The emotional weight of other people’s opinions

The emotional significance we give to other people’s opinions equals the weight that that we voluntarily put on our souls.

We often need to know other people’s opinions. We need to know what our colleagues and bosses think, for example. “I’ll be my own boss!”, you say? Well, you’d still need to care about your customers’ opinions. So, it’d be pretty hard if not nearly impossible to navigate this game of life without knowing what others think.

But there’s a difference between knowing, versus tying our emotional wellbeing to, what others think.

How would you feel if someone said to you, “Great job!”? I’d be elated! Ego boosted! Self-worth proved again! And then, on to the next external validation.

But what if they said “Try again, improvements needed.”? One could simply try to understand the improvements needed, and proceed without an emotional impact. In this sense, what someone else thinks is simply used as information to formulate a response. Their opinions, regardless of delivery, could provide invaluable information for us to improve personally and professionally.

But how often do we take that opinion much more seriously and harshly? My chest would tighten up. Probably disappointed and even ashamed. I would feel like a “bad” person. Energy drained. That’s much more than viewing someone else’s opinions as information; that’s giving emotional weight, and tying my mental wellbeing, to what someone else thinks. Close your eyes and imagine someone saying to you, “try again, improvements needed”. Do you feel a sting?

But why should we suffer that sting? First, why should we give the power over our inner wellbeing to someone else? Why should another person decide whether we should feel terrible or fabulous? That’s not their job, and they’re probably running behind dealing with their own problems! The power and the responsibility for our inner wellbeing lie within us, and only within us unless we give them – knowingly or not – to other people or their opinions.

But we don’t always know what other people really think, do we? Even if we asked, they can say something different than how they really feel. So, in many cases we’re just assuming what someone else thinks without realizing that we’re assuming. What we take as a fact about someone’s opinion may only be our assumptions about it.

People say and do things more so because of what goes on in their their life situations, not because of us. It’s not personal! This is one of the best lessons I’ve ever learned. See The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (A Toltec Wisdom Book) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005BRS8Z6/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_WYFNB7KT1PW8ADQGSJP2

They may be going through a tough day, they may be terse because they’re running short on time, and they may not even mean anything negatively. So don’t let our ideas, or assumptions, about what someone else thinks validate us, make us feel bad, or otherwise disturb our inner peace.

Anyway, even though it seems that everybody has an opinion, often strongly, about everything, it doesn’t mean that they’re right. So, try to understand other people’s views, evaluate them objectively, but don’t take them as a fact about your work or personal value.

You are valued simply because you exist.

Think back to the times when someone’s opinion really hurt your feelings, in light of what we just went through. Do you still want them to determine how YOU feel, or do you want to be in charge? Did you actually know their opinion, or were you assuming? Is it possible that they were going through a tough time and it wasn’t about you? Were they even right in the first place? Should it even matter?

Do you feel a little lighter now? If you do, you may be starting to see the fallacy of tying our emotional wellbeing to what others think and, because of that, you may be sensing a little weight lifting off of your soul. Keep releasing the connection between your happiness and what you think or assume what others think, and feel your soul becoming even lighter.