February 18, 2025 • 30 mins
48% of you guys told me via Instagram (@em_led11) that the thing you overthink more than anything else is your personal relationships. And boy do I fall into this category!
But what many of us don't realize is that the way we show up in our relationships is often a reflection of our own inner world and how we see ourselves. When we overthink our own pain, mistakes, or past trauma, we project our perceptions and judgements onto others and start believing that they see us the same way we see ourselves. But this is the work of the devil and is simply NOT true.
This episode talks about the psychology behind why we do this. We also discuss how we can stop caring so much about what EVERYONE thinks of us and instead put more weight on how WE see ourselves and how God sees us :)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
We are all wrestling with something.
Whether you're wrestling with your selfimage, your faith in God, or your entire
life's purpose, I'm here to tell you thatnumber one, you are not alone, and number
two, to encourage you to find both beautyand purpose in the midst of your struggle.
My name is Emlet and this isthe Wrestling With Life Podcast.
(00:24):
What's up beautiful people andwelcome back to Wrestling With Life.
I am your host, Em Ledd.
Y'all, we got a juicy topic today,and we're actually kicking it back
to one of the original topics,one of the original episodes that
I ever recorded on this podcast.
We are talking about why we care so muchabout what everyone thinks about us.
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And how we can stop.
And like I said, this was likethe third episode that I ever
recorded on the podcast before.
And I wanted to rerecord thisbecause it was actually my
most listened to episode ever.
And I think it ties really, really wellinto our series on overthinking because
I polled you guys on Instagram and 48percent of us say that we overthink
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our relationships over anything else.
Peace.
And I think what a lot of us failto realize is that that overthinking
of our personal relationships comesfrom putting way too much weight
on other people's perception of us.
And that actually has something to dowith an issue that we actually have in
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ourselves, which is that we don't fullyaccept ourselves and we judge ourselves.
And so when we're judging ourselves,a lot of times we project.
Onto other people that they must bejudging us or not accepting us or not
liking us too and don't worry We'regonna get way in the weeds with that.
I'm gonna hit you with some psychologyas always some stats And we're gonna
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talk about it because this is somethingthat is a huge huge huge issue for
humans I think we can all relate toJust feeling like someone's mad at us,
or someone doesn't like us, or someonerejects us, judge us, judges us, right?
And that can feel really, really heavy,and that can cause a lot of overthinking.
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But, when we catch ourselves in that,And we realize that we're getting way too
caught up in the opinion of other humanswho sometimes we might not even have a
really good relationship with them, theymight even be a stranger to us, yet we're
obsessing over their perception of us.
Sometimes when we get caught upin that, we're realizing that
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we're putting way too much weight.
on humans opinions, the opinions of man,and we're not thinking about what God
has to say about us, or even sometimeswhat we have to say about ourselves,
and we're failing to realize thatthis is really an issue that we are
creating, a lot of times, out of nothing.
So I want to start off today with twoquotes and then after that I want to
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talk about why we care so much aboutother people's opinions, kind of like
the psychology behind it, and then howwe can kind of shift our perspective
a little bit and not Stop caringaltogether, because I actually think
it's really a good thing that we careso much about other people's opinions,
but how we can shift our perspectiveon it so that we're not absolutely
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spiraling when a stranger doesn't likeus or has something negative to say.
You know what I'm saying?
All right, so let's startout with these quotes.
The first one is by Theodore Roosevelt.
Theo said, I care not what othersthink of what I do, but I care very
much about what I think of what I do.
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That is character.
That's so, so, so wise.
And I think a lot of times when we'reoverthinking someone else's opinion
of our actions, we don't really stopto think, well, what do I think of it?
What do I think of what I just did?
Do I stand behind it?
And if you stand behind it, then whyare you, why are you freaked out?
(04:10):
Why are you worried aboutwhat someone else has to say?
Okay.
And then the second quote, whichI actually think this is more
impactful and more powerful.
Yeah.
And this quote is by Christine Kane.
She said, Until we care more aboutwhat God thinks than what other
people think, we are never truly free.
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Ugh, Christine and Theo are justspitting facts this morning.
Yes, until we care more about whatGod thinks, we are never truly free.
Have you guys ever felt like you're justin bondage because of what someone else
said or thought or spread about you?
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We allow other people's perceptionof us to be a prison, to put
us in a box and to trap us.
And I don't think a lot of us really sitand ask ourselves, why am I putting so
much weight on one other person's opinion?
Well, I'd love to answer thatquestion because there's concrete
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evidence in psychology as towhy we put so much weight on it.
And it actually comes back to survival.
We talk a lot about how our brain iswired for survival on this podcast,
and this is really no different.
And I'd love to take you backto psychology class real quick.
I'd love to shout out my high schoolpsychology professor, Mrs. Sams.
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Love her.
She's actually the reason why Iminored in psych when I got to college.
I just found psychology to besuch an interesting subject and
I ended up studying marketing.
That's what I majored in.
And what's really cool is those twosubjects go hand in hand, but I digress.
Anyways, back to psychology,back to psychology.
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If you guys have ever heard ofMaslow's Hierarchy of Needs, I
want you to just picture a littlepyramid graph in your mind, okay?
And this pyramid is broken intofive little horizontal sections.
And at the base of the pyramid,we have physiological needs, okay?
And what this pyramid is illustratingis kind of like our basic needs
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to be happy and healthy andsurvive in the world, right?
And so at the bottom of theperiod, the pyramid are our
most important basic needs.
And then as we get higher on thepyramid, it's like, okay, once
those basic needs are met here arethe more like psychological mental
level needs that we need to be ourmost happy thriving selves, right?
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So at the bottom of that pyramid, wehave physiological needs at the base.
