You're not that important

About five years ago I did a ton of work on myself. Mental health mostly, but I also lost about 120 lbs. I felt great, looked great, and I was trying to make a habit of not concerning myself with superficial problems. One of my mottos (mantras, affirmations, whatever…) was that I'm not that important. And it helped me tremendously.

Let's be clear - This isn’t me saying that “I do not matter and I am worthless.” This is me trying to focus my energy on myself and what I think of myself, instead of what others think. A lot of my depression and anxiety in life is based on what I think others think of me. That was and has been a really hard thing to admit to myself, because my “stone-tough” exterior is adamant that I don’t care what people think of me. To a point this is true; if someone's aggressive with me, I become defensive and stand up for myself. But this is a reflex that isn't always so productive or helpful. Engaging someone who is being shitty just uses energy that I could allot to myself instead.

Barring those situations, the things I'm usually worried about - I know they're totally asinine. “Oh my god, what if someone thinks my shoes are tacky.” “Am I standing like a moron?” “Why is that person looking at me.. Oh god why did they look at me? Was it observational or judgmental?” This is where I had to step back. If I ask these questions out loud, I know some answers are 1) Who fucking cares? 2) They are not paying any attention to me, and were likely just looking around to pass time in a line-up. More importantly, they do not care about me at all.

This is also not to imply that those people wish me ill, or wouldn’t help me if I was in trouble. But like… Come on - They have lives. Lives I have zero part in or impact on. That was a very freeing realization to me. I think of it like that episode in Sex and the City where Miranda was all hung up on this guy and Samantha says “He’s just not that into you.” Carrie and Charlotte rush to Miranda’s side, giving Samantha shit for being so insensitive and “of course he’s into her, she’s amazing.” Meanwhile, this is a total epiphany for Miranda. She goes “No, no - I like that. He’s just not that into me.” The realization being that she likes and dislikes people too, he’s just a person, stop overcomplicating it. This is very much the same thing.

Once I kind of had this realization that I don’t matter to random people, I had to actually put it into practice and start overriding these neural patterns. I’d be in line at the grocery store, or on the subway, or wherever. Anytime I felt that anxiety creep in, I started to really pay attention to what I was thinking. I like to say that I “analyzed" these thoughts, but once I came to this realization it was basically like “Oh what if someone thinks my shoes are tacky - wait, no one gives a fuck about your shoes.” “Am I standing like a moron? - wait, I’m not in the way and you’re not invading anyone’s space. No one gives a fuck how I’m standing.” That sort of thing. Once I kind of took myself off that pedestal of shame that I didn’t even realize I’d put myself on, I was able to see these things objectively.

Some pretty cool things came from this shift in thinking. It really helped me eliminate the negative self-talk (or at least minimize it, I’m not yet sure I know what it’s like to legitimately remove that from my personality.) It helped me figure out when to judge people and when not - which not surprisingly follows a similar pattern to the “You don’t matter that much” thought patterns. More of a “you will likely never see this person again, and if you do, it’s even less likely that you’ll remember each other.” And of course, the end thought is always “and if they don’t like it - fuck’em.” I still make an effort to be a good and polite human, but if I maintain my boundaries and respect the boundaries of others. It's helped me see that life is short - as cliché as that sounds - and that I really wasn’t spending enough time doing things that made me happy. So I started doing more karaoke, travelled a bunch, basically went transient for a while until I landed in my new home. I was able to just let things flow, move where the wind took me, and ended up finding an incredible life for myself.

Flash forward to now - I’ve had some kids, and in getting used to that I've basically reset all that progress I made. I am still very happy with where I am, but between the complete life shift, the postpartum depression, the weight gain, and all the other stresses that come along with running a family, I have really regressed and am trying to relearn these patterns of thinking. Trying to remember what it was like to truly not give a fuck. To honestly focus my concern on myself and where/who I wanted to be instead of “what people might think if-.” I’m also trying to learn how to balance that with a family. That’s a whole other fake can of peanuts for another day.

I wanted to write this out to help me process these thoughts again. I wanted to publish it because I think this is a concept people are really stuck on. Poor mental health is a huge and serious issue, and I think for a lot of people that this kind of mindfulness is at least a help, if not a cure. Trying to stop that inner dialogue by demanding it to answer for itself, and assimilating it into the greater mind. It seems counterintuitive to pull back and pay less attention to yourself and your thoughts, but it’s so easy to get wrapped up in your own narrative. I’m guessing that you’re probably the kind of person who is great at listening to other people’s problems, but cannot figure your own out to save your life. This is a really common sentiment. For me, I had to realize that it wasn’t that I sucked at life, I just had my head too far up my own ass. Or for a less colourful expression, I couldn’t see the forest for the trees.

To conclude (at the risk of invalidating everything I’ve just said) I’ll say that professionally speaking, I have no idea of what I’m talking about. This is just what worked for me. I have no background in mental health, and there’s really no reason you should listen to me. But if this resonates with you at all, try it out. Maybe it’ll work for you too.

