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Tuesday, March 5, 2013

What Others Think of Us

The only person in this world you can control is you. And most people do a very bad job of it.
It seems like a lot more could be done in a day if I could completely drop the habit of being concerned over what others think of me. It takes up so much time and mental energy..time and mental energy that could be spent on more productive things. I'm always inclined to see productivity as how much psychic energy you can free up and thus how well you can focus on what you're doing.

We literally imprison ourselves by letting what others think bother us. If something bothers us, then we are accepting it as true to the degree we are bothered by this. We have to recognize this as wrong thinking and let go of it because it's just not real and just not going to work if we want to be ourselves and being ourselves is the only way to live a fulfilling life.

For myself right now I am learning to take note of when things to bother me (and it's not that hard..feeling crappy vs. feeling gratitude is what happens for me) and accept that right now this is how I feel, and I have to work with where I am right now. Only until I've completely accepted and love the pain (and all the past decisions that brought me to a particular point) does the pain go away and can I now ask the question, what is the best thought I can have here?

There are so many things we think, speak, and act upon about us that just aren't true..well clearly if they were true we wouldn't be in the state we're in right now. So learning to accept is the first step and then picking the closest next best thought.

As Andy says, worrying about what others think really is insane, but we all do it because somehow we've defined ourselves as how others see us..I guess there's few people who define themselves by their own standards (certainly no one I've been close to) so it's hard to see. But untrodden territory is definitely obtainable, as I've already proven to myself big time.

xx,
Catt