So that's going to be, you know, eating,sleeping, drinking, fueling your body,
meeting your hunger, meeting your thirst,meeting your, your basic drives, right?
Above that we have safety.
So we have physiological needs and thenon top of that is our safety needs.
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And that's going to be shelter, beingprotected from the elements and you
being safe in general from, from harm.
Then right above that on thepyramid we have love and belonging.
So that's acceptance from otherpeople, love, feeling like
you're part of a tribe, right?
So that's uh, the thirdone on the pyramid.
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The fourth one is esteem.
So having a feeling of significance orimportance, um, any type of prestige.
And then at the very, very top ofthe pyramid is self actualization.
If you guys follow those accounts onInstagram that are talking about like
your highest self or your most enlightenedself, your best self, this is kind
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of referring to self actualization.
And we've talked a lot on the podcast,how the messages of the world.
tell you that you can reachself actualization by yourself.
So the whole thought process is if youmeet your basic needs, your physiological
needs, your safety needs, you know,you get a great support system, you
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start working on yourself and that selfesteem bucket to feel prestige, you can
reach self actualization by yourself.
Right?
The world teaches us with this notionof psychology that we can circumvent
God and reach self actualizationor nirvana or enlightenment or
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whatever you want to call it.
Like this top level, this top, uh,perfect self in your own power.
Right?
And noticed that on the waythere, the third level of the
pyramid is love and belonging.
So we are wired, according to psychology,and this is backed up in the Bible,
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we are wired to have community.
We're wired to have love,love and belonging and we
need a tribe for survival.
Psychology recognizes our basic needfor survival and throwing it back to
back in the day when they're big woollymammoths running around and we're
cavemen and we're kind of functioningfrom a place of survival more than
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like having self esteem and selfactualization as we've evolved over time.
That tribe is needed.
We're wired to want acceptancebecause we correlate that with our
safety, our ability to survive.
And I want to be really clear, in modernday times, it is not a bad thing to
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care about what other people think ofyou and to want love and belonging.
In fact, it's wired in us.
It's something that we can't overcome.
It's part of our human nature.
However, it becomes a problemwhen caring so much about what
other people think is stoppingyou from fulfilling God's calling.
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on your life.
Whoo!
Let that sink in, okay?
There's a really fine line, okay?
It's great to have a tribeof people around you who you
really deeply care about.
You know them.
You know their character.
You know that you value what theyhave to say because they have your
best interests at heart, right?
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They love you.
They want you to be your best self.
So when you're slacking, they'regoing to call you out, right?
These are all really, really good things.
When it becomes bad is when we're puttinga crazy amount of weight on the opinions
of people who don't know us, who have noidea what we've been through, who have
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no idea what makes us tick, who we are,who haven't walked a mile in our shoes.
That's when caring about otherpeople's opinions is never a good
thing and is never, it's never helpful.
Because you're basically filling inthe blanks, you're trying to know what
someone else thinks about you or howthey perceive you without having any
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sort of depth of relationship, right?
We kind of approach this issue,we know it's an issue, we know
it's not good to put that kind ofweight on strangers opinions, right?
So the way that the world tells usto respond and the way that Satan,
actually, whispers in our ear that weshould respond is by putting on this,
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well, I don't give an F mentality.
You hear that so much in our culture,through messages of focus on yourself,
worry about yourself, stay in yourown lane, don't give an F what
anybody thinks about you, right?
And honestly, guys, this is a reallytoxic mentality and I would even
say that it's a demonic mentality.
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It's Satan inspired because Satan willtell you that you don't need anybody else.
He doesn't want you tapped into community.
He doesn't want you caring whatother people think about you.
He wants you cold.
He wants you calloused.
He wants you operating froma place of your pain, right?
He wants you cut off from community.
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He does not want you in community becausewhen we're in community, especially
with other people who love the Lord,that is when we thrive the most and when
Satan's lies can't get to us, right?
Because when we're in our heads and we'reoverthinking and we can share that with
the people around us who love us themost, That's how we get over his lies.
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That's how he can't touch us.
Because we're speaking out loud thesestupid lies that he's whispering in
our ear that we're never going to begood enough, or that we're shameful,
or that we're dirty, or that God's lovecould never possibly redeem us, right?
That's what Satan is, is tryingto get in our heads all the time.
So when we're operating from this placeof, I don't give an F, We've completely
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bought into Satan's lies, and any timethat we're, we're in that space of I
don't care what other people think,it doesn't matter to me, I'm good on
my own, we are almost always operatingfrom a place of pain and past hurt.
and trauma and our past, right?
No one comes into this worldthinking I don't need anybody.
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You pop out the womb a screaming babythat needs someone to take care of
you and you stay that way as a child.
You stay dependent and it's,it's great obviously to grow up
and to function on your own butwe kind of get Calloused, right?
Situations hurt us.
People let us down that we love, andwe allow that to harden our hearts
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and get into this place of, well, Idon't care what anyone thinks about me.
And that's not the waythat God wants us to live.
He wants us to be in community.
So how do we get out of this placewhere, you know, the approach of
not caring what anyone thinks,that's not going to work, right?
But also we can't put so much weight oneveryone in the world's opinion because
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we are never going to be judged fairly byothers who don't really know us, right?
So going back to what I was saying earlierabout projecting, okay, if you guys
don't know what projecting is, this issomething that is really, really important
for you to understand in your life ingeneral, and just in your walk with the
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Lord, because it's really going to helpyou to love others where they're at and
to not take things so personally, okay?
So projecting is basically whenyou have feelings about yourself.
But it's so hard to recognizethat you're feeling this way about
yourself, that you project that.
