Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness. Today I'm going to talk about other people's opinions of you. So spiritual teacher, Byron Katie often says, "If I had a prayer, it would be this. God spare me from the desire for love, approval or appreciation. Amen.

So this sounds really radical in a way, but I think it's actually a useful idea to ponder in our life because we tend to get very attached to the ideas and opinions that other people have about us. We get very attached to wanting and needing approval. And the thing is when we place so much weight on other people's opinions of us, we're in a kind of fragile position. We feel really awful when someone criticizes us, and our self-worth gets really shaky and delicate. We might ruminate about it and obsess about whether we're good enough or we're measuring up.

And when someone compliments us, we might feel good and our self-worth is good, kind of propped up temporarily. But if we get reliant on somebody else saying nice things to us or getting enough likes on Facebook, and we need that to feel okay about ourselves, we're really in trouble because we can easily find ourselves caught on a kind of roller coaster of approval seeking and perfectionism and you know, trying to get somebody else to like us. So if we get really attached to either praise or criticism, we get thrown around by both of them. But if we can go beyond them, we can find a more deep and stable sense of self-worth that doesn't depend on what other people say or think of us. As my mum used to say jokingly, what other people think of me is none of my business.

And I love this. It's something I say to myself from time to time as a reminder. But not in a dismissing way. It's just a reminder to understand that no matter what you do or who you are, sometimes people are going to praise, you other times they're going to put you down. Sometimes people will like you.

Sometimes people won't. It's really just part of life. So sometimes there might be some real valuable feedback coming our way through those compliments or criticisms. And so it's good to be open and curious to engage with that. But at the same time, without letting it de stabilize your sense of self-worth and confidence, so we can sort of take it in, but not take it on, not take it personally.

So today, as you go about the day, See, if you can notice any habits of approval seeking or reactivity to other people's opinions when they do come up. And when they do come up, just take a moment to pause, breathe, and remember that other people's opinions don't define you and they don't determine your worthiness. So as always, thank you for your practice and your presence here with us. And now let's settle in for today's meditation.