Today we are talking about how to stop others from making you feel bad. One of the things that so many people struggle with when making big changes in their lives is the judgement they’re subjected to from other people.

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This is such a huge issue for so many people, and in fact, fear of judgement is one of the four biggest dream-killing fears out there. It is such a big problem that I actually have a whole chapter dedicated to it in my book fearLESS: How to Conquer Your Fear, Stop Playing Small, and Start Living an Extraordinary Life You Love.

A reader’s question

Today, we’re looking at a very specific aspect of fear of judgement, and we’re going to respond to a question I got from a blog reader who has been dealing with a lot of external judgement in her life and who asks:

“How can we take things better, i.e., how can we not shed tears, get angry, feel awful, or feel bad things in general? How can we not take things so seriously and how do we get to NOT feeling that we have been wronged by other people?”

So, our Awesome Reader basically wants to know how to shift her perspective or her thought processes so that she doesn’t take it badly or get upset when people say or do things that are mean or judgemental. How can she react better to these kinds of situations so that she’s not bringing her own vibe down in response to these other people’s words and actions?

Co-creation and dominant vibes

So the first thing to remember in any kind of situation that involves more than person is that what you’re dealing with is a co-creation situation. The situation itself is being molded by the energies of all the individuals involved. And there’s usually a power imbalance in these types of situations that dictates what happens, in the sense that whoever happens to be more strongly rooted in their vibration is the one who will dominate the situation.

For example, if you’re in a relatively high vibrational state (you’re feeling something positive, basically) and someone else is in a low vibrational state, one of three things will happen:

• you will help to bring them up to a higher vibe;
• they will bring you down to their lower vibe; or
• both vibes will be equally stable, and you’ll push away from each other like magnets.

In other words, if you’re more stable in your high-vibration, you’ll make the other person feel better. If the other person is more stable in their lower vibration then they will make you feel worse, and you’ll drop down to that lower vibe.

When you can take that step back and assess the situation in this way, it helps to restore your own power. Remember that, no matter what the circumstance happens to be, you are never a victim until you choose to see yourself as such.

Responding vs reacting

So the element of choice comes into play here. Remember that there is a difference between reacting and responding to a situation. Reacting implies a blind, instant judgement from your reptilian brain that this situation is a threat – you either lash out or you run away, instinctively, without thinking. Responding to a situation, however, involves a more reasoned, thoughtful reply from the higher, more evolved levels of your brain.

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The key is conditioning yourself to wait just long enough for that higher-level reasoning to kick in before you act. Doing that, however, can be really hard sometimes because our emotions in these situations tend to be very powerful – overwhelming even – and taking that moment to reframe the situation can be difficult when your fight-or-flight response is in full swing.

Don’t hand over your power

It does get easier with practice, though. And sometimes it helps to remember that when you drop to a lower vibe, what you’re doing is handing your power over to the other person and allowing them to call the shots in your reality/experience of life.

You’re focusing on the other person and all the power they have. THEY love to cause turmoil. THEY shift you out of your vibration. THEY are being ridiculous. THEY are spitting out poison and making you upset.

Always remember that YOU are the main creative force in your own life. Eleanor Roosevelt once said that “no one can make you feel inferior without your consent”. People can be mean and nasty, but you don’t have to let their attitudes poison your own life and your own reality.

Assessing your feelings

No one can make you feel anything. Your feelings are the result of how you choose to interpret the interactions you are experiencing. Sometimes it’s hard not to feel hurt by the things that other people say and do, but whatever negativity they are spewing at you really has nothing to do with YOU and everything to do with THEM. It’s their perspective that causes them to lash out at other people. And when you can accept that, it makes it a little bit easier to not be hurt by it all.

Does this mean that you should ignore those hurt feelings and try to squash them or force yourself to be happy even when people are being awful to you? Not at all.

Remember that one of the prime tenets of Law of Attraction is that “what we resist persists”. If you try to deny what you’re really feeling – if you try to pretend that other people’s words don’t hurt you, when the reality is that you’re devastated by what they’ve said – you’re just going to make things worse for yourself.

Don’t fight uncomfortable emotions

So my suggestion would be that you NOT try to fight the bad feelings. Remember that your emotions, in and of themselves, are neither good nor bad — they’re just indicators to you about where your alignment happens to be at this moment.

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Don’t fight the uncomfortable emotions… just acknowledge them and let them flow through you, because emotions are like that – they flow and they change, almost constantly, so let them do what they do, and let them pass. And always keep in mind that adage about “if someone is trying to pull you down, it means they’re already beneath you”. People only hurt other people if they’re already in pain themselves. Don’t let yourself get sucked into their negative emotional cesspool, because you’re already so far beyond that.

Strategies to stop others from making you feel bad

If you’re still struggling with this, if someone is trying to make you feel bad, take a moment to reconnect with your WHY, and remember who you really are. You don’t need this crap in your life, so don’t pick it up! Stay focused on what you’re doing and where you’re going in life and just walk away. You don’t owe the other person a reason or an explanation, so just keep your mouth shut and get on with your life.

The other thing you can try is responding to the aggressor with something along the lines of “It’s too bad that you’re feeling [angry, negative, disillusioned, whatever] about this” and, again, just walk away. Reframing their comments in this way is a good verbal reinforcement for yourself that you are in charge of your own vibe and that you don’t have to accept the other person’s perspective or feelings as your own.

Summing it up

So, to sum things up for today, remember that you are the Chief Executive Officer of your own life. You are the one who gets to call the shots, and you don’t need to accept other people’s random mean opinions as fact. Just because someone else wants to spend their time mired in negativity and petty nastiness, does not mean that they’re right, or that you have to let them affect you or your decisions or your direction in life.

When other people try to make you feel bad, take a moment before you react, and choose instead to respond to the situation in a more deliberate manner. Maintain your inner balance and keep yourself in your higher vibration. If you can stay stable in that higher vibe, the mean people in your life will either become more positive in response your own energy, or they will gravitate out of your life entirely.

photo credit: unsplash.com cc (modified by me)