On to other people and you assumethat they must have those feelings
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towards you or the world or themselveslike it's basically an inability to
separate other people's perspectives andthoughts and experiences from your own.
So you just assume that whatyou're experiencing is what
everyone else must be experiencing.
So for example.
Let's say that you made a really dumbmistake over the weekend, and you really,
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really hurt your romantic partner.
The shame of that mistake that you made,you're telling yourself that you're
dirty, that you messed up, and you'rejust feeling disgusting, and you do the
right thing by telling your partner,you're honest with your partner about it,
but now you're assuming because You'retelling yourself that you're dirty and
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gross and broken and, and unfaithful andtelling yourself all these things, you're
assuming that your partner is feelingthat way towards you, but say that your
partner was like really loving and theywere really understanding about it.
And.
They actually forgave you, and they wantto work through it, but then you're over
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here bogged down by the shame and weightof what you did that you can't see that
that's not what your partner sees in you.
They just see someone who made amistake and, and hurt them, and
they want to work through it, butin your shame, you're projecting.
That they, even though their actionsare telling you something different,
their words are telling you somethingdifferent, you're unable to separate that
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they don't actually see you in that way.
Guys, we do this constantly.
in our relationships, not justromantic, in our friendships too, in
our familial relationships, especiallywhen we have shame or regret.
When we sit in like a shame spiraland we beat ourselves up for how we
let someone down or hurt them, thatis always because we are projecting.
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We are assuming that the waythat we feel about ourself is
how the other person feels.
And guys, a lot of times it's not true.
A lot of times we punish ourselves.
And we're unable to forgive ourselves,and we allow that to damage our
relationships with other people.
So you got to understand that a lotof times when we're in that spiral,
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it's because we're projecting.
And similarly, other people areprojecting on us all the freaking time.
And this is what's really importantto understand with forgiveness is a
lot of times when people do hurt youor they do something dumb, they're
doing that because they're projecting.
How they feel about themselves internallyis showing, and a lot of us are wounded.
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A lot of us have really poor self esteem.
A lot of us are just survivingand trying to get by.
A lot of us are a product of trauma.
So when you realize that, you,it's, it's really hard for
you to take things personally.
It's really hard to take things personallybecause you realize that everyone is just
operating from a place of their own pain.
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A lot of times when people hurtyou, it has nothing to do with you.
So that's projecting.
And not only that, but peopleare making judgments all the
time of you and you of them.
Again, it's wired in us for survival.
We, we have to make snap judgmentsto assess our safety, right?
That's wired in us.
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So, when we're making judgmentsof other people, we are seeing
them through our own unique lens.
And that lens is created from ourexperiences in life, things that have
happened to us, things that other peoplehave said, maybe limiting beliefs that
people have put on us, maybe our religiousupbringing or lack thereof, you know,
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our nature and our nurture, like they're.
All these things that go into this lensof how we perceive everyone around us.
So we are never going to be able to makean unbiased judgment of someone else.
We're never going to ever fully be able tosee someone and understand who they are,
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why they operate the way that they do.
We're always going to have that biasof our own judgment and vice versa.
Nobody else is ever going to beable to see you for who you truly
are because they are coming inwith their own biases, right?
So it's so important for us to realizethat we are judging and projecting a lot.
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Which means that we're going to be wronga lot, and which also means that we
need to depend on the one power, the oneperson who is a perfect, unbiased judge,
who is all knowing and does not have atainted lens, and that man's name is God.
That is Jesus.
Okay?
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So we need to recognize Thatthe way that we are judging is
tainted, and we need to fall backon the Lord for help in that time.
So we got to recognize first thatwe're judging and projecting, and we
also need to, I think when we're inthat shame spiral and we're beating
ourselves up, we need to find a wayto make peace with what happened.
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Right?
We need to accept ourselves as we are.
And we also need to try to get rightin God's eyes because I don't think
it's healthy for us to, you know,look at the mistakes that we're making
and look at ourselves and think thatthere's no work that needs to be done.
Right?
But we also have to acceptthings that we can't change.
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We also have to accept that we are theway that we are and that we're wired a way
that we are to a certain level and that'sa very fine line too and that's going to
take some, some soul searching and someself reflection that you got to do in
your own time and that I can't I can'ttell you how to approach that, right?
But what it really comes back to, andat least I can, I can speak for myself
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here, is that when I'm overthinking arelationship and I'm realizing that I'm
probably projecting, or when I'm beatingmyself up and I'm getting really in my
head about something that happened thatI can't change, this is when I go to God.
This is when I go to God and I'm like, HeyGod, I'm feeling a lot of shame right now.
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I'm finding it really hardto get out of my own way.
I'm really beating myself up,and I have a lot of confusion.
I have a lot of overthinking, and Iknow that there's a lot of projecting
happening right now, and I need your help.
And that is when I almost always justfeel God's love, and I remember that
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God never asked me to be perfect.
He never asked me to To be a perfectfriend, or daughter, or worker,
or whatever it is that I feelI've missed the mark on, right?
He never asked me to do any of that.
In fact, he knew thatI would never be that.
And that's why Jesus died on thecross for me and for you, is He
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knew we could never reach selfactualization by ourself, right?
He knew that He needed tointervene on our behalf.
And that was why he went to the cross.
And when I remind myself of that, thatGod knew I'd be broken from day one, he
knew that I would never, ever, ever inmy own power be able to, to be perfect.
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When I remind myself of that, whew.
The pressure comes off.
The way that I'm wrestling with myselfand wrestling with my relationships and
wrestling with life, that really quiets.
So I go to God, I accept thethings that I can't change.
I feel whatever emotion I'm feeling,that's really important too, is
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to like, really feel that, right?
