How to Change Your Self-Image and Not Care What People Think About You
Aaron Doughty argues that how others perceive you reflects how you see yourself. He shares how he overcame an ADHD identity through meditation and social anxiety around women by disidentifying from a childhood memory, introducing the law of state transfer: your emotional state transmits to others. Change your self-image first, and the world's reaction follows.
Chapters
How to change what people think about you. Now I'm aware of the fact that this title of this video is a little bit counterintuitive because the idea is that what could be better than the idea of changing people's perceptions about who we are is the idea of just letting go of the need to make other people think a certain way about us. Now ultimately that is part of the equation, but it's always a little bit easier said than done because it's very easy to say, hey, Just be yourself and don't care what other people think. That's a very easy thing to say, but what I'm going to do in this video is give you some very powerful realizations that I believe have this ability to really transform the way you think. I believe that some of the concepts that I'm going to share with you today and some of the examples I'm going to give you have an effect and can have an effect to really change the way that you view yourself, image on who you think you are, and really understanding how that gets projected out and how people ping off of who you think that you are. Now, one of the first things that I want you to do is to realize that when you walk into a room, people aren't necessarily responding to you just based upon what they see with you. They're responding to you based upon how you are showing up, the energy that you have cultivated inside your body, how you view yourself. Those characteristics, the way that you are internally thinking about yourself, is being projected out people are peeing off of you and responding to you based upon how you are cultivating yourself to be, how you are identifying yourself to be. Now, understanding this and understanding that the power is within us to completely change that is where the power is. Many of us have been through this, like many of us have been through the idea of wanting other people to think a certain way about us and wondering why we can't get them to think that way about us. Anything that I believe has a lot of power really comes from this idea of understanding that it all comes down to the root of who we are. How are we being? What kind of energy are we replicating and what are we generating within ourselves? What kind of positive emotions? Now let me give you guys a couple of examples of how I've been through this, uh, reidentification, the idea of changing my self-image of who I am and how that affected everything around me. First off is a story you might be familiar with. It's the, if you've been watching my channel, it's the story of, you know, I used to have ADHD. I had ADHD and then I started meditating and as I began meditating, it began to radically change the way that I felt. And from that I was able to really just drop this identity of having ADHD. And from that point on, it completely changed everything about me. I became much more grounded. I used to be someone that was sporadic all over the place. I've always had a lot of energy, but instead of defining myself and saying that I have ADHD, when I began meditating, I began to think of myself in a new way because I understood that there were certain tools that I could use to change the kind of a way that I was showing up in the world. And as I began to do that, I began to drop this idea of having ADHD. And instead of defining myself as having ADHD, I defined myself as having a lot of energy that maybe I need to balance out by meditating, but nonetheless it's just having an excess of energy. And because of that, it radically changed the way that I felt about myself. And then within just a couple of weeks, people started to see a profound change in who I was being. And that's because I literally changed who I was, who I thought that I was. And as I began to internally think about myself in a new way, the actions began to mirror that internal change that I made. So let me give you another example. This comes from like a deep-rooted belief, right? I used to believe that it was hard for me to talk to women. Now the reason this was, and this was something I realized at I think I was like 17 years old maybe when I realized this, or maybe even 18, but I went— so I had a self-image of myself where I kind of thought of myself as a little bit more awkward, mainly because of part of it was because I had ADHD and therefore from having it, my energy was kind of all over the place. And I remember that when I was like, I was wondering why it was that I felt kind of awkward around women, especially women that I was attracted to. And I realized that one of those reasons was because I had this memory that was kind of auto-playing in my mind, this memory of when I was like 13 or 12 years old and I went to this, uh, like park, like recreational park type thing. And, uh, I would go there. It's kind of like a safe key type thing, but it was like all day during the summer or something like that. And I would go there and it was like activities, sports and stuff like that. And there was this dance and in this dance there was— everybody was there that was like above a certain age or something like that. But I remember that we went to this dance and there was this like 18 or 19-year-old girl there that, that I thought was, you know, hot. And what I did was, is I walked up to her and I asked her if she would dance with me. And she was like, you know, first of all, I'm like this 12-year-old kid. And she