We think so much about the opinions of others that our “real I” is often lost. How to stop looking at others and why you need to do it.
Even in childhood, in a given situation, we understand that you cannot always say what is on your mind. If you do not fall into the tone of the majority opinion, they will laugh at you. Okay, still school years, but the rules of behavior learned in childhood continue to work in adulthood. Moreover, the orientation towards public opinion is a real hysteria that is spreading in cultures around the world. On the one hand, there is nothing wrong with that, many people live like this all their lives, but HOW do they live and how they could live if they listened to themselves and were not afraid of society?
Irrational obsession with public opinion
There are no random events in evolution, and to understand the real reason for this madness, let's go back to 50,000 BC. BC, when your distant ancestor lived in a small tribe.
Being part of this tribe is very important for him, survival depends on it. Ancient people hunt together, protect each other, and outcasts die. So for your distant ancestor, there is nothing more important than agreement with his fellow tribesmen, especially with reputable alpha males.
If he does not agree with everyone and please the people of his tribe, he will be recognized as strange, annoying and unpleasant, and then they will be expelled from the tribe altogether and left to die alone.
If he pursues a woman from his tribe and their relationship ends before it begins, she will tell all the women of the tribe about his failure. And all the women with whom he could have a relationship, having learned about the failure, will also reject him.
So staying in society at that time was everything, and everything was done in order to be accepted.
Many years have passed, but social hysteria continues to torment people. Now we do not need approval from every person so much, but the search for social approval and the paralyzing fear of not being liked by other people seems to have remained in our genes and does not intend to disappear anywhere.
Let's call this obsession with the social survival mammoth, or the inner mammoth. It looks something like this:
For your distant cave ancestor, having an inner mammoth was the key to survival and prosperity. It was simple: feed the mammoth well with social approval and watch closely for his fears of disagreement, and everything will be fine.
This system worked perfectly 50,000 BC. NS. And 30,000 BC. e., and even 20,000 years after that. But gradually the society changed, and along with it the needs changed. And biology did not have time to adapt to it, which is strange, until now.
Our body and our mind are still made as if we are going to live in 50,000 BC. NS. This caveman style of social survival is no longer relevant, but it continues to torment us.
Now we are still being haunted by a large, hungry and fearful mammoth, who still thinks like in 50,000 BC. NS.
Otherwise, why are you going through four outfits, but can't decide what to wear?
Mammoth nightmares about bad experiences with the opposite sex made your ancestors wary and quick-witted, but now the mammoth's advice makes you just indecisive and pathetic.
The mammoth constantly has outbursts of fear, he is afraid of public censure, and this plays a huge role in many areas of life.
This is the reason why you are afraid to go to a restaurant or a movie alone, because it is weird. The reason is that parents worry too much about which college their child will go to. The reason for marriages without love and a lucrative career without dedication and passion for their work.
The mammoth must be fed, and fed constantly. He feeds on approval and the feeling that he is on the right side in any moral and social dilemma.
Why else do you choose your Facebook photos so carefully? Why brag to your friends, even if you later regret it?
Society is interested in supporting this mammoth-dependent model. It introduces titles and awards, the very concept of prestige, to keep the mammoth content and force people to do essentially unnecessary things and live a flawed life that they would never have chosen if it were not for the mammoth.
In addition, the mammoth wants to adapt and be like everyone else. He looks around all the time to understand what other people are doing, and when he understands, he immediately copies their behavior. To see this, just look at the photos of two college graduates from different years.
"Acceptable" prestigious education has also become part of mammoth food.
Sometimes the mammoth does not focus on the general public, but on gaining the approval of the puppeteer. This is a person or group of people whose opinion means SO much to you that it actually determines every aspect of your life.
Puppeteers are often the parents or the ringleaders in the company of friends. You can even make a new person or an unfamiliar celebrity your puppeteer (which teens often do).
