I have always been a deeply feeling, sensitive person. When I was younger, I cared so much about absolutely EVERYTHING. When you have a big heart and you’re a pleaser, you tend to feel big things about lots of things. Although I wouldn’t change that about myself, if left unchecked for too long, it can be exhausting and lead to burnout.
Now that I am in my 40s, an amazing shift has happened. Maybe it’s the beginning of perimenopause. Maybe it’s because I’ve been through some hard things and I’ve seen people I love go through some hard things, so it makes everything else feel so much less important. Maybe it’s because I’m just simply tired of people’s crap. Whatever it is, not caring so much about every single is so liberating. I’ve learned to better control where my energy and emotion goes and it has brought so much more peace to my life. If you want to feel more of that peace, too, I’ve put together a list of things I stop caring so much about.
Stop caring about what everyone else thinks
This one took me a long time. I am a natural born people pleaser and I always wanted approval from everyone for every decision I made. I never wanted to rock the boat and the thought of disappointing anyone in my life was unfathomable. As life unfolded, I realized that the very people I was seeking approval from were not even the people that really mattered in my life. They weren’t living in my skin, paying my bills, or living with the consequences of my choices. I learned to follow my intuition. When something felt right, I let that feeling lead me, no matter what someone else said or thought about it. I learned to really trust myself-to believe in my own judgement and decision making skills. When I let my intuition lead, life always worked out for the better. I learned to simply let people judge if they were going to and to detach from their judgement. Their judgement and opinions became background noise once I tuned into my own inner voice and let it lead me.
Stop caring so much about what your body looks like
If you grew up in 90s and 2000s beauty culture, you know how impossible this one can feel. I grew up in the Kate Moss thin beauty standard era. Although there seems to be more of a movement toward body love and acceptance, the youth worshipping /Botox/influencer/highly filtered beauty expectations are still there and still powerful.
Physical beauty is still worshipped in our culture and it isn’t easy to get away from the pressures that come along with that. As you age, your body changes. You can mask those changes for a while, but eventually there comes a point when you accept that stretch marks, wrinkles, hair loss, and cellulite are just normal facts of life and aging. Your physical body will change and evolve with age and when you realize that you are so much more than your body, you start to care so much less about it. I spent so many years a slave to my appearance. I wasted so much precious time and energy on trying to be acceptable on the outside and now I wish I had put that energy into learning and loving myself. While I do believe our bodies are sacred and should be nourished and taken care of, I wish I’d spent an equal amount of energy nourishing and taking care of myself on the inside.
Stop caring about trying to change people.
Hear me when I say this: You cannot change anyone. You are not responsible for another soul on this earth. Their choices are theirs, their consequences are theirs. You can love them, you can support them, you can encourage them, but you cannot change them. Once you realize that your only responsibility is you, you will find freedom.
Stop caring about the apology you never received.
You will not make it through life unscathed by the ugliness of people. You will be betrayed, lied to, lied about, hurt, manipulated, and disappointed. Someone may even hurt you enough that it completely rearranges you or impacts your entire life forever. Stop waiting on them to apologize. People capable of causing that level of damage in your life are either
1. Not evolved or mature enough to grasp the impact that their words and actions have on others and they won’t accept true responsibility or
2. They are so incredibly selfish and unempathetic that they really just don’t care.
Either way, if someone hurts you to your core and doesn’t take responsibility, the problem lies within them. There is no amount of explaining your pain or begging for answers that is going to give you the closure you need. The closure has to come from within yourself. You have to find a way to accept who they are and what they did, understand that it had nothing to do with you or your worth, and move forward because you’ve got things to do.
Stop caring about the opinions of people that aren’t doing better than you
I like to call these kinds of people, well…undercover haters. There are people in your life that will you see your success and happiness and will never cheer for you. Worse, they may try to cut you down or belittle your success or happiness. They will try to minimize the good things that happen for you because you reflect what they aren’t willing to do for themselves, and people do not like their shortcomings reflected back to them.
Although usually subtle, you will notice these people by how you feel around them. They may make a sarcastic comment disguised as a joke, they don’t congratulate you when something good happens, or they may ignore it altogether. They might scoff or laugh at a new venture you take on. They might try to plant subtle seeds of doubt. Ignore them. Again, this is not about you at all. It’s about them and their smallness. Because that’s where judgement and jealousy come from-someone living from a place of lack or smallness rather than abundance. Stick close to the people that genuinely cheer you on, are thrilled for your successes, and genuinely love seeing you happy.
Stop caring about the things that you have no control over
It’s is so much more than you think. Although we like to deceive ourselves into believing we have control of our little corner of the world, we really don’t. There are so many things beyond our control and the sooner we realize that, the sooner we are free. When you realize how little control you actually have, you can focus on the few things that you do control (your attitude, your thoughts, your responses, your reactions) and lay the rest down.