And to really process that emotion,to cry, to let it out, let it,
let that emotion just, justpass through your body, right?
And I also remember who God says I am.
And God says that I'm his daughter.
God says that I'm beloved.
God says that I bring him great joy.
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God says that he delights in me.
And so this love that I can'tpossibly fathom and imagine,
I just try to sit in that.
And when I do, That reallyalleviates the shame.
It alleviates the projection.
It alleviates the thoughtspiral, the overthinking.
And I realize how much weight I'mputting in the opinions of other people
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who can't possibly see me the way thatGod does because they're clouded by
their own judgment, their own lens.
I realize that a lot of times when Ifeel that others are judging me harshly,
it's because I'm judging others harshly.
And what I need.
Is to receive God's love and thento give that love to other people.
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to realize that God's alreadyjudged me and God already says that
I'm saved and that he loves me.
And so if that's how God sees me, that'show I need to work on seeing other people.
So going back to caring so much aboutwhat other people think, again, it's
really important to have a circle ofpeople around you whose opinions you
really care about and really value.
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And you do go to them for adviceand they do call you out when
you're being an idiot, right?
That is so, so, so, so important.
But it's also important to realize whenyou're putting way too much weight on
that, especially people who you don'treally know and who don't deeply know you.
And when that is happening, you gottatalk back to those intrusive thoughts
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and you have to go to the Lord.
You can get in the Word.
Right?
You can, you can find scripture thatreminds you who you are and that
helps you fight these, these liesthat Satan's putting in your ears.
You gotta, you gotta tellSatan to get behind you.
There are so many times when I outloud will say, get behind me, Satan.
Get out of my head.
Stop whispering lies in my ears.
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And that's when I go to the Lord andthat's when I call on a higher power,
the Lord who has my best interestat heart and who loves me, you know.
And guys, this is a lot easier saidthan done, and more than ever, we
need community in this journey.
We need people who are going to pointus to the truth and to the Lord, and
who are going to come into the trencheswith us, alongside us, and pull us out.
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A lot of times when we are caring somuch about what other people think
about us, it's actually because weare really judging ourselves harshly.
We are really in our heads, weare really beating ourselves up.
And that is not how God wants us to be.
He wants us free.
He doesn't want us in shame.
He doesn't want us in bondage.
Satan's lies.
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So if you're spiraling over otherpeople's opinions of you, first
of all, if you made a mistake.
That makes sense, right,that you're freaking out?
Apologize.
Make it right.
Do what you need to do to fixthe situation and then let it go.
And then make peace with it and thenmove on from it and move forward.
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If you're staying stuck in a shamespiral when you have controlled
the controllables, You've takencare of what you can take care of
and you're still sitting there.
That's because Satan's in your ear That'sbecause you haven't gone to the Lord
and you haven't asked for help That'sbecause you haven't taken this truth
to the community around you and youhaven't asked for help And that's how
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you're going to break free from that.
Okay, there's no shame in admittingthat you're caring too much
about what other people think.
Every single human being on thisplanet has struggled with this
because it's a human struggle.
It's a psychological struggle.
Again, we're all wiredfor love and belonging.
Psychology supports this.
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The Word supports this, believingin God supports this, right?
It's just acknowledging our humanity,acknowledging our, the warfare, the
mental warfare that's in our brain,recognizing that there is a battle
for your mind every single day betweenevil forces and heavenly forces.
There's a battle for it.
And again, it's making a consciouschoice of who are you going to believe?
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Are you going to believe the liesof the enemy who's telling you all
these horrible things about yourself?
Or are you going to believe Godand what God says about you?
Are you going to choose him orare you going to choose the devil?
It's a choice, baby.
And it's not an easy one to make.
And I really encourage you to surroundyourself with people who can speak
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truth in your ears when those noisesand those voices of the world and
Satan are really, really freaking loud.
So again, going back to our quote fromChristine Kane, until we care more
about what God thinks than what otherpeople, and I'm adding this in, and the
world think, we are never truly free.
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We're never truly free, we'll always bein bondage, we'll always be obsessed with
what other people think about us, untilwe learn that, like Theo said, what we
think of ourselves and what God thinksof us, until we learn to care more about
that, we will always be in bondage.
So you guys, I really hope that thisencourages you to let go of outside
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opinions that do not in any way, shape, orform point you to the truth and keep you
stuck and keep you bogged down in bondage.
I really encourage you to take the stepsthat we talked about today to let go of
that and to be free and to fully surrenderto the Lord and what he says about you.
Y'all, I hope you have a fantastic week.
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Thank you so much for tuning intothis episode of Wrestling With
Life and make sure to tune innext week for another episode in
the same series on overthinking.
We're going to keep getting deep, baby.
All right, y'all.
Talk soon.
Bye.
Thank you for listening to theWrestling With Life podcast.
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(29:03):
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(29:48):
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Okay?
A Wrestling With Life podcast andany content posted on my channels is
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or any qualified professional.
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Please don't try to getthrough this by yourself, okay?
You are not alone.
We are all wrestling with something.
Whether you're wrestling with your selfimage, your faith in God, or your entire
life's purpose, I'm here to tell you thatnumber one, you are not alone, and number
two, to encourage you to find both beautyand purpose in the midst of your struggle.
My name is Emlet and this isthe Wrestling With Life Podcast.
(00:24):
What's up beautiful people andwelcome back to Wrestling With Life.
I am your host, Em Ledd.
Y'all, we got a juicy topic today,and we're actually kicking it back
to one of the original topics,one of the original episodes that
I ever recorded on this podcast.
We are talking about why we care so muchabout what everyone thinks about us.
(00:47):
And how we can stop.