We desire our puppeteer's approval more than anyone else, and are terrified at the thought that we might disappoint or upset him.
In such a poisoned relationship with the puppeteer, your opinions and moral convictions completely belong to him, and it depends on him what they will be.
And while the needs of the inner mammoth take so much thought and energy, there is always someone else in your brain. He is always in the very center of your Self - this is your true voice.
Your true voice knows everything about you. In contrast to the strict dualism of a simple mammoth, for which there is only white and black, the true voice is all-embracing and complex, sometimes not very clear, constantly evolving and not aware of fear.
Your true voice has its own moral principles based on experience, feelings and personal views, compassion and honesty.
He knows how you feel about money, family and relationships; which people, interests, and activities you really enjoy and which don't. Your true voice knows it doesn't know how your life should go, but it senses the right path.
While the mammoth, when making decisions, focuses only on the outside world, the true voice uses the outside world to collect and learn information, but when the time for decisions comes, everything it needs is already in the brain.
The mammoth constantly ignores the authentic voice. For example, if a self-confident person expresses his opinion, the whole mammoth turns into a hearing. And the desperate pleas of the inner voice are dismissed and ignored until someone expresses such a point of view.
And when our brains, acting according to the laws of distant ancestors, continue to give too much power to the mammoth, the true voice begins to feel superfluous. He becomes silent, loses motivation and disappears.
Eventually, a person ruled by a mammoth loses touch with their original voice. During tribal times, this was normal, because all that was needed was to agree and conform, and the mammoth copes with this perfectly.
But today, when the world has become much wider and fuller, and people are faced with many cultures and individuals, opinions and opportunities, the loss of an inner voice becomes a danger.
When you don't know who you really are, the only decision-making mechanism you have left is the outdated needs of your emotional mammoth.
And when it comes to the most personal and most important questions, instead of plunging into yourself and finding the answer to all the questions in the vague variability of your Self, you just look at those around you and look for answers in them. As a result, you become some kind of mixture of the strongest opinions of those around you. And certainly not by herself.
Also, losing contact with the authentic voice makes you weak. When your personality is supported only by the approval and acceptance of the people around you, criticizing and judging others will be really painful.
Of course, defeat is painful enough for everyone, but for people led by a mammoth, it matters much more than for people with a strong authentic voice.
People with a developed "real I" have an inner core that helps them to hold on and continue to do their job, and a mammoth-addicted person has only the desire to correspond to others and no core, so failures for him are a real disaster.
For example, do you know people who do not know how to accept even constructive criticism, and sometimes can even take revenge for it? These people are obsessed with the mammoth, and they are so furious about criticism because they cannot bear the disapproval.
After all that has been said, it becomes clear: you need to find a way to curb your inner mammoth. This is the only way to get life back into your own hands and control it.
How to find and tame your inner mammoth
Some people are born with a clever tame mammoth, or raising them helps keep the mammoth in check. Others, until their death, never try to tame their mammoth and fulfill its whims all their lives. Most of us are somewhere in between: in some life situations we control our mammoth, in others it harms us.
If you are ruled by a mammoth, this does not mean at all that you are a bad or weak person. You just haven't learned how to manage it yet. You may not even be aware of the existence of a mammoth and that your real self is huddled in a corner and is silent.
Whatever your situation, you must keep the mammoth under control. Here are three steps to help you do this.
Step 1: check yourself
The first step is to honestly and fairly assess what's going on in your head. There are three parts to this step.
1. Get to know your authentic voice
It seems that it is not difficult, but in fact it is very even. You need to make serious efforts to wade through the web of thoughts and opinions of other people and understand your "real self".
You spend time with a lot of people, which of them do you really like? How do you spend your free time and do you really like all of its components?
Are there things that you regularly spend money on but don't feel any pleasure from them? How do you feel about your work and social status? What are your political convictions?
Have you thought about it at all? Do you pretend to care about things just to have an opinion? Maybe you have your own opinion on some political and moral issues that you have never voiced, because the people you know will be outraged?
