• 3 Posts
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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 21st, 2023

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  • It sounds perfectly normal to me.

    Hell is other people. You only exist because other people see you, which means that other people have a chance to judge you. You can never escape the risk of their judgment. Never.

    Most people go through three stages:

    1. Discovering this.
    2. Fighting this.
    3. Accepting this.

    This is not a problem to solve, but instead a reality to accept. Think about this for a while. One day, you might realize that:

    1. They, not you, are responsible for how they judge you.
    2. You can’t stop them from judging you, only they can. And even they probably can’t.
    3. Most people most of the time are too busy thinking about themselves to pay much attention to you.

    It’ll happen when you’re ready.

    I spent decades worried about what people thought of me, because I’d been bullied in my youth and had to be aware of people’s motives for self-protection. I kept this habit even after the threats had gone away. That’s the power of habits established in childhood.

    You could try, when you have this impulse, looking at the impulse as nothing more than an impulse that will fade away, if you look right at it.

    Peace.


  • I see. Thanks for answering. I can absolutely understand feeling confused when you don’t understand your own reaction/behavior.

    Often, this kind of intuitive reaction comes from some conditioning from your childhood. Somebody taught you “the right way to be” or “the right way to think” and even though you don’t need that any more, you’ve lived with it for such a long time that you’re following it without realizing that that’s what’s happening.

    Maybe that’s already enough for you to identify the cause: can you hear a voice from your past when you start crying? Can you already identify a person who might have taught you why you should be or must not be attracted to this kind of guy? Either you’re feeling something you were taught not to or not feelings something that they expect you to.

    If you can’t put your finger on it, then you might need to spend some time just letting your mind wander about it. Who taught me to want this kind of guy? Who taught me never to want this kind of guy? It might take time, but an idea or a memory might suddenly come to you, just by contemplating these questions.

    If that doesn’t work, then you might need to talk the question through with someone, such as a trusted friend or even a therapist. Sometimes having another person around when you think about this makes me say things out loud that I find easy to push away when I’m alone.

    And, of course, all this advice is based on the idea that you’re confused by how you’re reacting, and that understanding your reaction is important to you. Otherwise, it might be a giant waste of energy. That’s why I asked.

    Peace.