Dr. Aziz delivers a brief spoken advice segment on overcoming fear of others' judgment. He instructs listeners to pause and consider the source/context of negative comments — e.g., the other person may be stressed, insecure, or projecting — and argues that doing so dissipates the judgment's power.
If you really want to be free from the fear of what they are going to think of you, here's what you do. We're afraid of someone judging us, Someone saying something negative, thinking something negatively, commenting something negatively about you. What you don't pause to do is really think about where that's coming from. We just hear the judgment and we react. Oh, no, they thought this. But take a moment to really think about where it's coming from. What was that person doing right before they thought that about you or said that about you? Were they in their own world? Oh, I got to do this and I got to deal with that, and oh, I'm so stressed. What's that? Oh, I don't like that person. And they made a judgment. Maybe they're feeling bad inside. Maybe they're feeling inferior. Maybe they're feeling worthless. Maybe they're feeling scared and all of a sudden to pump themselves up for a minute. You know what's dumb is you. If you really pause to think about where it's coming from, its power evaporates.
