5 ways to get rid of negative thoughts that other people think bad about you
Imagine a strange situation: you are going on business, got dressed, went outside, and somewhere in the middle of the road found that you have a jacket (jacket, shirt, blouse, skirt) buttoned crooked.
At the same time you notice a couple of sidelong glances from passers-by. What's the first thing that comes to mind about their views? People with social anxiety will find it easy to answer: "They noticed and think I'm a slob, ""She thinks I'm crazy, ""He's negative to me," and so on.
This phenomenon has a simple name: reading in the minds of others. Or in other words — an attempt to guess what other people think about you.
More example. You need to make a presentation at work. You got up or even went to a special place for the speaker. As soon as you started to speak, you took a quick look at the audience. And-Oh horror-noticed that someone sits with a disgruntled face. Two of them. What comes to mind first? Right: "They think I perform badly, "" He doesn't like the way I look," "he thinks I'm talking nonsense."
Similarly, there is reading in the minds of others, or trying to guess what other people think about you. Such thoughts arise automatically. In social phobia, they play an important role in maintaining fears and anxieties.
How does it work?
Reading faces and minds is not the most important survival skill. With him not are born, but rather acquire his with the experience.
Some people are really quite successful at it sometimes. They do somehow manage to guess exactly what other people are thinking. Or at least in what key. To do this, you need to have developed social skills, emotional and mental processes, as well as sufficient social experience:
the ability to take another person's place
empathy (understanding other people's emotions and empathy)
observation, including body language
interest in relationships and in the person
This skill is not innate. Children learn to "read faces" from about the age of 4, when they are able to overcome the egocentric position and take the place of another. Someone "reads" better, someone worse, someone does not know how. By and large, this is not the most important and critical skill for survival.
What's wrong with reading minds
In General, nothing bad, just up to the moment when a person develops social anxiety or social phobia. There are 2 things you need to know:
How accurately you "read in your head" what other people think is an unstable phenomenon. In some situations you will really guess (understand), and in other situations — no. There's no pattern to that.
The result of "reading" will be determined by your emotional state. A little more than completely :) If you are offended by a friend, and try in this state to guess what she thinks, then your guess will tend to options like "She is also dissatisfied with me," but hardly like "She is so happy to be my friend."
Just one negative automatic thought, put on the right negative ground — and ready, I'm a complete zero and nothing. If you use head reading, in many cases you will get automatic incorrect and negative results.
If you keep guessing what people think is bad about you, the bad is sure to be guessed.
Yes, sometimes-just maybe sometimes! — you'll be close to the truth with guessing. But in other cases, most of which are with SF, you will always think that everyone thinks something bad about you. Appropriate well-being is guaranteed.
How to stop guessing what others think
Agree with yourself not to use this strategy
The most important thing in this matter is to discover that you do, and often do. Make a contract with yourself that you will never do so again, whether you guess or not, and how accurately. When you have already come out with a report, there is no time to reflect on how accurately you guessed what people think.
The position should be principled: I no longer read in the minds of others, I do not use this strategy.
Attention: since the skill is also associated with empathy and communication, I am not in any case calling to give up empathy and empathy for other people, no, no. I mean a specific type of head reading: negative definitions of other people's negative thoughts in social situations:
They don't like my report
He's not happy with how I look right now.
She thinks I'm some kind of slob.
She thinks I'm clumsy (awkward, stupid, constrained, weird, abnormal…)
Think about alternatives
Well, we don't expect it to be that easy, do we? ) These thoughts come to mind automatically, so finding another typical negative "reading", think, could it be otherwise? For example, the unhappy face of the listener of your report is connected with the fact that he has a stomach ache or that he had a fight with his wife in the morning?
Focus on the task at hand
Okay, you've heard the negative " reading." Do not take it into account, immediately go back to what you just did. Keep reading the report or keep going about your business. Remember what you need to do right now — and do it. Just a couple of minutes and you forget about what you read.
Use strategy Zaitsev
Remember this one: "we don't care, we don't care, let us be afraid of the wolf and the owl"? I look shy — well, I don't care. I'm clumsy — well, I don't care. I said stupid — Yes, I said stupid. It's all the same to me.
Use the rule " do not check, do not believe»
Until you check with the original source, you can't know for sure. Ask directly: why do you have this kind you don't like what I'm saying? And get an answer that will surprise you: "Oh, you just had a stupid day at work."