"You really care what people think of you, don't you?"
I thought that “Caring What People Thought Of Me” was
something I could decide to turn off. I felt that way about a lot of aspects of
my personality and behaviour that I didn’t respect. I think there is this lie
that comes from films and tv that after we have an epiphany moment, our life
and personality is changed forever. After Sam yells at her Stepmother and at Austin
in Cinderella Story, she no longer cares what anyone thinks and as a result everything
in her life falls into place. As most people know, healing, growth, recovery is
never that linear, never accompanied by a great motivational song or sandwiched
by two passionate monologues.
We will un-epiphany many times throughout our lives. I’ve
had lots of moments of looking at myself and being like wow, really, we are
back here, didn’t we just learn this? It’s like looking at a mark scheme for an
exam question we got wrong and being like, yes I knew that, but clearly I
didn’t?! But that one mistake doesn’t mean we have failed in life. “Learning
from our mistakes” takes time. The mistake was probably the easier option which
is why we kept making it, so it’s no surprise that we succumbed again.
I remember the first time I had counselling, I came back to
my counsellor after the first session and said that I was angry because I
thought that he was going to make things easier. Life had become so hard I said
and that is why I asked for help. I told him “Now I am aware of the things that
I am doing and thinking that cause my struggle, so the struggle has actually got
worse. I am aware of exactly what the problems are but that doesn’t make me any
closer to having the answer for how to solve them or any easier to have the
courage to put those answers into action”. The cliché that things get worse
before they get better is a cliché for a reason. [Somehow “x is a cliché for a reason”
has become a cliché in itself]. The key error that I can spot here now is that
I wanted it to be easy. Do you want to be better or for it to be easy? Those
aren’t your two options, sometimes you need to rest in easy, that is what self-care
is for, and sometimes you need to work hard but it can’t ever only be easy.
It’s like getting wet in the rain and asking someone for
help. Then they hand you the tools to build a house. Great you say, then you
start and realise how long and how difficult that will be and just want an
umbrella. An Umbrella can be numbing activities or habits which distract you
from building the house. Mine are in worrying about other people and taking on
their problems as my own. I find it easier to build you a house than to decide
what I want mine to be like.
I like to present myself as a finished product. It is why
people who don’t know me well in the past have often used that phrase “you seem
so calm and together”. Of course, someone sat under an umbrella will initially seem
calmer than someone running for shelter, or in some ways more sane than someone
standing out in the open, in the rain, putting in the hard work to build
lasting cover.
Ignoring the opinions of other people, both real and those
that I project onto people’s silence is not an umbrella I can buy. It’s not in
a book, or a Pinterest quote, a YouTube video, a meditation, an inspirational
friend or influencer, or podcast, or film, or haircut, or counselling session.
It’s not in the work I do in private, it’s in every single day, every brick I
lay down in the open. It’s work I have to do in plain sight. I can’t work on
not being influenced by others, if there are no others there.
The private work is important, the podcasts, the books, the
therapy. They give me the tools to build the house, to know what choices I want
to make and to confront myself honestly when I make choices I don’t like. But only
I can make those choices in each moment in each day. I can’t decide once that I
will never act from fear of the opinions and comments of others again, and
forget about it, because it is a habit for me, and habits can only be broken
over a long time through consistent mindful choices.
Who I am changes over time as well and I need to keep up
with myself, the plan I have for who I want to be, for what the house should
look like keeps changing. And weather conditions, shortages of materials, they
will all affect my progress and my output. But I adapt, I pay attention. I
decide do I build with the bricks that everyone else is using at the time, or
do I pause and think about what is best for my house in the current conditions
and for the future.
Not caring what people think of me is not a switch, it’s
just life. The hardest thing is to be aware of something you do, something you
don’t like, and then to watch yourself do it anyway. To look back and cringe as
you realise that wasn’t a choice made from within but from what was easy and
from how you wanted to look from without. Then you have to pick up the tools
and try again.
my current tools:
reading
Braving the Wilderness by Brene Brown
watching
Lavendaire YouTube Channel + The School of Life videos
listening
The Secret (for the fourth or fifth time)
when it gets too hard:
watching
How I Met Your Mother on repeat, plus the bloopers
John Mulany Jokes as Hamilton Songs
listening
Hamilton Soundtrack
Comments
Post a Comment