These are common questions for exploring the soul or finding oneself, but it really needs to be done. Maybe you can think about it right now, wherever you are, or maybe you need a special atmosphere: retire further, be alone with yourself and only then plunge into reflection.
In any case, you need to find out what really matters to you, and start to be proud of your authentic voice, "real I".
2. Find out where the mammoth is hiding
Most of the time, when the mammoth is under control, the person does not even realize it. But you cannot succeed if you are not sure exactly where the biggest problems lie.
The most obvious way to spot a mammoth is to find out where your fears nest, in which area shame and embarrassment most often arise. When you think about a particular area of your life, you are overwhelmed by a terrible feeling, a sense of failure, and this failure seems like a nightmare. What is this sphere?
You are afraid to start something, even if you know that you are good at it. What areas of your life definitely need change, but you avoid changes in them and do nothing?
The second place where the mammoth hides is the overly pleasant feelings that arise when you agree with other people. Do you really please people at work and in your personal life? Are you intimidated by the possibility of disagreeing with your parents? Between their pride in you and the opportunity to please yourself, do you choose the first one?
The third field where the mammoth hides is when you cannot make decisions without the approval of other people. Or you can, but you feel very uncomfortable. Which of your opinions and beliefs belong to you and not to other people? Do you hold these opinions because others say so?
If you introduce your new boyfriend / girlfriend to family and friends and no one likes your passion, can their attitude change your feelings? Is there a person in your life who controls you like a puppet? If so, who is he and why are you allowing it?
3. Decide where to take control of the mammoth
It is impossible to completely throw the mammoth out of my head, after all, we are people. But what really needs to be done is to get rid of its influence from some areas of life that simply have to be under the control of your true Self.
These are obvious areas such as mate choice, career choice, and parenting. The rest of the areas are individual and are determined through a simple question: "In which areas of my life should I be completely honest with myself?"
Step 2: bolder, the mammoth has a low IQ
True woolly mammoths were foolish enough to go extinct, and social mammoth survival is no better. Despite the fact that they haunt us, mammoths are stupid, primitive creatures who do not understand the modern world.
Feel and realize this deeply. This is the key to subduing your mammoth. There are two good reasons not to take your mammoth seriously.
1. Mammoth fears are irrational
The mammoth has five global errors.
→ Everyone is talking about me and my life, and just think what they all will say if I do this risky or strange thing!
Nobody cares about how you live and what you create. Most people think only of themselves.
→ If I try, I can please everyone.
Yes, this can happen if you live in a tribe of 40 people united by one culture. But in the modern world, it doesn't matter who you are and how you behave. Some people will love you, others will hate you or just dislike you.
If some people approve of you, you piss off others. So a strong desire to please one group of people is illogical and wrong, especially if you do not strongly support their views. You make a remarkable effort to please one group of people, while other people who could become true friends will never wait for your company.
→ If they condemn me, look down on me or say nasty things about me, this will cause serious consequences in my life.
The person who condemns you or your actions is not even in the same room with you, or at least directly next to you. This is what happens in 99.7% of cases. It is a classic mammoth mistake to imagine social consequences that are much worse and worse than what actually happens. In reality, other people's opinions mean practically nothing and do not affect life in any way.
→ People who judge me matter.
This is what is going on in the minds of people who like to condemn others: they are completely under the control of the mammoth and are looking for the same friends-puppets of the mammoth. The favorite pastime of such people is to get together and wash the bones of everyone.
Maybe they are jealous, and throwing mud at other people helps them to be jealous a little less. Or they just enjoy basking in gloating. In any case, these judgmental tirades serve as excellent food for the mammoth.
When someone is judged, gossipers always find themselves on the other, "right side" and feel white and fluffy. It is unpleasant to realize that at your expense someone feels beautiful and immaculate, but in fact it does not affect your life in any way.
