Not everyone is looking at you
And who’s looking or not does not really matter anyway
“Not everyone is looking at you Dorothee”.
That is what a classmate told me one day at recess as my teenage self was insecure about my unshaved legs showing with the skirt I decided to wear that day.
The comment made, and its tone, did not come from the kindness of that classmate’s heart. It was not a motivational speach at the time, and my past self was hurt as my young adult’s mind took it as “you are not worth looking at”.
The truth is that this sentence stayed with me for a long time. If as a young age, I took it as “nobody cares”, it developed into a positive life mantra.
As I was making mistakes along the way, from poorly written assignments, to programming codes that did not work, to my silly jokes that did not end having an easy audience, I would keep telling myself “Not everyone is looking anyway” in a way to make it OK: “It is OK, as big as this mistake seems in my mind right now, this will be forgotten soon by others and therefore I should let it go.”
And it is true. Can you remember others’ bad marks, silly jokes that did not work, or misunderstandings? Not so much. So the same way you don’t hold on to others’ mistakes, others do not hold on to yours. And it does not serve you to hold on to those anyway.
There are a couple things the mind is doing that are not constructive in challenging situations and those are to watch out:
- The mind is holding on to mistakes you make, misunderstandings and the hurt that follows, more than the success and learnings. The mind tends to go over and over a preceived mistake, the inner critic adding a little captioning on the mind movie: “You are so stupid, how could you say that, or do that..? What are they going to think of me?”.
- The mind goes outward instead of inward to judge your value as a human. The mind has constructed from a very early age that what others think matters so much. Because as a young child your life in many ways depended on the tribe, so you had to make sure you got others’ “approval”.
Note that your mind is on your side, eventhough it does not feel like that all the time when it criticises you. Your mind wants you to avoid getting hurt, it wants to make sure you keep on being accepted / on the right path… by keeping you from doing things out of the perceived norm. The approach the mind uses is not the best and does not work though, does it? Does those thoughts serve you? How do they make you feel?
So how to stop the self-inflicted inner critical thoughts?
- Awareness: simply catch the thoughts, recognise that part of yourself showing up… “I can hear my inner critic showing up”
- Pause and go inward with curiosity: take a breath, observe how the thoughts make you feel. Where is the sensation in the body, the color, etc… Allow the sensation to flow until it starts to dissipate… and it will.
- Thank the inner critic for trying to keep you on the right path. But let him know: “Not today” firmly, with strong conviction.
- Investigate: Zoom out, understand where you were coming from, the intention, the past hurt, the programming of your mind and the minds of others involved…When the weight of what others think of the situation and of you plays out. Remember not everyone is looking at you as much as you are looking at yourself. And that what matters more is what you think of yourself. See the big picture, the good intention, the failed execution, and move on.
- Choose other resourceful thoughts: think of the things you did well in that situation you are ruminating about or the things you learned about yourself from that experience.
- Ask yourself: “What would love do?” “Who do I want to BE in this situation?” “How do I want to show up and respond?” “What is the lesson to be learned?”
- With those answers, with this state of being, choose to respond (and doing nothing might be one perfectly grounded response).
The truth is that everyone will come with a certain level of judgement that they have learned from their “culturescape” and are conditioned to feel, some will think what you have done is great, some will not, so you might as well do what feels right for you!
If going inward does not come naturally to you, that is OK! There are many practices that teach you to go inward, to connect to yourself, your intuition, your gut feels… Meditation, yoga, gardening, walking, being in nature…
Try some, see what works for you to truly and honnestly go inward. Practice and see how it changes some of your life experiences.
With infinite love and gratitude
Dorothee Marossero Msc, MBA, NLP Master Practitioner, is a transformational coach, creator of Fearlessly Yourself and Dottyoga. She uses Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Yoga, mindfulness, somatic and self-care approaches to bring sustainable and deep transformation to women around the world.