And like I said, this was likethe third episode that I ever
recorded on the podcast before.
And I wanted to rerecord thisbecause it was actually my
most listened to episode ever.
And I think it ties really, really wellinto our series on overthinking because
I polled you guys on Instagram and 48percent of us say that we overthink
(01:12):
our relationships over anything else.
Peace.
And I think what a lot of us failto realize is that that overthinking
of our personal relationships comesfrom putting way too much weight
on other people's perception of us.
And that actually has something to dowith an issue that we actually have in
(01:32):
ourselves, which is that we don't fullyaccept ourselves and we judge ourselves.
And so when we're judging ourselves,a lot of times we project.
Onto other people that they must bejudging us or not accepting us or not
liking us too and don't worry We'regonna get way in the weeds with that.
I'm gonna hit you with some psychologyas always some stats And we're gonna
(01:56):
talk about it because this is somethingthat is a huge huge huge issue for
humans I think we can all relate toJust feeling like someone's mad at us,
or someone doesn't like us, or someonerejects us, judge us, judges us, right?
And that can feel really, really heavy,and that can cause a lot of overthinking.
(02:18):
But, when we catch ourselves in that,And we realize that we're getting way too
caught up in the opinion of other humanswho sometimes we might not even have a
really good relationship with them, theymight even be a stranger to us, yet we're
obsessing over their perception of us.
Sometimes when we get caught upin that, we're realizing that
(02:38):
we're putting way too much weight.
on humans opinions, the opinions of man,and we're not thinking about what God
has to say about us, or even sometimeswhat we have to say about ourselves,
and we're failing to realize thatthis is really an issue that we are
creating, a lot of times, out of nothing.
So I want to start off today with twoquotes and then after that I want to
(03:03):
talk about why we care so much aboutother people's opinions, kind of like
the psychology behind it, and then howwe can kind of shift our perspective
a little bit and not Stop caringaltogether, because I actually think
it's really a good thing that we careso much about other people's opinions,
but how we can shift our perspectiveon it so that we're not absolutely
(03:26):
spiraling when a stranger doesn't likeus or has something negative to say.
You know what I'm saying?
All right, so let's startout with these quotes.
The first one is by Theodore Roosevelt.
Theo said, I care not what othersthink of what I do, but I care very
much about what I think of what I do.
(03:47):
That is character.
That's so, so, so wise.
And I think a lot of times when we'reoverthinking someone else's opinion
of our actions, we don't really stopto think, well, what do I think of it?
What do I think of what I just did?
Do I stand behind it?
And if you stand behind it, then whyare you, why are you freaked out?
(04:10):
Why are you worried aboutwhat someone else has to say?
Okay.
And then the second quote, whichI actually think this is more
impactful and more powerful.
Yeah.
And this quote is by Christine Kane.
She said, Until we care more aboutwhat God thinks than what other
people think, we are never truly free.
(04:31):
Ugh, Christine and Theo are justspitting facts this morning.
Yes, until we care more about whatGod thinks, we are never truly free.
Have you guys ever felt like you're justin bondage because of what someone else
said or thought or spread about you?
(04:51):
We allow other people's perceptionof us to be a prison, to put
us in a box and to trap us.
And I don't think a lot of us really sitand ask ourselves, why am I putting so
much weight on one other person's opinion?
Well, I'd love to answer thatquestion because there's concrete
(05:13):
evidence in psychology as towhy we put so much weight on it.
And it actually comes back to survival.
We talk a lot about how our brain iswired for survival on this podcast,
and this is really no different.
And I'd love to take you backto psychology class real quick.
I'd love to shout out my high schoolpsychology professor, Mrs. Sams.
(05:35):
Love her.
She's actually the reason why Iminored in psych when I got to college.
I just found psychology to besuch an interesting subject and
I ended up studying marketing.
That's what I majored in.
And what's really cool is those twosubjects go hand in hand, but I digress.
Anyways, back to psychology,back to psychology.
(05:57):
If you guys have ever heard ofMaslow's Hierarchy of Needs, I
want you to just picture a littlepyramid graph in your mind, okay?
And this pyramid is broken intofive little horizontal sections.
And at the base of the pyramid,we have physiological needs, okay?
And what this pyramid is illustratingis kind of like our basic needs
(06:22):
to be happy and healthy andsurvive in the world, right?
And so at the bottom of theperiod, the pyramid are our
most important basic needs.
And then as we get higher on thepyramid, it's like, okay, once
those basic needs are met here arethe more like psychological mental
level needs that we need to be ourmost happy thriving selves, right?
(06:44):
So at the bottom of that pyramid, wehave physiological needs at the base.
So that's going to be, you know, eating,sleeping, drinking, fueling your body,
meeting your hunger, meeting your thirst,meeting your, your basic drives, right?
Above that we have safety.
So we have physiological needs and thenon top of that is our safety needs.
(07:07):
And that's going to be shelter, beingprotected from the elements and you
being safe in general from, from harm.
Then right above that on thepyramid we have love and belonging.
So that's acceptance from otherpeople, love, feeling like
you're part of a tribe, right?
So that's uh, the thirdone on the pyramid.
(07:28):
The fourth one is esteem.
So having a feeling of significance orimportance, um, any type of prestige.
And then at the very, very top ofthe pyramid is self actualization.
If you guys follow those accounts onInstagram that are talking about like
your highest self or your most enlightenedself, your best self, this is kind
(07:52):
of referring to self actualization.
And we've talked a lot on the podcast,how the messages of the world.
tell you that you can reachself actualization by yourself.
So the whole thought process is if youmeet your basic needs, your physiological
needs, your safety needs, you know,you get a great support system, you
(08:15):
start working on yourself and that selfesteem bucket to feel prestige, you can
reach self actualization by yourself.
