How To Stop Worrying About What Other People Think About You

In this episode, Life Coach Lisa A. Romano shares her best practical tips for how you can learn to STOP worrying about what other people think about you so you can start living your life in an authentic way. If you suffer from codependency, the need to be needed, and an addiction to approval, you won't want to miss this episode.

Transcript

Welcome to the Breakdown to Breakthrough podcast.

My name is Lisa A.

Romano.

I am a life coach,

Bestselling author,

YouTube vlogger,

Meditation teacher,

And expert in the field of codependency and narcissistic abuse.

I am a believer in the power of an organized mind.

My aim is to help people learn what it means to live above the veil of consciousness rather than living a reactive life.

May your heart feel blessed,

Your mind feel expanded,

And your spirit find hope as you spend time with me here at the Breakdown to Breakthrough podcast.

I'm Lisa A.

Romano,

The Breakthrough life coach.

And today we're going to talk about how you can learn to stop worrying about what other people think about you.

If we have a fallout with one of our friends,

We think everybody that we know knows that we had a fallout with one of our friends.

We have an issue with our in-laws and we think everybody's talking about us and some cases they are.

What are you going to do?

And the reality is that people do talk about other people.

This is a fact of life.

We talk about other people.

What I want to address is the rumination.

What I want to address is those of us who struggle with codependency and tend to really,

Really root ourselves in this idea that we should care about what other people think.

Those of us who are unable to move forward and let go because we're so worried about what other people think.

Those of us who unconsciously or maybe consciously,

But for me it was very unconscious.

I didn't know that I was seeking other people's validation.

I didn't know that I was seeking permission to feel the way I felt.

If I was upset about something,

I would go talk to my friends or my ex-husband or family member and I was really seeking like a child permission to feel what I feel.

I didn't know that I had a right to experience my inner reality,

Hold onto an idea,

Believe in it.

I didn't even know that I didn't need other people's permission to have this perception or this experience.

It was maddening.

I was a human being that was like,

I felt like a feather in the wind.

I was just caught up by other people's stuff and I was lost and I was in abyss and I was always so unhappy.

Ultimately,

What happens when you're a codependent person,

You don't attract the best of friends and you don't always attract the nicest of partners and you don't always attract the nicest coworkers or even the nicest jobs.

We tend to attract this sense of fear.

Codependents are so full of fear.

They're worried that they're not good enough.

They fear that other people are going to reject them.

They hold onto relationships longer than they should.

Even if the relationship's abusive,

A codependent fears being alone.

They need to be needed.

Very often times,

We settle for being needed in relationships because on some level,

We think,

Well,

At least if this person needs me,

They'll never leave me.

We have such a fear of being abandoned and being alone.

Let's talk about what happens when we as codependents think other people are talking about us.

A couple of things that we have to understand.

We have to understand that we are enough.

Really,

In our soul,

We have to understand that we are enough.

We have to understand that we don't need other people's permission to feel what we feel.

We have to understand that other people,

As odd as this may sound,

But other people have a right to their own opinions of us.

We don't have the right to control other people's opinions of us.

That's a lot to take in because many of us don't really understand that we don't have the right to control how other people think or we don't have the right to control how other people see us.

We don't realize that when we acquiesce that yes all the time when we mean no,

We don't really realize that we are unconsciously seeking in many cases a connection and validation from people that may not validate us if we didn't agree with them all the time.

We don't realize that in some ways we are being manipulative.

When we say yes,

When we mean no,

We're not being truthful,

We're not being honest.

Of course,

It depends on the situation and your fear of your life.

I think there are times where you have to pretend that things aren't as they are or you cannot be very honest with your partner in the case where you are planning your escape.

So,

Hey,

Are you happy?

Yes,

I'm happy.

And you're planning your escape and your duffel bag and your money is in the back seat or in the trunk of the car,

You're planning to get out of there.

I'm talking about people who suffer from codependency day to day.

This is the way of life when they say yes to walking the dog and they don't want to walk the dog.

Or they say yes to staying out late and they really don't want to stay out late.

Or they say yes to going out with your friend's friend but you really don't want to go out with that guy or that girl.

I'm talking about those of us who tend to say yes when we mean no because we're afraid of being disliked.

We're afraid of being talked about.

We're afraid of being that person who is seen as pushy,

Full of herself.

So we're afraid of being talked about.

Now that all goes back in my humble opinion to being afraid of not being part of the tribe.