was like, oh, that's so cute. She's like, hi. And no, let me go find someone for you. Then she like found this girl that was like more my age, but I really didn't want to dance with. And from that moment on, I realized that I started to identify myself with this idea, this memory about who I am as maybe not being worthy enough or being awkward in that situation and kind of unsure of it. And I realized that because I was identifying myself with that memory over and over again, kind of auto-playing in my mind, I had this kind of assumption about myself that was tagged to my self-image thinking that I was awkward when I was talking to women I was attracted to. So what I learned to do was to completely let that go, realize that that was just one moment of my life when I was like 12 or 13 years old. And from that moment on, it's been, you know, I'm able to be confident around people. The idea is that once again, I had to identify the basis of why I thought that way. I had to become aware of it and then realize that it was illogical because that's not really who I am. That was just one experience. And I think that this happens a lot. The way that people perceive us is in a direct correlation with how we feel about who we are, with how we think who we are. So the idea is that if I assume that I'm this awkward person around women that I'm attracted to, when I am around attractive women, the idea is that I'm going to bring those characteristics out of myself because that is how I feel. And because I feel that way, then what is happening is people are peeing off of me in a way where they can feel how I feel. They call this the law of state transfer. It's this idea of how we feel about how we— who we are is being projected out and people are feeling that and responding to us based upon how we feel. Now the good news is that we can change how we view ourselves. We can change the positive emotion that we feel in our body, or even if it's negative emotion, we can learn how to tweak that so that ultimately we feel more positive emotion and that because we learned to take control over these little ideas, we then begin to radically change what people think about us. Now, understand that it's not necessarily that important what you project out as it is, is how important you are with how you accept who you are. If you accept certain characteristics about who you are, if I were to really resist this idea of viewing myself with ADHD, if I didn't come to accept it, I wouldn't be able to kind of let that idea go for me to then find new ways that I can define myself, new ways that I can balance my energy out, I guess you could say. And the idea is that the same thing is true for you. Understand that the way people respond to us is based upon how we feel in our body and how our self-image is of who we are. So how we view ourselves. Now also understand that one of the strongest human desires there is is to remain consistent to the way that we define ourselves. Now, when people make changes in their life, for example, uh, it's hard for people to make changes that are in conflict with the way they identify yourself. Now, the easiest example that we have for this is the idea of people that are overweight. A lot of times people that are overweight will make a, maybe a New Year's resolution or some type of statement that I'm going to go on this diet. Now, right from the get-go, they get themselves in a position to where when you go on a diet, it's a temporary thing. It's not something that's tagged onto the self-image, and they haven't really let the idea go of being overweight to begin with. So the idea is that it's going to be very hard to perpetuate this new style way of being without first off understanding that they have to let go of the self-image of being overweight before they then adopt this new lifestyle of maybe walking 3 or 4 times a week, eating more plant-based foods, whatever it might be. But the idea is that until they change the self-image of who they are, they will never actually really make a profound difference in their life. And then from that point of view, for them being that way and acting with that self-image, the idea is that people will then continue to perceive them the way that they view themselves and maybe even feel resistance if that person feels resistance about the idea of being overweight. One of the easiest ways to make radical change in our life is understanding that the self-image that we have is constantly being perpetuated out and people are responding to that. Now, what I want to share with you are some of the most powerful tools that I think we have towards changing how we view ourselves to also how other people will perceive us. Now, one of those tools is getting down to the beliefs, the definitions of the way that we define ourselves to be. Now this could be simply the idea that we ask ourselves in the present moment, why would I think this way? What would I have to believe is true for me to keep perpetuating the situation, this state of being, this identity that I have? And what you do is you begin to ask that question. You realize that it's tagged to a memory. A lot of times this memory will be from when we were really young. Now the example for me of when I was in this situation of trying to figure out why I I felt uncomfortable around attractive women. The idea was the reason I felt that was because it was tagged onto that memory. I had to get to the core of that memory and realize that that is not who I am today. That was who I was, or even that was just an experience that I had, so it was not really needed to be tagged onto my identity. And the idea is that as I became aware of it and as I looked at it, the simple looking at it from an observer point of view, because when you're reacting