Right?
The world teaches us with this notionof psychology that we can circumvent
God and reach self actualizationor nirvana or enlightenment or
(08:35):
whatever you want to call it.
Like this top level, this top, uh,perfect self in your own power.
Right?
And noticed that on the waythere, the third level of the
pyramid is love and belonging.
So we are wired, according to psychology,and this is backed up in the Bible,
(08:57):
we are wired to have community.
We're wired to have love,love and belonging and we
need a tribe for survival.
Psychology recognizes our basic needfor survival and throwing it back to
back in the day when they're big woollymammoths running around and we're
cavemen and we're kind of functioningfrom a place of survival more than
(09:20):
like having self esteem and selfactualization as we've evolved over time.
That tribe is needed.
We're wired to want acceptancebecause we correlate that with our
safety, our ability to survive.
And I want to be really clear, in modernday times, it is not a bad thing to
(09:43):
care about what other people think ofyou and to want love and belonging.
In fact, it's wired in us.
It's something that we can't overcome.
It's part of our human nature.
However, it becomes a problemwhen caring so much about what
other people think is stoppingyou from fulfilling God's calling.
(10:08):
on your life.
Whoo!
Let that sink in, okay?
There's a really fine line, okay?
It's great to have a tribeof people around you who you
really deeply care about.
You know them.
You know their character.
You know that you value what theyhave to say because they have your
best interests at heart, right?
(10:28):
They love you.
They want you to be your best self.
So when you're slacking, they'regoing to call you out, right?
These are all really, really good things.
When it becomes bad is when we're puttinga crazy amount of weight on the opinions
of people who don't know us, who have noidea what we've been through, who have
(10:49):
no idea what makes us tick, who we are,who haven't walked a mile in our shoes.
That's when caring about otherpeople's opinions is never a good
thing and is never, it's never helpful.
Because you're basically filling inthe blanks, you're trying to know what
someone else thinks about you or howthey perceive you without having any
(11:11):
sort of depth of relationship, right?
We kind of approach this issue,we know it's an issue, we know
it's not good to put that kind ofweight on strangers opinions, right?
So the way that the world tells usto respond and the way that Satan,
actually, whispers in our ear that weshould respond is by putting on this,
(11:31):
well, I don't give an F mentality.
You hear that so much in our culture,through messages of focus on yourself,
worry about yourself, stay in yourown lane, don't give an F what
anybody thinks about you, right?
And honestly, guys, this is a reallytoxic mentality and I would even
say that it's a demonic mentality.
(11:52):
It's Satan inspired because Satan willtell you that you don't need anybody else.
He doesn't want you tapped into community.
He doesn't want you caring whatother people think about you.
He wants you cold.
He wants you calloused.
He wants you operating froma place of your pain, right?
He wants you cut off from community.
(12:13):
He does not want you in community becausewhen we're in community, especially
with other people who love the Lord,that is when we thrive the most and when
Satan's lies can't get to us, right?
Because when we're in our heads and we'reoverthinking and we can share that with
the people around us who love us themost, That's how we get over his lies.
(12:34):
That's how he can't touch us.
Because we're speaking out loud thesestupid lies that he's whispering in
our ear that we're never going to begood enough, or that we're shameful,
or that we're dirty, or that God's lovecould never possibly redeem us, right?
That's what Satan is, is tryingto get in our heads all the time.
So when we're operating from this placeof, I don't give an F, We've completely
(12:59):
bought into Satan's lies, and any timethat we're, we're in that space of I
don't care what other people think,it doesn't matter to me, I'm good on
my own, we are almost always operatingfrom a place of pain and past hurt.
and trauma and our past, right?
No one comes into this worldthinking I don't need anybody.
(13:23):
You pop out the womb a screaming babythat needs someone to take care of
you and you stay that way as a child.
You stay dependent and it's,it's great obviously to grow up
and to function on your own butwe kind of get Calloused, right?
Situations hurt us.
People let us down that we love, andwe allow that to harden our hearts
(13:46):
and get into this place of, well, Idon't care what anyone thinks about me.
And that's not the waythat God wants us to live.
He wants us to be in community.
So how do we get out of this placewhere, you know, the approach of
not caring what anyone thinks,that's not going to work, right?
But also we can't put so much weight oneveryone in the world's opinion because
(14:09):
we are never going to be judged fairly byothers who don't really know us, right?
So going back to what I was saying earlierabout projecting, okay, if you guys
don't know what projecting is, this issomething that is really, really important
for you to understand in your life ingeneral, and just in your walk with the
(14:29):
Lord, because it's really going to helpyou to love others where they're at and
to not take things so personally, okay?
So projecting is basically whenyou have feelings about yourself.
But it's so hard to recognizethat you're feeling this way about
yourself, that you project that.
On to other people and you assumethat they must have those feelings
(14:54):
towards you or the world or themselveslike it's basically an inability to
separate other people's perspectives andthoughts and experiences from your own.
So you just assume that whatyou're experiencing is what
everyone else must be experiencing.
So for example.
Let's say that you made a really dumbmistake over the weekend, and you really,
(15:18):
really hurt your romantic partner.
The shame of that mistake that you made,you're telling yourself that you're
dirty, that you messed up, and you'rejust feeling disgusting, and you do the
right thing by telling your partner,you're honest with your partner about it,
but now you're assuming because You'retelling yourself that you're dirty and
(15:42):
gross and broken and, and unfaithful andtelling yourself all these things, you're
assuming that your partner is feelingthat way towards you, but say that your
partner was like really loving and theywere really understanding about it.
And.