Even if the tribe isn't good for us,

We fear not being a part of the tribe.

So even if you hang out with not so wonderful people,

You will fear being excommunicated from that group if you are codependent,

If you lack a sense of self,

If you lack a sense of boundaries,

You will fear that.

And so this idea that they are talking about you will fill you with fear.

We have to understand is that the brain avoids pain and seeks pleasure.

So this is why I believe that you cannot heal from codependency unless you address the root causes of codependency which in my humble opinion go back to childhood programming which speaks to the nature of consciousness which is both conscious and unconscious which speaks to this idea that life is holographic,

That we repeat the patterns of the past.

It speaks to this idea that everything that's in the subconscious mind is essentially a paradigm.

It speaks this idea that we are unconscious until we become awakened and enlightened to the paradigms that we are living and then we have some power and control.

But then we need tools because when you wake up and when you realize,

Oh my god,

It's the matrix is real.

It's like what Bruce Lipton says,

The matrix was a documentary.

It was a true story.

It is true story.

When we wake up and we realize we've been living this holographic life,

It can be topsy turvy.

Your brain doesn't know what to do with that.

How do I live now?

I don't want to hang out with those people.

What do I do now?

I'm a codependent person.

I've been saying yes when I meant no.

I've been acquiescing.

I've been a people pleaser.

I married an alcoholic or I became an alcoholic because my mother was an alcoholic or my father was an alcoholic.

I had childhood trauma and I was trying to avoid that trauma with all these distractions and I thought that I had to get people to like me so I attracted people who didn't like me and that kept me trying to gain their approval.

When you start to wake up,

It can be pretty maddening.

Just know that everybody feels like that when they start to wake up and know that there is a way out.

Breathing,

Meditation,

Mindfulness slows the mind down.

Connecting to the true self,

Learning to understand your psychological self will help you.

So I want to talk now that leads me in to how the brain works.

When you have been brainwashed your entire life as a child to be afraid of what other people think,

You have to take into consideration and appreciate that the brain is only playing with that data.

So now if I'm afraid that Susie Q is talking about me,

My brain flags that as danger,

Danger,

Danger.

My brain goes to work trying to create pleasure and avoid pain.

So my brain assumes that if the problem is Susie Q is talking about me,

Then the opposite must be true.

If Susie Q doesn't talk about me,

That must mean that that's pleasurable.

That must be what I'm looking to do.

Our brain will go to work trying to figure out how to get into the graces of Miss Susie Q because our brain is flagged to think that it's bad if Susie Q talks about us.

If we're not aware of our codependent tendencies,

If we don't have it learned to discern narcissist from non-narcissist or a dangerous person versus another dangerous person,

We have to learn to discern personalities.

And people to me are like animals in a zoo.

You go to a zoo and it says kangaroo,

It says giraffe,

It says monkey,

It says orangutan,

It says whale,

It says tiger.

This is the way we discern friend from foe or danger from non-danger.

This is the way it helps us discern.

We have to understand that there absolutely are personalities out there that seek to abuse people.

People who are really below the veil and don't know that they are love and light,

Further away from the light,

Their own light they are,

The more in the darkness they are and the more capable they are of doing dark things.

I'm not judging someone who doesn't love themselves.

I'm not judging somebody who doesn't know that they're full of love and light.

I'm not judging that person.

I'm acknowledging that this is a dark energy and I need to stay away from that person because in that person's unconsciousness,

They might be able to hurt me.

I avoid and let go in love and light and I don't judge.

I understand that all people are asleep until they wake up.

There's no judgment in that.

Getting back to being afraid of what other people think and thinking that we should in some way be able to control that or we get caught up thinking that we should.

We have to understand that the brain is working off an operating system and your operating system has basically been programmed by your childhood.

If mommy and daddy taught you that if you don't do the right thing,

We're going to talk about you,

We're going to out you to the family,

We're going to humiliate you,

You're the scapegoat,

Grandma's going to know what you did,

Aunt Mary's going to know what you did.

If you've been taught that if people don't agree with you or if you don't have a connection with people,

That gives you a sense of abandonment that fills you with fear,

Then your mind going to work to make sure that it gains the approval of others.

Outside understanding that the people that might be in your tribe right now or the people that might be in your group might not be the best personalities for you.

It's really important that we understand that whatever we've been downloaded to believe is what our brain is going to think is appropriate.

