What you think of me is none of my business

This saying is something that we all need to hear and say to ourselves.  I know we all have those times when we doubt ourselves or times that we think people are ‘talking’ about us, which may or may not actually be happening. Whether it’s happening or not our reactions are the same. Not knowing what others think about us can be just as hard to handle as knowing.  If we know what someone says and it make us feel bad, then we get upset or sad, and those are negative emotions. But if we don’t know and are just ‘imagining’ what they might say that can be even worse. Let’s think of a way to talk our way thru this…

You work really hard on a quilt and show it to Suzy very enthusiastically. 3 things can happen:

1. Suzy can say “I love that!” which will make you feel good
2. Suzy says “she really doesn’t like it” or something a little different like “Oh your corners are just not good”, both make you feel bad and start to make you ‘self doubt’ yourself (more on that in a later post).
3. Suzy says nothing, basically ignoring you.

As you can see #1 is the best outcome, who doesn’t want to feel good and get a compliment.

With #2 and #3 it’s a different story. Going back to the “I get to control me and no one else” post from a few days ago, we can use that as a stepping stone to feeling better. Yes Suzy hurt your feelings one way or the other and both ways make you feel bad and have some 'self doubt', among other emotions. Can you control Suzy or her thoughts and actions? If you are the only one who can control yourself, the same is true for Suzy. You also get to control how you react to #2 and #3, both internally and externally. 

Suzy says something bad about your quilt à

You think “oh no if Suzy doesn’t like it who will?” or “I didn’t do a good job, how stupid was I to even try”. Both of these are negative thoughts and make you feel bad. They are also mistakes (after all you showed the quilt which meant are happy with the quilt, which shows your negative thoughts are a mistake) à
Ask yourself for forgiveness for thinking things in #2 (since it was a mistake) = turning the bad thought/feeling around to a good thought/feeling

Do you see how this negates what Suzy thinks, which in essence says that it really doesn’t matter what she thinks? Internally you can understand that you cannot change what anyone thinks, although most of us dwell on the negative instead of the positive. It's time to turn that around! What you can do is think “it’s none of my business what Suzy thinks of me” and then think about how saying that makes you feel. Does it empower you? Remember you are in control of yourself and no one else! Why give Suzy any power over your feelings?

I know this saying has really has helped me a lot, especially when I was first diagnosed, I can’t count how many times I said or heard this. In all reality we can only strive to live life the happiest we can and do our best to deal with all the negative stuff. Learning some tools or sayings to help along the way will help tons. If you say this everyday about 10 times thruout the day you will begin to trust it. It doesn’t have to be out loud. It really is all about retraining our minds to think in a more positive way.

Sha :)