My whole life I have heard things like, "Other people's opinions don't matter" or "You shouldn't care what other people think", and I have admired the sentiment and desired to feel such a way. Nevertheless, the philosophy never seemed to stick.
I did not occur to me until I started therapy recently why it is so hard to adopt new mentalities and ways of perceiving the world: certain beliefs cannot coexist together and must systematically be replaced over time.
I wanted to stop caring about what other people thought, but I still possessed the belief that my intrinsic self-value was diminishable and could be taken away. These two beliefs cannot coexist. In order to truly stop caring what people thought, I needed to understand that my intrinsic self-value is untouchable: nobody has access to it or the power to diminish it.
The easiest way for me to think of it is like a clock: certain gears of certain sizes don't fit together. In order for certain gears to be placed into the clock, other gears must be replaced so that the new gear has room to fit. This isn't a perfect analogy, but the point is, some things just don't fit together and function. No person on earth has true security if the only thing in the world they care about is other people's opinions. It's impossible. People who are truly secure understand that their opinion (and the opinion of a select few they deeply respect and trust) are the only opinions that matter. You can't make everyone happy, and truly secure people don't feel a need to.
Therapy is useful because it can enable you to get a good look at your "cogs" with another person, and decide which ones are servicing you, and which ones are causing you to "malfunction" or "jam". Healthy intraspection can do this as well. Slowly replacing defective or oversized cogs with functional, appropriately sized cogs will enable you to develop a mentality you value, respect, and deserve. It has taken me 10 years, but I have finally replaced enough cogs that my mind can accept this new cog of under-valuing strangers' opinions, and this replacement will lay the foundation for other beliefs to take place as well.
In summary, developing a new mentality takes time. It starts with getting to the root fallacy and disarming it so that it cannot lie to you anymore--or getting rid of defective cogs. Getting a clocksmith (therapist) to intraspect with you, can be an effective tool to disarm those lies and help you replace old cogs with more functional cogs. As you get rid of the bigger, underlying issues, the smaller truths and philosophies will be easier to instill, and overlay. Over enough time, your entire clock will be designed in a fully functional way.
"And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:32
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Nothing will really change as long as your mind is carnally focused. True change comes through the renewing of the mind through the Word of God. All of those therapists would be out of business if they stopped pushing all of that watered down stuff. There are even statistics that show reading the Word transforms people on many levels and that is just surface level stuff. I am talking about allowing the Word to really get in your heart. But everyone is busy making excuses not to read the Bible, but they are fine with consistently reading the junk in magazines.
I don't disagree with you. I'm a Christian as well. But even for God to be able to implant His Word, He must remove fallacies first.
When you read, hear and meditate on the Word, you are shown the truth. It is living and powerful. Those therapists are not on our side.
by reflecting on your current mentality and analyzing if it serves you or not and what mentality could serve you better.
trying to adopt a new mentality without knowing for sure that a now one will benefit you is nonsensical.
BRO! I swear you gotta have some high iq and some good knowledge there. Well said 💯
@genericname85
It's just one of those things where you don't always think about it deeply, about how much every correlates. People tell you to think a certain way and you admire the philosophy, but people and yourself don't realize how much work it'll take to actually get there.
This is also sort of a testament to people who expect people to change quickly. The truth is: you can't.
@Rosexøxø Haha nah, but thank you. I'm glad you got something out of it!
well not thinking about it deeply certainly won't help. you gotta do that at least one time. once it's crystal clear to you why the new mentality is better than the old one and there's no doubt on your mind about it, you really can not turn back to the old mentality.
i said nothing at all about it being a quick process. just telling how it works is quick and easy. doing it certainly is not.
@Rosexøxø i'm really not. but happy that you liked what i said.
Sure :]