Some people are so busy listening to the opinions and experiences of others that they neglect their own. This oftentimes originates in their formative years where their judgments were criticized and concluded to be wrong or invalid. So they grew up without trust of themselves.
In some ways, there is a fracture between their experience and their ability to trust their experience. This a little like driving a car without brakes and a steering wheel. You naturally grow timid, uncertain, and frightened. Given this fracture, it is appropriate to feel this way! So you desperately seek out the judgments of others, falsely believing they must know more about living and navigating life’s twists and turns then you do.
What’s a person to do? You have probably been given the advice along the way that you can trust yourself. While this is a correct conclusion, your very experience tells you, you cannot trust your own judgments and experience. You are filled with self doubt. Anxiety rushes in as you realize your own lack of grounding. The first impulse when anxious is to run, numb, or avoid. Keep on keeping on in ways that unintentionally makes things worse.
If this is you, we need to find the courage to say, “enough, I refuse to keep living this way.” This is a heroic action on your part and is the most important first step in healing the fracture between yourself and your experience that you can take. You begin to face what you fear.
The next step is to slow down long enough to experience your experience. Pause, breathe deeply, observe, simply be. Claim your experience as your own. Don’t judge it, let it be as it is, moment to moment.
By doing this, you will come around to “here I am right or wrong.” Good intentions count. If you are wrong in a conclusion the worst that will happen is life will turn upside down and then right side up again. Observe this for yourself. Claim your good intentions. Meaning well matters.
Gradually your perspective changes where you realize your experience is your most important guide.
At the same time, It is good to be open to other people, taking in their point of view. Ironically, when you are most secure within yourself, you are most able to hear and appreciate the others point of view, freely, without pressure, sifting out good advice from not. You might even find they can help you with life’s questions as you open yourself up in a new and healthy way knowing you can trust yourself to make sound judgments.