Are You Mad at Me?: How to Stop Focusing on What Others Think and Start Living for You

by Meg Josephson

Silencing your needs for the comfort and happiness of everyone else

Overexplaining yourself as an attempt to feel heard or understood

Being indecisive because you don’t want to disappoint anyone or because you genuinely don’t k...

getting out of survival mode when we don’t need to be in it.

We unconsciously gravitate toward situations that we’ve seen before because we know how to deal with them, even if they’re toxic.

But of course, we can’t fix that person, because they were never emotionally capable of loving us in the way we deserve.

Do I like them because they remind me of what I know, or because I genuinely feel safe and enjoy how I feel around them?

On the flip side, anything that’s unfamiliar to the body—like setting a boundary, saying no, speaking up, being with someone who’s emotionally stable—is going to feel dangerous, because it’s completely new.

Does this feel uncomfortable because it’s unsafe, or is it just unfamiliar?

It’s a feeling of I want to go home when you’re in your own family’s house.

It’s letting go of the hope for a childhood, a family, a parent relationship, a sibling relationship that you didn’t have but deeply wanted.

It’s a lingering weight that’s always there, constantly changing form as you enter into and move out of different seasons of life.

Anger = unsafe. I must avoid anger at all costs, avoid conflict and disagreements. Anger is something to be feared.

You can have empathy for what your parents have gone through themselves, for the trauma they must have survived, and feel angry that you experienced what you did. You can acknowledge that your parents did their best with the awareness and resources they had at the time and acknowledge that their best still really hurt you.

Many clients come to therapy with an urgency to “fix” themselves and get rid of the loud, anxious inner voice.

then again in reality. People-pleasing is an unconscious way of trying to feel a false sense of control

Meet the harsh inner critic many of us developed in childhood as a stand-in for the support we needed.

This part was once constantly on duty, but it hasn’t gotten the memo that it doesn’t need to be working overtime anymore.

Deflect so they know you’re humble and good! Don’t feel threatened by me; I’m just a nobody.

if you reached the point where you felt “good enough,” that protective part would feel scared because it would mean you could stop trying so hard.

She wants to reject herself before others can reject her.

Mindfulness trains us to deal with what life throws at us with a sense of inner stability instead of turning away from

hanging out with her? My

do I just not want to sit with the discomfort of feeling guilty about being honest about what I need?

I first notice (N) what’s happening internally.

I allow it to exist without immediately trying to fix it or change it.

By returning to tangible things that are real and true right now, in this moment, I’m pulling my focus back into the present.

No need to add an extra layer of self-judgment for having the thought. Just notice that your mind was thinking.

INVITE. Invite this inner experience to stay just for a second like an old friend; allow it to exist.

It’s okay that this is here. Nothing is wrong with me for thinking or feeling this. This is just what’s happening now, and it’s impermanent. Or even more simply, you can say to yourself, Just this.

Allow curiosity in. Be the observer of your own body and mind. Not

Embrace this protective part of you, this inner voice, with warmth and understanding.

We’re working on relating to our inner experience with a bit more compassion. Thank you for trying to protect me. It’s okay that you’re feeling this. It makes sense. You’re safe.

By gently shifting your focus to what’s happening now, you’re training your mind to return to the present.

I’m allowed to feel angry, I thought to myself. I’m not in trouble this time.

If you remained totally focused on making sure other people were happy and managing their moods, you didn’t get the opportunity to know the vastness of your emotions and how to coexist with them.

What emotion am I trying to protect myself from?

If we’re fawning, we won’t need to feel the guilt that arises when we set a boundary. If we’re fawning, we won’t need to feel the fear that may arise when we sit down to have an honest conversation.

Healing is the practice of slowly getting comfortable with being uncomfortable.

your body is brought back to the period in your life when silence did mean something was seriously wrong.

your body is time-traveling back to that experience, remembering your fear and panic and what you needed to do to feel okay again (e.g., soothe the other person, fixate on what you did wrong, or fawn in some other way).

Resentment is what happens when we’ve ignored anger again and again, and so it builds up, festers, and gnaws at our bodies.

I felt like something was always “wrong” in my body.

When we’re stuck in a fawn response and in survival mode, our bodies are flooded with the stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline.

When our bodies are handling such a heavy load of stress and rarely returning to a baseline state of safety, they will take longer to feel like they are being restored and recovering. This is why it can feel like a weekend isn’t enough time, that eight hours of sleep isn’t enough—because the body has been working so hard, it needs more time and sleep to recover.

our bodies unconsciously become addicted to the stress. During these times of high levels of stress, the brain releases dopamine, which activates its reward center. And because the brain’s job is to protect us from danger, it is like, Ooooh, sweet, I got a reward! Positive reinforcement! I need to keep being stressed!

5 4 3 2 1. Ground yourself in your current environment. Look around and name five things you can see, four things you can feel, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste.

That I overexplain myself and overshare as a way to prevent rejection, an attempt to feel heard, like ‘Here’s everything about me so if you don’t like it, fine, tell me now.’ Especially because I didn’t feel heard growing up.”

We internalized others’ bad moods as proof that something is wrong with us, using self-blame as an effective coping mechanism to make sense of criticism, neglect, or chaos.

If she tells a joke that doesn’t go over well with her friends, she fears they think she’s a terrible person. She then feels like she needs to “correct” the perception, to prove to them that she’s perfect so she can feel safe again.