They actually forgave you, and they wantto work through it, but then you're over
(16:03):
here bogged down by the shame and weightof what you did that you can't see that
that's not what your partner sees in you.
They just see someone who made amistake and, and hurt them, and
they want to work through it, butin your shame, you're projecting.
That they, even though their actionsare telling you something different,
their words are telling you somethingdifferent, you're unable to separate that
(16:27):
they don't actually see you in that way.
Guys, we do this constantly.
in our relationships, not justromantic, in our friendships too, in
our familial relationships, especiallywhen we have shame or regret.
When we sit in like a shame spiraland we beat ourselves up for how we
let someone down or hurt them, thatis always because we are projecting.
(16:52):
We are assuming that the waythat we feel about ourself is
how the other person feels.
And guys, a lot of times it's not true.
A lot of times we punish ourselves.
And we're unable to forgive ourselves,and we allow that to damage our
relationships with other people.
So you got to understand that a lotof times when we're in that spiral,
(17:14):
it's because we're projecting.
And similarly, other people areprojecting on us all the freaking time.
And this is what's really importantto understand with forgiveness is a
lot of times when people do hurt youor they do something dumb, they're
doing that because they're projecting.
How they feel about themselves internallyis showing, and a lot of us are wounded.
(17:39):
A lot of us have really poor self esteem.
A lot of us are just survivingand trying to get by.
A lot of us are a product of trauma.
So when you realize that, you,it's, it's really hard for
you to take things personally.
It's really hard to take things personallybecause you realize that everyone is just
operating from a place of their own pain.
(18:02):
A lot of times when people hurtyou, it has nothing to do with you.
So that's projecting.
And not only that, but peopleare making judgments all the
time of you and you of them.
Again, it's wired in us for survival.
We, we have to make snap judgmentsto assess our safety, right?
That's wired in us.
(18:23):
So, when we're making judgmentsof other people, we are seeing
them through our own unique lens.
And that lens is created from ourexperiences in life, things that have
happened to us, things that other peoplehave said, maybe limiting beliefs that
people have put on us, maybe our religiousupbringing or lack thereof, you know,
(18:44):
our nature and our nurture, like they're.
All these things that go into this lensof how we perceive everyone around us.
So we are never going to be able to makean unbiased judgment of someone else.
We're never going to ever fully be able tosee someone and understand who they are,
(19:06):
why they operate the way that they do.
We're always going to have that biasof our own judgment and vice versa.
Nobody else is ever going to beable to see you for who you truly
are because they are coming inwith their own biases, right?
So it's so important for us to realizethat we are judging and projecting a lot.
(19:29):
Which means that we're going to be wronga lot, and which also means that we
need to depend on the one power, the oneperson who is a perfect, unbiased judge,
who is all knowing and does not have atainted lens, and that man's name is God.
That is Jesus.
Okay?
(19:49):
So we need to recognize Thatthe way that we are judging is
tainted, and we need to fall backon the Lord for help in that time.
So we got to recognize first thatwe're judging and projecting, and we
also need to, I think when we're inthat shame spiral and we're beating
ourselves up, we need to find a wayto make peace with what happened.
(20:14):
Right?
We need to accept ourselves as we are.
And we also need to try to get rightin God's eyes because I don't think
it's healthy for us to, you know,look at the mistakes that we're making
and look at ourselves and think thatthere's no work that needs to be done.
Right?
But we also have to acceptthings that we can't change.
(20:38):
We also have to accept that we are theway that we are and that we're wired a way
that we are to a certain level and that'sa very fine line too and that's going to
take some, some soul searching and someself reflection that you got to do in
your own time and that I can't I can'ttell you how to approach that, right?
But what it really comes back to, andat least I can, I can speak for myself
(21:00):
here, is that when I'm overthinking arelationship and I'm realizing that I'm
probably projecting, or when I'm beatingmyself up and I'm getting really in my
head about something that happened thatI can't change, this is when I go to God.
This is when I go to God and I'm like, HeyGod, I'm feeling a lot of shame right now.
(21:21):
I'm finding it really hardto get out of my own way.
I'm really beating myself up,and I have a lot of confusion.
I have a lot of overthinking, and Iknow that there's a lot of projecting
happening right now, and I need your help.
And that is when I almost always justfeel God's love, and I remember that
(21:41):
God never asked me to be perfect.
He never asked me to To be a perfectfriend, or daughter, or worker,
or whatever it is that I feelI've missed the mark on, right?
He never asked me to do any of that.
In fact, he knew thatI would never be that.
And that's why Jesus died on thecross for me and for you, is He
(22:03):
knew we could never reach selfactualization by ourself, right?
He knew that He needed tointervene on our behalf.
And that was why he went to the cross.
And when I remind myself of that, thatGod knew I'd be broken from day one, he
knew that I would never, ever, ever inmy own power be able to, to be perfect.
(22:28):
When I remind myself of that, whew.
The pressure comes off.
The way that I'm wrestling with myselfand wrestling with my relationships and
wrestling with life, that really quiets.
So I go to God, I accept thethings that I can't change.
I feel whatever emotion I'm feeling,that's really important too, is
(22:49):
to like, really feel that, right?
And to really process that emotion,to cry, to let it out, let it,
let that emotion just, justpass through your body, right?
And I also remember who God says I am.
And God says that I'm his daughter.
God says that I'm beloved.
God says that I bring him great joy.
(23:11):
God says that he delights in me.
And so this love that I can'tpossibly fathom and imagine,
I just try to sit in that.
And when I do, That reallyalleviates the shame.
It alleviates the projection.
It alleviates the thoughtspiral, the overthinking.
