introverted and was very worried about how these people, many of whom she was meeting for the first time, would feel about her. Would they like her?

I worked with her as I did Glenn, helping her shift her intention from getting approval to offering others her caring and interest. As she imagined this, she not only relaxed about the event, but she stopped judging herself. She realized that she was judging herself to get herself to be different so people would like her, but that it was judging herself that made her feel unlikable and inadequate. She felt a deep sense of relief and now looked forward to the day, which she later told me turned out to be a wonderful experience for her. 

Let’s take a deeper look at what it really means to obsess over what others think of you. This can show up in numerous ways, such as overanalyzing conversations, feeling anxious before or after social interactions, avoiding speaking up or expressing yourself, trying to be “perfect” or “likable”, feeling devastated by criticism, constantly seeking reassurance, validation, and approval, comparing yourself to others, and, most importantly, feeling defined regarding your self-worth by how others treat you.

Under all these efforts to be liked are the fears of rejection, disapproval, being seen as unworthy, and on the deepest level, the fears of not being good enough and not being lovable.

Because of these fears from false beliefs, the wounded self goes into overdrive trying to control how others see you and feel about you. But the truth is that you don’t have control over what others think about you or how they see you or treat you.

No matter how careful, kind, intelligent, or perfect you try to be, people will still interpret you through their own fears and false beliefs.

So if controlling others’ perceptions of you is impossible, why try so hard?

This is where Inner Bonding gives us profound clarity. At the core of obsessing over others’ opinions and responses is the intention to control, because you believe that their approval will make you feel safe and worthy.

But the problem is that when your intention is to control, you are abandoning yourself. Instead of asking yourself from your loving adult what you feel and need and what is loving to you, you’re asking from your wounded self, “What do they think?” or “How can I get them to like me?” or “How can I avoid disapproval?” because the wounded self believes that your worth comes from others approving of you and that you are okay only if others think you are okay.

Are you aware of the consequences of obsessing over what others think? The major consequence is that, in handing over to others the authority to define your worth, you are automatically rejecting yourself, which is what leads to your fear of being rejected by others.

When your focus is outward, you disconnect from your inner truth. You might not even know what you are feeling, or what you want, or what matters to you. You lose yourself when you give others the authority to define your worth and your inner child feels alone and abandoned inside, no matter how much others like you. Their approval is momentary, but your rejection of yourself is deep.

When your intention is to control how others feel about you, you become inauthentic. You shape yourself to fit others’ expectations, and while this may temporarily gain approval, it creates internal emptiness, because your true self is not being expressed.

You feel constant anxiety because if your sense of worth depends on others’ opinions of you, you are always at risk because you can’t control those opinions.

When you abandon yourself to get others’ approval, you will naturally attract unhealthy relationships, because we attract at our common level of self-abandonment or our common level of self-love.

When you’re trying to get approval, do you over give and people-please,  ignoring red flags and staying silent about your needs? This often leads to relationships that are one-sided or even emotionally unsafe.

Each time you ignore yourself to gain approval, you send yourself a painful message, which is that others matter more than you.

Before I move on, I want to let you know that if you’re looking to heal your worry about what others think of you, my 30-Day Love Yourself course will be a huge help to you. You can learn more in the description below.

How did we learn to abandon ourselves to get others’ approval? This pattern begins in childhood. As children, we were dependent on caregivers for survival, so if their love was conditional, tied to our looks or performance, or was inconsistent and sometimes withheld, or if we were abused in various ways or neglected, then we learned that we need to be who others want us to be to feel safe.

For our survival, we developed strategies like caretaking, people-pleasing, compliance, being a good girl or boy, avoiding conflict, and trying to be perfect.

As children, it felt to us like these strategies worked, and they gave us a feeling of control, which we really needed. So these strategies made sense as children; they helped us cope and not feel completely helpless over others.

