Live Your Life and Don’t Worry About What People Think of You

How often do you hold back on doing something because you’re worried about how it might come across to other people? If you do, you’re definitely not alone. Wanting to fit in and get the approval of others is a natural human need, but that isn’t to say that it’s healthy either.

Worrying about what other people think of you can have a big effect on your self-esteem and can be destructive. According to research, we tend to overestimate how often we’re thought of by other people and how negative these thoughts are. And sometimes, we convince ourselves that people will think badly of us when this isn’t actually the case at all.

Our worries may not be in line with true reality but the stress and anxiety that they create can be very detrimental for mental wellbeing. At its worse, it can be completely self-destructive. Worrying less about how you come across to other people is really important from a self-love perspective. Here are some tips to help you to achieve it!

Don’t judge yourself

It’s often true that worries about other people are actually triggered by how you see yourself. If your beliefs about yourself are negative, you may be expecting to see them reflected in the actions of other people and this can be at the root of your worries.

Accepting yourself for who you are is a crucial first step in worrying less about what other people think and it can mean that you don’t need to seek approval from others at every turn. If you can treat yourself the same way that you’d like to be treated by other people, it can start to break the desire to get approval from them. This is where self-love becomes really important. Once you can stop judging yourself, you can channel your energies in more positive ways.

Move away from cultural norms

Do you feel that you have to act in a certain way for people to like and accept you? Cultural norms can fuel worries about what other people think of you, especially if you’re not following them to a tee.

If you want to stop worrying what other people think, it can be really smart to break away from the idea that you have to fit in with the crowd. Give yourself permission to live how you want and not how you feel you should. If you answer to anyone at all, make it yourself. Focus on how you can be a better version of yourself, rather than trying to please others.

Practice mindfulness

Because mindfulness is all about being in the present, it can be great for filtering out the past and the present. Most of our worries about what other people think of us is focused on things that have already happened or that may occur in the future.

If you practice mindfulness regularly, you’ll get really good at keeping your attention on the present and what is happening right now.

Fulfill your passions

Channel your energies into doing things that make you happy and bring you personal fulfillment. As an added bonus, you’ll come into contact with people who share the same interests and passions as you. You’re likely to feel more comfortable in this situation and be able show your natural self. When you’re operating from a place where you feel really good about what you’re doing, you’ll worry less about what other people may think as you’ll know that you’re doing what is right for you.

Be more ‘other centred’

We often define ourselves through our relationships and this can mean that we’re caught up in how other people see us. It’s only natural to want people to like you but putting so much focus on it can cause stress, anxiety and self-doubt. This can be picked up on by other people, which can affect the quality of your relationships and the friendships you’re able to build.

One way around this is to have an ‘other-centered’ approach to your relationships. In a nutshell, this just means being compassionate and kind towards other people. Knowing that your actions are genuine and that you have the best intentions makes it easier to stop worrying how you will be received by others.

You can’t always control how people will behave towards you or how they will think but adopting an ‘other centred’ approach gives you the compassion to recognize that it’s less about you and more about them. If you can’t control it and you know you’re not to blame, why worry about it?

7 Tips for Forgiving Yourself And Living a Life of No Regrets

We all have things that we regret in life and wish we had done things differently. We’re only human, after all! It’s often a lot easier to forgive other people for things they have done to us, while we hang onto strong resentment towards ourselves for even minor slip ups.

If you find it hard to forgive yourself for things that have happened in the past, it can have a big effect on how you treat yourself. And according to studies, it can also make you more likely to have health problems, including autoimmune conditions, heart disease and even cancer.

Learning how to forgive yourself and give yourself permission to move on from mistakes is so important for self-love. Your ultimate goal is for specific situations to no longer cause you negative emotions such as pain, anger and resentment. Here are some tips for forgiving yourself so that you can move on with your life and start to love yourself in the way you deserve.

1. Release negative emotions

When you’re holding onto strong negative emotions, it’s almost impossible to truly forgive yourself unless you’re able to release them. Whether you’re feeling guilt, shame or just generally hate yourself, you won’t be able to move forwards until you’ve dealt with the underlying emotions that you’re feeling.

It’s often the case that your reactions to even the mere thought of what you did are what is making you feel so bad and by releasing them, they won’t hold the same power. This makes it a whole lot easier to start the process of forgiving yourself!

2. Accept that you’re not perfect

None of us are perfect and we all make mistakes. When you didn’t intentionally set out to hurt someone through your actions, holding onto shame and letting it affect how you see yourself can be hugely damaging for your self-esteem.

Your mistakes aren’t ‘proof’ of your failings and they don’t make you a bad person. If you can see mistakes as an opportunity to learn and grow, it opens up a whole different mindset.

3. It’s okay to let the memory go

Are you still holding onto what happened in your mind and not able to put it aside? This could be one of the big reasons why you’re struggling to forgive yourself. It is actually a perfectly natural response given that our brains are hardwired to use past experiences to try to protect us.

That doesn’t make it helpful though! Reliving the situation in your mind fools your brain into believing that it is happening again and that sets off the stress response. It can also mean that you define yourself through the situation, rather than accepting that it happened and trying to learn from it.

It’s not about forgetting what happened. Instead, you want to acknowledge that your actions may have had repercussions but that this doesn’t need to extend to self-destructive emotions.