And I realize how much weight I'mputting in the opinions of other people
(23:34):
who can't possibly see me the way thatGod does because they're clouded by
their own judgment, their own lens.
I realize that a lot of times when Ifeel that others are judging me harshly,
it's because I'm judging others harshly.
And what I need.
Is to receive God's love and thento give that love to other people.
(23:55):
to realize that God's alreadyjudged me and God already says that
I'm saved and that he loves me.
And so if that's how God sees me, that'show I need to work on seeing other people.
So going back to caring so much aboutwhat other people think, again, it's
really important to have a circle ofpeople around you whose opinions you
really care about and really value.
(24:17):
And you do go to them for adviceand they do call you out when
you're being an idiot, right?
That is so, so, so, so important.
But it's also important to realize whenyou're putting way too much weight on
that, especially people who you don'treally know and who don't deeply know you.
And when that is happening, you gottatalk back to those intrusive thoughts
(24:37):
and you have to go to the Lord.
You can get in the Word.
Right?
You can, you can find scripture thatreminds you who you are and that
helps you fight these, these liesthat Satan's putting in your ears.
You gotta, you gotta tellSatan to get behind you.
There are so many times when I outloud will say, get behind me, Satan.
Get out of my head.
Stop whispering lies in my ears.
(24:59):
And that's when I go to the Lord andthat's when I call on a higher power,
the Lord who has my best interestat heart and who loves me, you know.
And guys, this is a lot easier saidthan done, and more than ever, we
need community in this journey.
We need people who are going to pointus to the truth and to the Lord, and
who are going to come into the trencheswith us, alongside us, and pull us out.
(25:25):
A lot of times when we are caring somuch about what other people think
about us, it's actually because weare really judging ourselves harshly.
We are really in our heads, weare really beating ourselves up.
And that is not how God wants us to be.
He wants us free.
He doesn't want us in shame.
He doesn't want us in bondage.
Satan's lies.
(25:47):
So if you're spiraling over otherpeople's opinions of you, first
of all, if you made a mistake.
That makes sense, right,that you're freaking out?
Apologize.
Make it right.
Do what you need to do to fixthe situation and then let it go.
And then make peace with it and thenmove on from it and move forward.
(26:07):
If you're staying stuck in a shamespiral when you have controlled
the controllables, You've takencare of what you can take care of
and you're still sitting there.
That's because Satan's in your ear That'sbecause you haven't gone to the Lord
and you haven't asked for help That'sbecause you haven't taken this truth
to the community around you and youhaven't asked for help And that's how
(26:29):
you're going to break free from that.
Okay, there's no shame in admittingthat you're caring too much
about what other people think.
Every single human being on thisplanet has struggled with this
because it's a human struggle.
It's a psychological struggle.
Again, we're all wiredfor love and belonging.
Psychology supports this.
(26:50):
The Word supports this, believingin God supports this, right?
It's just acknowledging our humanity,acknowledging our, the warfare, the
mental warfare that's in our brain,recognizing that there is a battle
for your mind every single day betweenevil forces and heavenly forces.
There's a battle for it.
And again, it's making a consciouschoice of who are you going to believe?
(27:14):
Are you going to believe the liesof the enemy who's telling you all
these horrible things about yourself?
Or are you going to believe Godand what God says about you?
Are you going to choose him orare you going to choose the devil?
It's a choice, baby.
And it's not an easy one to make.
And I really encourage you to surroundyourself with people who can speak
(27:35):
truth in your ears when those noisesand those voices of the world and
Satan are really, really freaking loud.
So again, going back to our quote fromChristine Kane, until we care more
about what God thinks than what otherpeople, and I'm adding this in, and the
world think, we are never truly free.
(27:56):
We're never truly free, we'll always bein bondage, we'll always be obsessed with
what other people think about us, untilwe learn that, like Theo said, what we
think of ourselves and what God thinksof us, until we learn to care more about
that, we will always be in bondage.
So you guys, I really hope that thisencourages you to let go of outside
(28:19):
opinions that do not in any way, shape, orform point you to the truth and keep you
stuck and keep you bogged down in bondage.
I really encourage you to take the stepsthat we talked about today to let go of
that and to be free and to fully surrenderto the Lord and what he says about you.
Y'all, I hope you have a fantastic week.
(28:41):
Thank you so much for tuning intothis episode of Wrestling With
Life and make sure to tune innext week for another episode in
the same series on overthinking.
We're going to keep getting deep, baby.
All right, y'all.
Talk soon.
Bye.
Thank you for listening to theWrestling With Life podcast.
If this episode sparked something inyour brain or made you think of someone
(29:03):
specific, please share it with them.
Let someone else know that they arenot alone in their struggles today.
And please rate the podcast onwhatever platform you're listening on.
If you're a Spotify listener, you canleave a comment on this episode with
your thoughts on what we covered,and I want to hear about what God
is doing in your life, so tell me.
And if you're hungry for even moreinspirational content just like
(29:25):
this, you can give me a follow onInstagram at EM underscore LED11.
I am always posting polls toget a gauge on what everyone
is struggling with out there.
There sharing everyday little lifemoments and encouraging all of us
to find both beauty and purpose inthe midst of our daily struggles.
So come join in on the good vibesand real quick before you go, this
(29:48):
is just a little quick reminderon what this podcast is not.
Okay?
A Wrestling With Life podcast andany content posted on my channels is
presented solely for informationaland educational purposes.
The use of this information is at your ownrisk and should not be substituted for the
advice of a therapist, pastor, or lawyer.
(30:08):
or any qualified professional.
If you're struggling with your mentalhealth, please consider seeking
professional help or contacting the988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
Please don't try to getthrough this by yourself, okay?
You are not alone.
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