to it, you're not aware of it. When you look at it, you can ask yourself, what would I have to believe is true to perpetuate the state of being, this self-image that I have? You then get down to a memory, and when you look at that memory, you realize that it was from one when you were younger, and it was a lot of times something that you can just simply see that is illogical because it is not who you are today. As you begin to do that, you can do that towards every area of your life. As we begin to become aware of those beliefs, we ask ourselves, what would I have to believe is true to perpetuate this over and over again, we then begin to get to the root. When we get to the roots, we see that it's illogical, and in that moment we begin to change our identity of who we are because we realize that that is not who we are in the present moment. Simply know that that is not who you are anymore, and as you begin to know that, you begin to change your behaviors because your behaviors will match the self-image of who you are. So once you let go of that self-image, what you can do is start to identify yourself with who you prefer to be, with who you really are. Take off the filters of who you think you are, and as you begin to take off those filters, you begin to care less and less. You begin to not be attached to what other people think about who you are. People are constantly pinging to who we think we are and to how we feel inside our bodies about who we are. The way that we change that is by changing how we feel about ourselves. By accepting who we are in the moment. Then from that point of view, what we do is we then begin to do everything we can to cultivate positive emotion. This could mean that we change our diet if we choose to change our identity about who we are and how we eat. This could mean that we change our exercise routine if we choose to change the self-image of who we are to somebody that works out, that is in shape, that has a lot of vital energy. The idea is that as we begin to change these ways that we define ourselves, as we begin to change these habits that we have, because then from the self-image projected is the action that we take, we then begin to change this whole sphere of who we are. As we begin to then know and hold the frame of we are enough because we realize that we don't need other people to verify who we are because we validate who we are. We then begin to see a change in who we are and how people respond to us. You do not need to be concerned with how people view you. Now I know that's counterintuitive, but the idea is simply come accepting of who you are. Realize that you are constantly projecting a self-image out to other people, and as you begin to change that self-image you have about yourself, people will then begin to respond with how they view you. The idea is that as you begin to accept yourself more and more, you begin to then shine a little brighter. The idea is that you have a light switch and you begin to dim like the dimmer and you begin to dim it up to where then there's more and more light. Then that person's energy will completely change to where then people respond to it in that way. The idea is that people will see and feel that energy off of that person because they are shining brighter. Because they are accepting of who they are. That's why they say that you can't actually really truly be loved by anyone else unless you love yourself, because as you love yourself more, you are shining brighter and brighter, and then other people see that about you and they reflect that love that you feel about yourself. Now, in the same way, we must become accepting of who we are. We must become accepting of certain characteristics that maybe we've been through, learn to let those go and then to identify ourselves in the present moment, identify ourselves with being perfect, whole, and complete in our own ways, in our unique own ways. And as we begin to accept ourselves more and more, we begin to then see that in the way people respond to us. So now some simple things that you can do is get to the core of why you feel the way that you do about yourself. Maybe you see that there are so there were certain things that happened when you're younger that started to tailor the way that you view yourself, and that as you began to grow up, you began to remain entrained into that way of thinking, and then people began and continued to perpetuate and ping off of you in that way. What you can do is become aware of what that situation was. As you become aware of it, you then begin to realize that it's illogical from who you are today. It was just one choice. One way of identifying yourself in the past. As you begin to do that, you begin to know that you can change the self-image about who you are. As you begin to do that, you begin to identify yourselves with being the perfect version of yourself. You then understand that you can generate positive emotion from within. You can do things that cultivate the best version of yourself, and as you begin to do that, I promise you that people will begin to respect respond to you in that way. They will begin to ping off of you from that higher version of yourself. As you metaphorically begin to turn up that light switch and love yourself more, you will then see other people reflect the love that you feel within yourself. So I hope you guys enjoyed this video. I believe that this video can really change the way that you view yourself, to really change the way other people view you, and that comes from an internal recognition that you are already 100% whole. And complete. So hope you guys enjoyed this video. Feel free to like this video if you liked it, share it if you found it of value, and I'll see you guys on the next vid. All right, peace.
