The habit of thinking what others think of you!
Many generations ago, people are influenced by tribal and community pressure. After existence, you see yourself in the middle of a group. Either it is a family, extended family, in school groups with your classmates or at work with your colleagues. Every where we see groups and communities gather together.
One of the habits that the adults and youth use is thinking what others think of you. This habit is called co-dependency. It is the excessive worry and thinking of others. When you say something, you think: What that person think of me? Did I hurt his feelings? I shouldn’t have said this to him. And on and on you keep thinking of what you said and of the other person’s thinking too.
One of the reasons of this habit’s existence is children learn and model their parents or caregivers’ habits. If you observed your parent overthinking or was cautious of others’ thoughts, you would do the same. During childhood, our brains just want to attach and didn’t know anything at that time.
Another reason is the need to belong. Someone might think, if I just be myself I would be rejected and abondoned by my group. So I’d rather meet other people expectations of me so that I have a place here.
To process and regulate this habit, one may start discovering what happened to you in the past during childhood. How was your life like as a kid. What was the home environment like? What daily routines you were engaged with daily? What stories you faced in school? Reflecting on childhood moments would slow you down and find out how your today’s habits got created and what moments had strong impact on your perceptions.
Second is find out the emotional gaps you have. After digging out your childhood moments, you realize you have got emotional gaps that need to be filled. For instance, if during childhood, you were mostly alone and rarely had presence of a person, your emotional gap today would be loneliness. To fill that gap, you need to take daily steps like spending quality time with yourself and surround yourself with people whom you like and are connected with. Self soothing is important here.
Finally ask these reflective questions: Does it really matter what that person think of me? If I don’t belong to this group, what would happen? Am I living life to satisfy other people thoughts of me or to just be myself in the moment? Asking these questions daily in your notebook or journal would clarify to you the things that matter to you.