So if I'm downloaded to fear what other people think of me because I come from a co-dependent home and my mother and father withheld their love and their approval from me,

Then I'm going to seek that approval all my life.

That's normal until we wake up.

If I've been downloaded to fear,

Feeling outed or feeling ostracized or abandoned,

I'm going to worry about what other people think about me because I think that I'm supposed to gain other people's approval because I don't know,

I don't need it.

If you're ruminating,

If you struggle with worrying about what other people think about you,

That's fine.

That's what the brain does when it's been downloaded to fear what other people think.

Very interesting.

I have a 20-year-old daughter and I was very aware when I was raising her.

I wasn't as aware when I was raising my first two,

But I was much more aware when I was raising my third child.

And I made sure that when I was speaking to her,

I taught her the language of letting go.

I taught her the language of love and life.

I taught her the language of loving yourself.

When she would present me with something that was going on at school,

I would always ask her,

Well,

What do you think?

And how do you feel?

What do you think about her?

Don't worry about so much about what she thinks about you.

How do you feel about her judging you?

How do you feel about her calling you a psycho in front of your friends?

How do you feel about her?

I tried to drive this point home that this little girl should be worrying about her experience of other people.

Of course,

Along the way,

I had to make sure that she had an understanding of how her actions affected other people.

But very early on in her childhood,

I made sure I always brought it back to what do you think?

How do you feel?

What do you want?

What do you want to do about this?

I wanted her to develop a sense of self.

So she does not fear what other people think about her.

She's 20 years old and if she finds out that two of her friends,

So-called friends are talking about her,

She's like,

Whatever,

I don't care what they think.

And I sit in the car because most of the times we have these amazing conversations in the car.

And I'm so happy that I had a kid that is okay with who she is,

Loves herself,

And she's not concerned about what other people think about her.

When people who struggle with their own sense of self as a recovering codependent,

I still,

When I hear that someone said something negative about me,

I do have this visceral reaction.

But then I remind myself that I am enough.

I remind myself that everybody's entitled to their opinion of me.

It's fine.

And I'm entitled to my opinion of them.

We are separate.

We're individuals.

I can't control what other people think.

I don't have a right to control what other people think.

And I am willing to surrender to this idea that not everybody has to like me.

I surrender to this idea that people who are talking about me probably aren't really a good fit for me anyway.

And that allows me to let go and love and light and then gravitate towards people who are a better fit.

It allows me to shift my vibration and attract other things that are much healthier.

Understand that the brain has been downloaded to fear what other people think.

And in our own consciousness,

Our brain goes into overdrive trying to figure out ways to control what other people think.

Because below the veil of consciousness,

We're unaware to this idea that we think we need other people to validate us.

I really hope this has helped some of you out there struggling with worrying about what other people think.

You are enough,

Dear ones.

You are absolutely enough.

I bow to the love and light that is absolutely in you.

Until next time.

Reviews

The part where you said that those who are talking about you are likely not a good fit for you anyway really resonates. Thank you!

Brilliant information. That was a meaty session 🙏🏼tytyty

Helpful 😊 pleasant 😊 thank you so much 😊

Lovely. Thank you. ❤️

Solid as always

I was looking for something on IT about how to stop worrying about what others think. Your podcast talk was fantastic on giving us tools on becoming enlightened. Do you have another podcast episode like this that talks about how this fear creates anxiety and how to let go of the anxiety?💜

Just what I needed to hear!

Thank you for this information. I feel I’m getting to a place where I’m genuinely less concerned what others think of me. What empowerment and liberation this gives one. It’s taken decades but with the wisdom of age and experiences and inner work I feel to be less co-dependant of people. You are a blessing, thanks for sharing. 😄🙏🏻

Another spot on talk. I need to listen to this many more times to record over the old tapes playing in my brain ✨🙏✨

This meditation seems to be written just for me. I understand exactly what you are saying, but it’s easier said than done. I worry most of the day about what other people think, bc I feel terrible about myself. I hope after listening to this enough, I will begin to feel ok about myself. Thanks 🌼💜🌸💖

This meditation seems to be written just for me. I understand exactly what you are saying, but it’s easier said than done. I worry most of the day about what other people think, bc I feel terrible about myself. I hope after listening to this enough, I will begin to feel ok about myself. Thanks 🌼💜🌸💖

Thanks Lisa, this is really powerful. Are you planning on doing a follow up to help oneself take the next step once the light goes off for them?
Will repeat this one ☝🏻💖

I have to have this on rotation.