About five years ago I did a ton of work on myself. Mental health mostly, but I also lost about 120 lbs. I felt great, looked great, and I was trying to make a habit of not concerning myself with superficial problems. One of my mottos (mantras, affirmations, whatever…) was You’re not that important. And it’s helped me tremendously.

This isn’t me saying that “I do not matter and I am worthless.” Quite the contrary. This is me trying to focus my energy on myself and what I think of myself, instead of what others think. A lot of my depression and anxiety in life is based on what others think of me. That was and has been a really hard thing to admit to myself, because my “stone-tough” exterior was adamant that I didn’t care what people thought of me. To a point this was true; if I was to be engaged by someone who was calling me on something I was concerned about them calling me on, I’d become defensive and stand up for myself. This is a reflex, so not always productive or helpful. Engaging someone who is being shitty just uses energy that I could allot to myself instead.

Barring those situations, I’m usually worried about things that I know are asinine. “Oh my god, what if someone thinks my shoes are tacky.” “Am I standing like a moron?” “Why is that person looking at me.. Oh god why did they look at me? Was it observational or judgmental?” This is where I had to step back. If I asked these questions out loud, I knew some answers were 1) Who fucking cares? 2) That they were not paying any attention to me, and were likely just looking around to pass time in a line-up. More importantly, the answer was they did not care about me at all.

Again - this is not to imply that those people wished me ill, or wouldn’t help me if I was in trouble. But like… Come on - They have lives. Lives I have zero part in or impact on. That was a very freeing realization to me. I think of it like that episode in Sex and the City where Miranda was all hung up on this guy and Samantha says “He’s just not that into you.” Carrie and Charlotte rush to Miranda’s side, giving Samantha shit for being so insensitive and “of course he’s into her, she’s amazing.” Meanwhile, this is a total epiphany for Miranda. She goes “No, no - I like that. He’s just not that into me.” The realization being that she likes and dislikes people too, he’s just a person, stop overcomplicating it. This is very much the same thing.

Once I kind of had this realization that I don’t matter to random people, I had to actually put it into practice and start overriding these neural patterns. I’d be in line at the grocery store, or on the subway, or wherever. Anytime I felt that anxiety creep in, I started to really pay attention to what I was thinking. I like to say that I “analyzed" these thoughts, but once I came to this realization it was basically like “Oh what if someone thinks my shoes are tacky - wait, no one gives a fuck about your shoes.” “Am I standing like a moron? - wait, I’m not in the way and you’re not invading anyone’s space. No one gives a fuck how I’m standing.” That sort of thing. Once I kind of took myself off that pedestal of shame that I didn’t even realize I’d put myself on, I was able to see these things objectively.

Some pretty cool things came from this shift in thinking. It really helped me eliminate the negative self-talk (or at least minimize it, I’m not sure I know what it’s like to legitimately remove that from my personality.) It helped me figure out when to judge people and when not - which not surprisingly follows a similar pattern to the “You don’t matter that much” motto. More of a “you will likely never see this person again, and if you do, it’s even less likely that you’ll remember each other.” And of course, the end thought is always “and if they don’t like it - fuck’em.” It helped me see that life is short - as cliché as that sounds - and I really wasn’t spending enough time doing things that made me happy. So I started doing more karaoke, travelled a bunch, basically went transient for a while until I landed in my new home. I was able to just let things flow, move where the wind took me, and ended up finding an incredible life for myself.

Flash forward to now - I’ve had some kids and basically reset all that progress I made. I am still very happy with where I am, but between the complete life shift, the postpartum depression, the weight gain, and all the other stresses that come along with running a family, I have really regressed and am trying to relearn these patterns of thinking. Trying to remember what it was like to truly not give a fuck. To honestly focus my concern on myself and where/who I wanted to be instead of “what people might think if-.” I’m also trying to learn how to balance that with a family. That’s a whole other fake can of peanuts for another day.

I wanted to write this out to help me process these thoughts again. I wanted to publish it because I think this is a concept people are really stuck on. Poor mental health is a huge and serious issue, and I think for a lot of people that this kind of mindfulness is at least a help, if not a cure. Trying to stop that inner dialogue by demanding it to answer for itself, and assimilating it into the greater mind. It seems counterintuitive to pull back and pay less attention to yourself and your thoughts, but it’s so easy to get wrapped up in your own narrative. I’m guessing that you’re probably the kind of person who is great at listening to other people’s problems, but cannot figure your own out to save your life. This is a really common sentiment. For me, I had to realize that it wasn’t that I sucked at life, I just had my head too far up my own ass. Or for a less colourful expression, I couldn’t see the forest for the trees.

To conclude, at the risk of invalidating everything I’ve just said, I’ll say that professionally speaking, I have no idea of what I’m talking about. This is just what worked for me. I have no background in mental health, and there’s really no reason you should listen to me. But if this resonates with you at all, try it out. Maybe it’ll work for you too.