It’s completely human to care about what the people who we love think of us. We naturally want to be liked and accepted. Where things start to go off track is when we start listening to other people’s opinions over our own.
We only have this one life while we are here on this Earth. Like Ferris Bueller says, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” We are all perishable items. We need to start living accordingly.
Think about it like this: When you were a child and you were playing in your backyard you did your own thing and you didn’t care what anyone thought. You were fully present and engaged in what you were doing.
As a child I felt like my life was limitless. I could be whoever I wanted to be, and I could do anything I wanted to do someday. I was definitely a weird child, but I knew deep in my soul that I was born to stand out from the norm. I didn’t care what anyone thought of me or who they thought I should be.
But as I got older, other people’s opinions infiltrated my heart and mind. And it happened slowly. And before I knew it, I lost sight of who I was because I was so busy trying to be who they wanted me to be.
In the book The Four Agreements, there is a term used from Toltec wisdom called mitote. Mitote is basically a fog in the mind of a thousand voices, filled with ideas and messages from the world telling who you should be based on what the world says will make you feel loved and accepted. It causes us to see things incorrectly, in a completely distorted way and causes us to deviate from our true path of who we are. We become clouded by who the world says we should be and fight against our true selves. Long story short, the people telling you who you should be are the mitote and we have to silence their voices once and for good. Seriously, think of the mitote as all the messages we get from society and the people we know.
Here are some things to remember when the mitote get too loud:
- Other people’s opinions of you are not your business.
- The greatest prison we will ever live in is the fear of what others think.
- If you live for other people’s acceptance, you will die from their rejection.
- Worry about your character, not your reputation. Your character is who you are, and your reputation is what others think you are.
- Your life isn’t yours if you care about what others think.
Now some of us might struggle because we’ve listened to the mitote too much. If that is you, try answering these questions to help you focus on and re-discover who you really are.
- What did you love doing as a child?
- What are your happiest memories growing up?
- What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?
- What makes you forget to eat?
- What are you willing to stand up for?
- What are you willing to struggle for?
- What makes you forget about the world around you?
- What thoughts provoke strong emotions in your heart?
- What kinds of conversations do you have with the people closest to you?
- What do you feel passionate about?
- If you didn’t have to work a regular job, what would you do with your time?
- What’s on your bucket list?
- If you knew you only had one year to live, what would you do?
- How do you want to be remembered?
