A False Reality
Don’t believe everything you think. Anxiety ignores reality. It was the start of high school and my anxiety created a disconnect between how reality and my head, how others saw me and how I saw myself. The majority of self-esteem issues today develop from a skewed rof our self-image.
Anxiety is fueled by our negative perception, it quenches its appetite by telling us no before we even try, wraps it’s neurotic branches around our legs and paralyzes us. Anxiety denies us friendships before people have, it denies us opportunities before the jobs, admissions, internships, and clubs do. It denies us experiences in fear of the worst. Paralyzed, you live in fear of the worst instead of in hope of the best. Thereby creating a negative-feedback loop in which by protecting yourself from failure you protect yourself from happiness and an epic love, an epic career, and greatness.
Sophomore year of high school I was convinced people hated me. No one had done anything to indicate so other than rudely ignore my self-isolation and non-existent-social initiation. I’d listened to the voice in my head instead of reality ‘everyone thinks you’re weird, ugly, stuck-up, a know-it-all.’ That is until I had a breakthrough my unreliable inner narration – the key to getting out of this anxiety loop.
“My friends think you’re cool and said you should come sit with us,” suddenly said the guy of a group of people I wanted to be friends with in a new high school but thought disliked me. Boom – the negative, hazy bubble I saw the world through burst. I’d never talked to them, but we had the same class, laughed at the same things and they’d heard me hanging around others. This was a point in my life when I relied on external validation. When my self-image was reliant on being the quiet smart girl, the know-it-all who didn’t care about appearing as a teacher’s pet. I was a passive wallflower who wouldn’t speak unless approached, “if they wanted to talk to me they would.” I thought.
You Are Not the Subject of Others Lives
The world does not stop and end at your social faux paus and imperfections, because you are not the protagonist of peoples’ story – they are.
This may be tough to hear but, other people are not constantly judging your every move, they are too busy thinking about themselves just as you are. Mind blown, right?
Under our own magnifying glass perspective of hyper-self-awareness it may be hard for us to imagine, but others don’t see our faults like we see them. We have a front-row seat to our own hidden insecurities, troubles, and faults but others don’t.
People don’t think you’re weird, they don’t know you feel like an imposter, they don’t know your past and that you’re reinventing yourself. I was the victim of skewed perspective in high school and the people I thought hated me actually wanted to be my friend. The ones who I thought were out of my league – weren’t. The people I wanted to be friends with but thought saying hi to would be weird said hi to me.
They’re not staring into your soul, relax. They don’t know your own faults, breathe out. They’re not staring because they think you’re weird or ugly. Approach that person, seek those grandiose opportunities your inner-false-narrator told you you weren’t good enough for.
People are not judging you. Do you judge others as harshly as you think they judge you? Do you stare at people because they’re unpleasant to look at? Do you find it weird when others approach you to say hello? Chances are you don’t. These are all positive welcome interactions with others. So why are you judging yourself from different standards?
Caring about what others might think just feeds into your own baseless insecurities which makes you project them thereby creating a ‘negative feedback loop.’ You think negative, so your actions are negative, the consequences are negative and that serves as confirmation for your negative thoughts. Break out of them by challenging yourself to conquer a scary feat – each time you will build this muscle as confirmation to go after more challenging things in the future.
Accept. Don’t Compete.
Nothing aggravates anxiety more than the horse-race of competing with neurotypicals, or anyone else for that matter. You can’t compete where you don’t compare – adopt that mentality. It’s an incredibly liberating, fake-it-till-you-make-it strategy of false superiority that works. No judgment, no keeping-up-with-the-Instagrammers and prodigy peers. You’re on your own timeline not on any else’s highlight reel of a (virtual) timeline.
You’re On a Different Wavelength. Focus On Yourself.
A period of self-isolation during high school worked well. I realized I was on my own playing field while others were playing a game of wasting your youth trying to grow up and their opinions and actions shouldn’t phase me. I might sound like a bit of a special snowflake, and trust me I was (I thought having a Tumblr was a personality trait), but I never hated anyone because I never felt in competition with anyone. Hatred comes from feeling threatened, and the people I used to try to morph myself into were on a different wavelength.
The Bromide ‘Be Yourself,’ Works
When you stop trying to morph into a convention that isn’t you, others will notice and respect you. I didn’t dress like them, listen to their music, go to their parties, have their values but people started to like me. “This is Alex, she’s weird but funny people would say.” “You dress different but I like it.” Good people worth your time are drawn to genuine people who while different, are unapologetically themselves.
Like Attracts Like. Don’t Lose Yourself Pandering to Others.
Dedicate this period of your life to finding out what positive things make you feel whole – and start doing them. Embrace your interests, your values, your style, your actions – never compromise.
