Pay close attention to what you are about to read. This is powerful stuff and it might be the secret to your better, close to perfect life. There’s no such thing, of course, but it could at least get you on your feet and ready to deal with the stuff that’s going on, because let’s face it, you don’t just click on an article that has a title like this one because your life is all roses and champagne.
I’ve been doing Psychology and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy study for over a three and a half years now and, if there’s anything that I’ve learned from all of the courses, is that all of our mental struggles, be it anxiety, depression, phobias and other neuroses, they’re all the result of a simple, yet destructive mind habit.
Are you ready for the big reveal? Ok, here it is:
EVERYTHING you worry about is NOT about you. You worry about what OTHERS think about you, your actions, your looks, your fortune or poverty. Also, you are anxious not because you might fail, but because you think about what the others will say when you do so. You are depressed not because of something that has happened to you makes you sad, but because you think others will judge you and think less of you. When you stop caring about what others think about you, that’s when you’ll get your life back or your shit together or whatever you want to call it.
It’s just as simple as that.
All you need to do in order to be able to apply this life hack or mantra or mental diet to your life is to picture yourself in the shoes of others.
Think about yourself, before you think about others
How much time in your daily life do you spend thinking about other peoples’ winnings or failures? How much time of your life do you spend thinking about how others live their lives? Really, sit down, make a chart, do diagrams, I don’t care. Just answer these questions. For the anxious people, how much time would you spend judging or telling others about it if you were to see a person having a panic attack at the mall? Maybe you’d talk to it briefly for 2 minutes with a friend or with your parents, but then what? It’s done, it’s nothing.
Other people? They simply don’t care about it, so why would you care about it so much, letting it overwhelm you and take control over your life, of the things you love to do when all of the worries are for people that don’t even care about what happens to you?
For depressed people, why would you spend hours and hours of your days thinking about how your sadness will be perceived by others? Why would you be judgemental about yourself for your own failure? It’s only natural to be weak and miserable sometimes. We’re all miserable at times. We’re all depressed. And nobody cares!
You are one of “the others”
Be “the others” for a day. Pay attention to the level of details you can notice about people. Really try to get inside their minds, be judgemental about how they dress, behave, about how they eat like uneducated social stigmas, go out of your way to try and read people and find the worst things about them.
Going back home, after you get in your bed, you know what happens? You remember NOTHING. No details, no stories, no cries or panic attacks or depressed individuals. You simply remember some faces and a guy who was dressed like a rockstar, you know the kind with the black shirt and long black jeans. But that’s it!
If you are destroying your self-esteem, your mental well-being and your life in general over analyzing and overthinking about what others think about you, simply stop, take a deep breath and never do it again. It means nothing, what others think about you.
It’s mental torture that you yourself impose on your own mind. Simply don’t do it anymore and you’ll never be depressed or anxious ever again in your life.
