“I have pain in my soul, I’m being blamed…”
One of the comments
There are people who feel guilty about certain external events happening around them, even though they personally have nothing to do with them.
What does this feeling of guilt say, why do people experience it, and why is the opinion and approval of others so important? Most importantly, what can you do about it? You’ll find the answers in this article.
Why other people’s opinions matter to you
I suggest we immediately reframe this question and look at everything from a different angle.
Ask yourself: why is the image that people have of me so important?
I constantly urge you to stop evaluating yourself through the actions, words, and opinions of other people. Because most of you already know your strengths and weaknesses, and you know them ruthlessly, without pretending in front of anyone.
Even when you’re alone with yourself, many of you manage to admit many things to yourselves.
Where does this idea come from that another person’s opinion or actions can somehow take away a part of me? They can’t, no matter how much they might want to. But they do provoke your wounded shadow parts to come into the light.
And instead of healing them, instead of perceiving it as a signal that this part needs work and needs to be reclaimed, you step on the same rake again — you suffer from not living up to certain images.
The situation in the world has really exposed these moments: it’s shameful to enjoy life, shameful to just live an ordinary life, because others are having a hard time right now, because you’re being blamed for it.
It’s shameful to have what others supposedly had taken away from them (security, well-being, freedom of movement).
For the most part, you don’t need to feel shame, you don’t need to try to live up to certain images. Instead, you need to look at what is being illuminated for you, acknowledge your shadow parts, and nourish them with love.
If we’re talking about the roles you’ve played in many lifetimes, there’s an additional layer there — times when you deceived others or didn’t support them in difficult times. Acknowledge those roles too.
See also: Why it’s so hard to free yourself from the influence of other people’s opinions
The multi-layered process of illuminating your shadow parts
All of this is the residue of our thinking, based on limitations and a scarcity mindset, where there isn’t enough for everyone — if someone gains, then someone else must have lost.
If this triggers you, it means you have criteria by which you judge yourself: if you have something, then someone else won’t have it, it’s being taken away. It’s difficult to internally rewrite this and realize that the universe is abundant and there is enough of everything for everyone.
It’s important to remove these frameworks and limitations from within, the ones that prevent you from attuning to this energy of abundance.
If I am everything, if I am all the light of the universe, if I am all love, all joy, then will I become worse off by sharing something? By sharing my joy, my love, my warmth?
All of this is programmed into us on different levels. It’s impossible to remove everything all at once.
For example, when you put up a New Year’s tree, it gradually sheds its needles. After the holidays, you take it out and clean the house, but for the next six months, you still find needles in different places: under the sofa, or in some other spot.
Exactly the same way, we pick up these little needles. It’s just that some people encounter for the first time the fact that the world is a global mirror, that there is no one but me. And what the world reflects back to them, they don’t like, it stirs up emotions.
But if there are no emotions, you simply state the fact: what is being shown is about them. You calmly accept everything you see, including other people’s opinions and their accusations.
Often, mirrors can be distorted, and it becomes difficult to recognize what is being shown.
In the Dance with the Shadow 3.0 course, we break down the manifestations of straight and crooked mirrors, learning to recognize the gifts that shadow aspects carry.
See the full seminar program at the link >>
Does other people’s opinion affect you?
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This article is based on a live broadcast from the #conversation_on_the_couch series “Let’s sit and warm up.”