This is all one long-winded way to say: Develop internal self-worth not based on external validation and know thyself you – then you will not be harmed by what is thought about you. This is achieved by honing in on your interests and values
I reached a point where I was so apathetic towards others opinions that not even insults or compliments affected me. But that’s a whole other issue – imposter syndrome (my work wasn’t good enough compared to x person at the top of their playing field so these compliments were meaningless to me.)
Do not be affected by opinions from people you do not admire or respect. Pay no mental space to those who don’t know you like you do. Does a doctor – who’s studied medicine for two decades – mind the opinion of anti-vaccers? Does a lion mind the way of a sheep? Do you really enjoy their company or do you just want a large group of friends for social approval?
I lost myself during my early teen years trying to morph my identity into others’ by trying to please people I didn’t even like on a fundamental human level.
That is until I realized, liking yourself is a lot more important than getting bad company to like a rounded-out version of you. No one lives your life but you. While you’re stuck in this mortal coil of existential dread, you might as well enjoy your own company. Enjoy who you are.
The bromide ‘be yourself’ is more than a hackneyed saying. Only by expressing your real self will like-minded individuals gravitate towards you. You’ll also repel the wrong people you wouldn’t want to be friends with anyway. It’s a win-win situation. Blast those hidden facets of your personality, interests, and shout your values from the rooftop. Live it up a little.
Never round out your edges to be universally tolerable. The movers and shakers of this world were never sycophants with diluted selfs.
Reject External Validation and You’ll Succeed
Despite making no money throughout his life, Van Gogh still painted over 900 works of art. Thereby proving that you don’t need external validation to create great things, and be great. Embrace the quiet power of anchoring your worth in your passion, in thy self, and not in others’ approval.
You have to love the process, not the applause. Loving the process leads makes hard-work come easy, and all that practice creates the formidable expert which leads to success. Loving the applause halts your effervescent ‘motivation’ at the slightest road bump. Every self-made success story started with an ordinary person who rose above the equally-skilled and motivated, when others didn’t rise back up after every challenge.
I have no Instagram, I have no shrine to my face or adventures because I have no need for others to validate my existence. No need to engage in a rat-race of luxury living with a bunch of walking billboards paid to take ‘an afternoon dip in Bali 🙂 xx’ with their Lulu Watermelon swimsuits.
Redefine Self-Worth
No one important in history freed slaves, invented anesthesia, broke the German enigma code to help win a war against dictators, fought for women’s education in the middle east by the merit of their looks. The most influential and noble people in history have been defined by their actions not their looks. Beauty isn’t worth. Stop worrying about being conventionally consumable and physically pleasant to look at. Worry about doing things you would admire.
The people I admire, I admire for their nobility, intelligence, selflessness, humor, and dedication, not for their looks. Many of us have been indoctrinated by a world of child pageants and Instagram selfie-shrines that appearance is our only worth. But we are not supposed to be like the world, because we are not the physical world. We are a spirit with a body, not a corporeal body with a spirit.
I am not my looks. I had to learn to go back to the simple bliss of childhood wonder where I was completely unconcerned and unaware of these frivolities.
The validation we seek is based on how we judge our self-worth. Change how you judge your worth into something controllable and positive. “I am a good friend, I am helpful, I am hardworking, I try my best, I am kind.”
Treat Yourself the Way You Want to Be Treated
Self-deprecation is all the rage nowadays but it’s nothing more than a pathetic, thinly veiled attempt of coping with serious life-crippling insecurities.The real solution?
Stop talking to yourself the way you wouldn’t talk to a friend. We constantly disparage ourselves, but if someone were to disparage a loved one we would refute the accusations by coming up with a myriad of wonderful qualities. Treat yourself with the compassion and tenderness you’d treat a loved one. Treat yourself how you want to be treated.
How Do You Gain Higher Self-Esteem?
Recognize the negative false-inner-narrator and prove it wrong. (That will build a mental database for which to take bigger leaps off of.)
Accept and don’t compete, get to know, and be your unabashed self in your own playing field, on your own wavelength. Anchor your self-worth not on external-validation but in your passions and your values.
Be a special snowflake – the most special snowflake that ever lived. ( A lion does not lose sleep over the opinion of sheep and all that.)
Be vulnerable – only by shedding complacent-ness and putting yourself in uncomfortable but necessary positions will you grow mentally. You will grow into a more confident, actualized version of yourself whose only competition is yourself. You will be too busy building the life you want to mind what other people who are too busy thinking about themselves might think
No one lives your life but you so pay no mind to the opinions of others who you don’t respect.
Most importantly know yourself, then you will not be harmed by the opinion of others. Beauty isn’t worth – redefine self-worth.
Next time your negative inner narration starts its vitriol again, treat yourself the way you’d treat a friend and refute that voice. That’s right, argue with yourself – out loud. Who cares if they think you’re crazy.
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