Welcome to the Buddhist Boot Camp Podcast. Our intention is to awaken, enlighten, enrich, and inspire a simple and uncomplicated life. Discover the benefits of mindful living with your host, Timber Hawkeye. In my one-on-one session with a few of you over the past couple of weeks, I have noticed a recurring theme of stress, anxiety, and depression, all stemming from being concerned about what other people think. It's a fascinating combination of both insecurity and self-obsession.
I mean, we spend so much time thinking about ourselves: how we look, how we sound, how we come across, how do we compare... If we lack confidence or feel empty inside, we end up filling that void with other people's opinions of us, even though we know that their judgment actually reveals more about them than it does about us. But I admit that there are times when I also worry about someone else's judgment of me, but it's only when I'm insecure with how
I feel about myself. And the more confident I am about my decisions, the less I need them approved or accepted by others. My takeaway is that if we don't know who we are, then we run the risk of believing what others think about us. My friend Justin was raised by a father who always pushed him to succeed by yelling at him to do better, comparing him to others, calling him "lazy," a "loser," even when he was getting all A's in school, and winning trophies in sports.
Nothing was ever good enough for him. Fast forward to Justin now, as an adult, who despite being successful, healthy, and wealthy, still believes he would never amount to anything because his father's voice is now in his own head. Years after his father has passed away, Justin is still trying to impress the man who has never been impressed by anything anyone has ever done.
I feel the weight of all this whenever I spend time with Justin. It affects every decision he makes and it sucks all the joy out of anything he accomplishes in life because he knows it will never be enough for his father. Just imagine how light he would feel if he stopped caring what his father thinks about him. If Justin sets his own values, defines what "enough" means to him, and feels accomplished at the end of every day for the first time in his life.
In many ways, we all have those voices in our heads, judging us, comparing us... but it's important not to identify with those demons, to recognize them for what they are, and start writing a new narrative. I didn't think I would bring this up, but in the book, I actually talk about feeling fat when I was a teenager because of a passive comment my mother once made about me getting chunky.
So I spent the next few years getting in shape and lifting weights, with the sole purpose of ultimately becoming a stripper one day, because I thought the only way I would ever feel attractive is if people paid me to take my clothes off. Well, if you've read my book, then you know that even when I did, in fact, become a stripper with an eight-pack and biceps bigger than my head, the pale chunky kid still stared back at me in the mirror.
I thought that if hundreds of people told me I was hot, it would cancel-out my mother's taunting in my head. But her comment held more weight than I had lost. And it wasn't until I changed the narrative, stopped trying to impress a woman who was much like Justin's dad, never impressed with anyone no matter what, that I didn't necessarily start thinking of myself as attractive, the pendulum has actually swung to the opposite end of not caring at all about whether others find me appealing or not.
If we each define our own core values, calibrate our moral compass, and set clear intentions, then we can finally be okay if someone doesn't like us, especially when we know they struggle to like themselves. In Buddhism, we talk so much about acceptance, but we have to start by accepting ourselves. Once we do that, we can spend the rest of our lives caring ABOUT others, instead of caring what others think about us.
We must liberate ourselves from needing external validation, or the state of our inner-peace will forever depend on the whim of other people, be it our parents, friends, neighbors, and even complete strangers on social media. As Lao Tzu said, "Care what other people think, and you will always be their prisoner." Timber Hawkeye is the bestselling author of Faithfully Religionless and Buddhist Boot Camp.
For additional information, please visit BuddhistBootCamp.com, where you can order autographed books to support the Prison Library Project, watch Timber's inspiring TED Talk, and join our monthly mailing list. We hope you have enjoyed this episode, and invite you to subscribe for more thought-provoking discussions. Thank you for being a Soldier of Peace in the Army of Love. 🙏🏼