4. Flip the situation around

If you were told about the situation you can’t forgive yourself for, what would you tell the other person? Chances are, you’d push them to forgive themselves and point out some of the reasons why. And there’s no reason why that shouldn’t apply to you too! This is a great habit to get into whenever things don’t quite go to plan.

5. Get a different perspective

Talking about the situation with a trusted friend can give you a different take on things. Because they’re not living in your head and aren’t affected by the same thoughts and emotions as you, they have enough distance to see things that you probably can’t, especially around why you should forgive yourself.

6. Learn from what happened

Spending some time thinking about what you could have done differently can be very powerful for opening your eyes to the fact that you may not have been in the best position to do the ‘right’ thing then. For most people, there is a really good chance that you have gained new skills or insights since it happened, and you can use those to learn from the situation, so it doesn’t happen again.

7. Work on self-love

Love is often a strong factor in our ability to forgive. The opposite can be true too – if you don’t love yourself all that much, you’re probably going to have a much tougher time forgiving yourself. You’re probably a lot harsher on yourself than you are with other people, right? This is a sign that it’s time to work on accepting yourself more and learning to love who you are. Once you’ve started to have success with this, it’s a lot easier to avoid beating yourself up for every mistake.

Tips for Staying Happy and Stress Free

2019 Is The Year Of Happy

Have you spent a lot of 2018 wishing that you were happier with your life and less stressed? A lot of the time, we take our happiness cues from the outside, especially ones that other people can see. And if we don’t meet these standards or ideals, we can quickly feel that happiness is out of reach. Rather than putting your ideals of happiness onto other people or in material things, it’s super important to recognize that true happiness has to come from within you. Ready to start finding your happy in 2019? Here are some tips for being happier and less stressed in the year ahead.

Tips for Finding Your Happy, Stress Free Place

Move away from negative thinking

If negative thinking is a problem for you, it’s definitely something you’ll want to change in 2019 to achieve your year of happy. Negative thinking can be a vicious cycle that leads to a lot of stress, anxiety and depression. Breaking this cycle is one of the best things you can do for living a happy and stress-free life.

Be Present

Being in the present moment is super important for stopping negative thinking in its tracks. It helps to put some distance between yourself and the things that trigger your negative thoughts. It forces your mind to become aware of negative thoughts and take a step back from them so that they lose their power.

Reframe Your Thinking

Reframing your thinking is also a good goal for promoting a happy, stress free life. Do you always tend to think negatively about situations?  It can be a big challenge to flip this around and see the positive side of things instead. Start trying to put a positive slant on situations that would normally cause you stress and bring your mood down.

For 2019, aim to reframe your thinking at least once a day. Over time, you’ll train your mind to look for the positives and encourage different thought patterns.

Immerse yourself in authentic experiences

Linking your happiness to outside factors often fails to achieve the happiness you were hoping for. Instead of setting goals relating to money, status and other things that you think will make you more satisfied with your life, swap them for authentic experiences that make you feel genuinely happy. Focusing on things like your hobbies and friendships can help you to feel emotions such as joy, contentment and relaxation.

This has been backed up by a study carried out by a psychology professor at Cornell University. He set out to see whether spending money or having experiences ultimately made people happier. The end result? Experiences had the power to increase happiness, partly due to the fact that we tend to experience them with other people. This gives them more meaning and makes them more memorable.

I know this is true. When talking with my kids, it’s always the vacations they remember, not the Christmas and birthday presents!

Practice Self-acceptance

In a 2014 study that looked at “happiness habits”, self-acceptance was one of the habits that was deemed most likely to lead to genuine happiness. We’re often a lot kinder to other people than we are to ourselves. If this is true for you, it’s time to change this.

Being kind to yourself is one of the best things you can do to make 2019 the year of happy but it can be difficult to achieve, especially if you’re used to being negative about yourself.

If you feel you’re not good enough, you’re more likely to look outside of yourself for happiness. If you’re setting intentions around happiness in the New Year, it’s hugely important to work on self-acceptance first and commit to self-love in 2019.

Show compassion and gratitude

As you may know, gratitude and random acts of kindness have both been shown to improve happiness and life satisfaction. One of the reasons for this is the fact that it helps you to feel better about yourself.

Being thankful can have a major impact on your wellbeing and studies have linked keeping a gratitude diary to optimism, improvements in mood and better physical health. Having a more positive outlook on life can help to reduce stress and cut back on negative thinking, which makes gratitude a very underrated way to feel happier about life.

A gratitude diary isn’t the only way to feel more thankful. A few ways that you can practice gratitude can include sending heartfelt and handwritten notes to people who have made a positive difference to your life, taking a walk in nature and feeling grateful for the natural world around you, and reflecting at mealtimes on the work involved in getting food onto your plate.

Research has repeatedly linked kindness to feeling happier. One theory for this involves the production and release of neurochemicals that create a “high” … not that dissimilar to a chemical “high”! It also encourages your brain to release oxytocin, also known as the “love hormone”.

References:

^{https://bigthink.com/paul-ratner/want-happiness-buy-experiences-not-more-stuff
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/the-mindful-self-express/201511/how-gratitude-leads-happier-life
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/emotional-nourishment/201711/why-random-acts-kindness-matter-your-wellbeing}

In Health & Happiness
Dr. Tara Clapp, ND