But as adults, they keep us stuck because we are doing the same controlling behaviors we learned early, but now, instead of giving ourselves the love we need, we’re still trying to get it from others. And it’s not working.

The healing begins with becoming aware of your intention and consciously moving from the intent to control others to the intent to learn about what’s loving to you. Instead of focusing on what others think of you, you shift your focus to being present in your body with your own feelings with an intent to learn about what your feelings are telling. What is your anxiety or depression or shame or emptiness or anger telling you about how you are abandoning yourself? 

This is Step One of Inner Bonding – being aware of your feelings and wanting to learn what they are telling you, and Step Two is consciously choosing the intention to learn about loving yourself.

Everything changes when you shift your focus from trying to control others to taking responsibility for your own feelings and needs.

When you obsess about what others think, your anxiety is letting you know that you are giving your inner child to others and abandoning yourself. Anxiety is one way your inner child is saying, “You’re not taking care of me. You’re rejecting me. You’re giving me away to others for their approval.”

Instead of trying to get rid of the anxiety or other wounded feelings, what if you listened to it? What if you asked yourself if you are judging yourself, or ignoring your feelings and needs, or making someone else responsible for your worth?

Most of the time, the real issue is not what others think of you, it’s what you are thinking about yourself.

Healing the self-abandonment that leads to worrying about what others think of you requires developing your loving adult – the part of you capable of taking responsibility for your feelings and needs, and offering compassion instead of judgment, and staying connected with your inner and higher guidance and taking loving actions on your own behalf and on behalf of others.

When your loving adult is present, you accept the truth – that you can’t control what others think about you, but that you can control how you treat yourself.

If you hear yourself focusing on whether or not someone likes you, that’s letting you know that your wounded self is in charge, making others responsible for your worth. The loving adult would never do that. Instead, the loving adult focuses on what’s loving to you and to others. It’s the huge difference in energy between trying to get love and approval and wanting to be loving and share your love with others. As you practice Inner Bonding and develop your loving adult, your sense of worth becomes internal, not external.

Whatever it is you want from others is what you need to be giving to yourself. If you want others’ attention, approval, or validation, then this is what you need to be giving to yourself from your loving adult – your loving inner mom and dad.

The practice of Inner Bonding develops your loving adult. As you practice noticing when you are focused on what you want to get from others, you can compassionately bring your attention back to your feelings, back to your inner child. Then you can open to learning about what your feelings are telling you and explore any false beliefs that may be causing painful feelings. Then you can question the beliefs with your higher guidance as well as open to what the loving actions would be for your inner child. When you do this, your inner child will start to feel your love and approval and stop needing it from others. The practice of Inner Bonding rewires your brain for the loving adult.

Part of loving action is to accept that you can’t control what others think of you, but you won’t be worried about this if you are giving yourself what you keep trying to get from others.

This is emotional freedom.

Imagine living without constantly worrying about what others think. Imagine feeling grounded in yourself, being able to speak your truth without blame or judgment, not taking others’ reactions personally, and embracing your own intrinsic worth. This doesn’t mean you don’t care about others. It means you care about yourself at least as much as you care about others. And from this place you can truly connect, because you are connected with yourself and because you are no longer trying to control what they think of you.

So the next time you find yourself obsessing over what someone thinks of you, pause, take a breath, and compassionately ask yourself, “What am I telling myself right now?” “How am I treating myself?” “What would be loving to me in this moment or at an event?” The process of healing your obsession with what others think about you isn’t about changing others – it’s about coming home to yourself through your Inner Bonding practice. And when you do that, you will find that you no longer obsess about what others are thinking about you.

If today’s episode was helpful to you and you’re ready to learn to deeply love and value yourself, I invite you to check out my 30-Day Love Yourself video course. It’s designed for anyone who wants to learn to define their own worth and teaches you Inner Bonding. You’ll find the link in the description.

Thank you for joining me today and I’ll see you in the next episode.

I’m sending you my love and my blessings on your healing journey.