“The greatest fear in the world is the fear of others’ opinions. The moment you are not afraid of the crowd, you are no longer a sheep, you become a lion. A great roar sounds in your heart – the roar of freedom.”
Osho
Not all people are indifferent when others whisper behind their backs. Many suffer from this, feeling like outcasts, black sheep.
Among spiritually growing people, there are many who do not dare to openly proclaim their truth, the spiritual principles they follow in daily life.
The fear of being misunderstood by loved ones wins out, forcing them to lead a double life, hiding their true feelings and point of view.
If you are afraid of judgment, read this material. You will learn how and when dependence on others’ opinions arises and how this fear hinders your development.
I wrote this article based on my own experience. Although I haven’t completely freed myself from this dependence, I still took the risk of revealing my own insecurities.
I hope the conclusions I’ve reached will help you get closer to freeing yourself from the influence of others’ opinions.
How Dependence on Others’ Opinions Develops
The fear of others’ opinions in most cases appears in childhood, when parents are too strict with the child, rarely praise them, don’t let them express their opinion, and punish them for any mischief.
Every little child wants to be loved and praised. If they don’t get enough of this love, they look for ways to earn it: they go along with things, lock away their desires and personal opinions, and do everything to please their family.
Someone else’s opinion becomes more important than their own.
Gradually, this behavior pattern becomes a habit and starts to extend to their immediate circle: peers, kindergarten teachers, school teachers.
In adult life, the desire to please everyone grows into a need to be needed by family, friends, useful to management, and sometimes even to the first person they meet.
When a person is obsessed with this desire, their behavior becomes unconscious. To make a good impression, they act inappropriately, forgetting that they are valuable in themselves.
If you were to stop them at that moment and ask why they are doing it, the person wouldn’t give a clear answer. Because there is no logic in this behavior.
Such people have low self-esteem. They constantly seek approval and don’t believe their opinion matters.
They are easy to convince otherwise. They think someone else knows better than they do. Even when it comes to their own life.
The meditation See, Love, and Value Yourself will help you see your true self, so that without fear, without looking back at others’ opinions, you can show yourself and everyone around you who you really are.
The fear of losing other people’s favor overpowers the need to express one’s own opinion.
To sum it up, the reason for this behavior is the desire to be happy. But this is an illusion.
Does such a dependence make life more joyful and harmonious?
The Need to Belong to a Group
I want to highlight separately the human need to be part of a community.
There is nothing wrong with wanting to be surrounded by people. Humans are wired in such a way that they need a social circle.
But often people sacrifice their own desires and compromise their principles for the sake of this circle.
They feel forced to talk about topics that don’t interest them, or to take the majority’s side on key issues, just to stay within the community.
This need has deep roots.
Back when living conditions were harsh, if a person had an opinion, behavior, or appearance that differed from their tribe — in other words, if they “stood out from the pack” — they were rejected, even banished from the community or tribe.
This threatened their survival. Left alone, a person faced serious danger because people could only survive as part of a group.
In later times, people were punished for dissent or for not conforming to accepted norms: being burned at the stake for scientific discoveries, or the widespread condemnation of women who had children out of wedlock.
Today, you aren’t killed for having a different opinion, but the memory of past lives still lives inside us.
The fear of becoming an outcast forces us to hide our uniqueness, because being like everyone else is simpler and safer.
The actions dictated by this fear only corner a person and hold them back.
In this case, awareness can help. If something about your interactions with people doesn’t sit right with you, if you feel like you’re betraying yourself, think about why you’re acting that way.
Sometimes it’s worth taking a risk and changing your social circle. It’s harder to do this with relatives.
All that’s left is to accept that you are cut from a different cloth.
Imagine you are a sparrow, but you were born into a family of rabbits. From childhood, you are taught values that are foreign to you.
But the fact that you don’t accept them doesn’t make you or them worse. You’re simply different.
If you feel like you and your family are speaking different languages, but you want to maintain a good relationship and don’t know how, read the article How to Stop Adapting to Loved Ones and Achieve Understanding.
Dare to choose what inspires you and try to find “your own flock,” your like-minded people. Your parents won’t stop being your parents because of this.
If the ugly duckling had stayed in the farmyard, he would have continued to suffer, thinking he was a freak. He would have had to adapt to others, betraying himself and his own nature.
How You Harm Yourself by Being Influenced by Others’ Opinions
Now let’s look at what you lose every time you choose someone else’s opinion over your own life.
You Give Away Your Personal Power
When you ask others what you should do, run to a friend or neighbor for advice with every problem, or read tea leaves, you are giving away your power.
You are turning away from your own truth, your own path that your soul is laying out for you.
Among all these pieces of advice and dialogues, you can’t hear her voice.
Where will confidence and strength come from if you keep giving them away?
There can be many opinions, but only you know what’s best for you. And no one will live your life for you.
Before seeking answers in external sources, turn inward, ask yourself the question you wanted to ask others.
Imagine that you are mentally reaching out to those you wanted to ask. As a rule, the answer comes either immediately or after a short time.
Download the booklet How to Learn to Trust Yourself and get tips on developing self-trust.
You limit yourself in pleasures
The fear of others’ opinions prevents you from acknowledging your desires, let alone fulfilling them.
You might want to act differently, to stop walking the beaten path, but at that moment a question flashes through your mind: What will others think?
And so ideas remain at the level of thoughts and “wants.” While someone else is moving mountains, you’re thinking about how to even start.
And that’s how life can pass you by.
But if you think about it, are your desires really that crazy? Most likely, like most people’s, they are simple and realistic.
What makes you think you’ll be judged for them?
Imagine for a moment that everyone stopped being afraid and started doing what they truly wanted.
Everyone would benefit from this: the universe would receive high vibrations of joy and pleasure, and people would become happier and kinder.
It might be naive, but I truly believe this.))
Read the article How to Allow Yourself to Dream and accept the universe’s challenge — start bringing your cherished dreams to life.
You do a ton of unnecessary work for praise
To be considered good and praised, you help everyone who asks and even anticipate their requests.
Of course, you’d hardly admit this to yourself, but what if…
Once, I complained about being overloaded with work and grumbled about fatigue. And my boss simply said: You can’t be good for everyone.
I was outraged, of course, because it turned out he had revealed my secret, one I hadn’t even admitted to myself.
But that was the beginning of when I started to reflect on the true motives behind my actions.
Look at your daily actions. Which of these do you truly do from the heart, and after which do you feel depleted?
Try to eliminate what doesn’t bring you joy, and you’ll notice how much energy was wasted instead of being used for your own growth.
When I grew tired of fearing judgment and rejection, I started to explore where this dependency in me came from. It helped me understand the motives of my behavior.
I’ll be glad if my thoughts and recommendations are useful to you.
In the next article, I’ll tell you how to stop depending on others’ opinions.
I’ll warn you right away, it’s not easy to do, but if you’re already tired of living your life looking over your shoulder at others, the methods I’ll suggest will be useful to you.