Today I heard a good story about a couple and a donkey. It goes like this:
” A couple bought a donkey from the market. On the way home, a boy commented, ‘Very stupid. Why neither of them ride on the donkey?’ Upon hearing that, the husband let the wife ride on the donkey. He walked besides them. Later, an old man saw it and commented, ‘the husband is the head of family. How can the wife ride on the donkey while the husband is on foot?’ Hearing this, the wife quickly got down and let the husband ride on the donkey.
Further on the way home, they met an old lady. She commented, ‘how can the man ride on the donkey but let the wife walk. He is no gentleman.’ The husband thus quickly asked the wife to join him on the donkey. Then, they met a young man. He commented, ‘poor donkey, how can you hold up the weight of two persons? They are cruel to you.’ Hearing that, the husband and wife immediately climbed down from the donkey and carried it on their shoulders. It seems to be the only choice left. Later, on a narrow bridge, the donkey was frightened and struggled. They lost their balance and fell into the river.” (Source: http://theblissofbeing.blogspot.co.at/)
This story tells you that you will NEVER satisfy others, no matter what you do! No matter what decision you make, there’ll always be somebody who’ll criticize your choice. You may not end up as tragically as the couple in the story, but your life will be miserable and you will never be FREE because your HAPPINESS will depend on others. We’ve all been there, the only difference is how we respond to that and how are the “others” affecting us and our lives.
Even though you may think you are independent and you don’t care what others think about you, just look at your emotions next time when somebody criticizes you or argues with you. Observe what the INSIDE YOU is telling you. Do you hear something like: “I don’t feel good right now”, “He/she* is a bad person! (*I will use female gender further in the text because of the simplicity of writing, but it applies for men as well), or do you hear: “I am not going to let her bring me down!” or maybe “I want to run away and be alone!”. Observe your EMOTIONS when somebody tells you something you don’t like, when somebody offends you or doesn’t get your ideas, or doesn’t notice you at all. Notice your FACE expression , look at your EYES in the mirror, listen to your SOUL in the silence. How are you doing? Answer it honestly and don’t ignore that feeling.
If you are like most of the people, you are surely feeling worse about yourself in such situations, because you don’t feel accepted and loved any more, you didn’t get the attention you expected or something didn’t worked out the way you wanted. You are in one way or another DEPENDENT on other people’s opinions and it bothers you when others don’t appreciate you the way you think you deserve. Then, you BLAME OTHERS and maybe even push them away, or you get apologetic or aggressive. People are acting differently in such situations, but actually they are mostly only disturbed about it, some more, some less. In the worse scenario, you isolate yourself from others in order to escape the world full of awful comments and negative thoughts you cannot bear. You want to be somebody else, you want to run away, you would rather die then go though that emotions again…
No matter if this goes to the psychotic state of panic or depression or if it’s just a “harmless bad mood day”, I recommend you GET OUT of that state NOW. There is no happy end to it. Do whatever you need to do to move out of that mindset. If you don’t do something about it, it can only get worse and then, it will explode in ways you don’t want to know…
How can we become truly free from others and their opinions, words, critique, arguments, comments, negative energy or ignorance or their behavior towards us? Only by CHANGING our mindsets and the way we see those situations, the way we see others. The change has to happen in us, not in “them”, and the change will happen if we work on ourselves and if we become AWARE of our thoughts and our feelings and then start to change them. We might never become 100% free because I guess only spiritual teachers and gurus reached that state of liberation, but we could do everything we can to get us as closer to absolute freedom as possible. This is a way towards that freedom:
1.) Get to know your feelings and yourself.
Ask yourself- How would I describe my feelings? Is it anger? Is it sadness? Is it disappointment? Is it jealousy? Is it all mixed up? Why am I feeling like this? Why is this person so powerful over my feelings? Why am I letting her change the way I feel? How would I feel if that person wasn’t in my life right now? Why is this person bigger than me? Why is her opinion more important than mine? Who is this person? What are her intentions? Is she right?
2.) Learn to love yourself.
You can read this and think: “blah, I know this, I heard that million times already”, but if you really love yourself, you wouldn’t feel bad for getting only 10 likes for your new Facebook profile picture. You are a slave to others as long as you let them create your mood and your self-respect. If you are searching for “messages” from the outside like: “I like you”, “I love you”, “I support you”… in any form and in any situation, you are not loving yourself enough. A person who loves herself, doesn’t need a confirmation from others that she is beautiful, smart, happy, nice, good, funny, worthy…She knows her qualities and feels good about herself no matter what others say or think. She is confident in her own skin and she knows her flaws, but accepts them and celebrates them, reacting to the critique and comments with a smile, not with insecurity. If you don’t love yourself, you will see judgement and critique at every turn because that’s the only thing you are thinking about. Let’s say, you see a group of people smiling at you and you think: “Oh, they must be mocking at me!”. But what if they are talking about a surprise birthday present for you and coming up with funny ideas? Either way, you are killing yourself with negative thoughts and probably repeating that moment in your head over and over again, until you reach a state of total self-disrespect, but why? What is the point??
3.) Change the way you look at others.
The shift has to happen in you. You are the one who can control your own mind, thoughts and emotions. Others are just looking at you the way they are. This is something I learned recently and I think this thought is so amazing. If a person tells you you are ugly, it is because she is insecure in her own looks! If she tells you you are not smart enough, it’s because she doubts in herself too! If she is laughing at your mistakes, it is because she is trying to hide hers! It is the perspective that changed my life. People see things the way they are!! We are all vulnerable beings and we all need help and support. If you look at others that way, you will not only help yourself, but also you’ll help others. Observe your own opinion about others, too. You’ll be surprised what you’ll discover about yourself! I tell you- no one is innocent.
Let go of that “fear of others” because they are just like you. We are all wearing masks and protecting ourselves and our emotions from the “others”. We are all humans and we all need love. If you start searching for that love inside of yourself, you will be happy no matter what the rest of the world thought about you. And if you are truly happy with yourself, all the negativity from other people will just melt away around you, just like ice melts in the warm Sun.
It is so boring to please others all the time, to worry all the time about other people, to ask yourself all the time what others will say or think. Give yourself a break and enjoy life a bit. This song always cheers me up