Stop caring so much about materialistic things
We all enjoy nice things, but if you ask almost anyone that has been through some kind of life altering challenge, you will hear them say “possessions don’t matter.” They just don’t. It’s okay to enjoy nice things, just don’t get caught in the trap of caring TOO much about them. When your time on earth is up, people aren’t going to define your life by the designer purse or nice car, but they are going to remember what kind of person you were, how you made others feel, and what you stood for.
Stop caring so much about achieving and focus more on being
We are trained from a young age that our worth can be wrapped up in what we achieve, how productive we are and how many items we can check off of our checklists and to dos. We get so caught up in the doing, that it’s easy to lose track of the importance of BEING. It’s nice to feel accomplished and productive, but true peace comes with the ability to simply be. Just as we are. Being present in the moment we are in, being still, taking time for rest, showing up and living in the moment with the people we love. That is really what life is made of.
Stop caring about what your inner bully is saying to you
We all have that bully inner voice that tells us we aren’t enough. We aren’t smart enough, pretty enough, skinny enough. Or maybe we are too much. Too loud, too opinionated, too emotional. That inner bully-the one that makes you feel less-is made up of meaningless thoughts born from insecurity and the lies that the world tells us about ourselves. It’s not credible. It doesn’t know what its talking about. It might be loud, but it’s not wise. When it starts to beat you up, replace it with your inner advocate-that voice that you would use if you were speaking to your best friend. Allow that voice to take over and drown the bully out.
Stop caring about what everyone else is doing
Stop comparing your life with everyone else. We all have our own demons, struggles, gifts, opportunities and lessons. You only see a minuscule percentage of someone’s life-you have no idea what demons someone had to fight to get to where they are. You didn’t see the grind that got them to their successful job. You didn’t see the heartbreaks or loneliness that led them to that love. You have no idea what insecurities they have battled despite how beautiful you think they are. You didn’t see the fear that they had to fight through to take the chance that led them to an amazing opportunity.
The bottom line is, what you see of other people is usually just their highlight reel. Especially if it’s on social media. It’s not fair to compare your struggle to their highlights. Stop worrying about them. Stop comparing your journey to theirs. They have their own journey to take and you have yours. Keep the focus on yours.
Having a spotless, aesthetic house/life
It’s wonderful to love your physical environment. A clean house with a candle burning is top tier self care and is so good for your mental health. The problem comes when you care too much about your house being spotless and perfectly aesthetic. When it gets to the point that spotlessness becomes perfectionism and more pressure you put on yourself, it is no longer worth it. It leads to feeling like a failure when it can’t always be Pinterest perfect. It turns living for how you want others to see you than really living for yourself. The real question is does your home feel warm and inviting? Is it your safe space? Is it cozy and comfortable? Does it reflect that things that are important to you? Those are the things that matter.
The timeline you thought you’d follow
Most of us have a plan about how we think our life will go. We have an idea of the step by step-get an education or join the workforce, find a job you love, fall in love, get married, have children, live happily ever after. Sounds great, right? Sounds simple. We forget to factor in the fact that life does not care about our plans or our timelines. Life is going to throw us curveballs. Everything can change in an instant. The only plan is that there is no plan and there is no set timeline you need to follow. You don’t have to be married and settled down by a certain age. You can change your mind about your career path as many times as you want. You are allowed to wait to have kids or not have them at all if that’s not what you want. Life has no template that everyone should follow. Get really familiar with your intuition. Learn who you are, create the experience you want to have and follow the path that lights you up. Life can and will change and if you’re adaptable and trust that you can handle whatever comes your way, you’re going to be just fine. Forget the timeline and the “shoulds” and do what feels right for you.
Being misunderstood
A normal human need is to feel seen and understood. We all need that. But you don’t have to be seen and understood by every single person. In fact, it is completely impossible. You will have plenty of people in your life that misunderstand you. They may assign intentions to you that aren’t yours. They may believe a rumor about you that isn’t true. They may base their opinion of you on what someone else has told them. It doesn’t matter. There will be some people in your life that cannot or will not see or understand you no matter how many times you try to explain or defend yourself. You have to let that go. You can’t spend all of your precious energy trying to convince someone about who you are if they’re not open to seeing it. You know who you are, stand in that. Give your energy to the people that do see you, understand you, and love you just as you are. Those are the people that deserve your time.
Trying to fix everything for everyone
I am a nurturer by nature. I do not enjoy conflict and I thrive when there is harmony and everyone around me is happy. However, we all know that when people are involved, there is no such thing as kumbaya. It is not your job (or mine) to fix everything and everyone. Conflict and struggle are normal parts of life. It’s where resilience and problem solving skills are built. Sometimes people need to sit with the consequences of their choices and sometimes we have to let them do that without rushing in to try to fix it.
Channel your care into what matters
Something I have learned to love about myself is my big heart and ability to feel and care deeply. I would not change that, but I have learned to channel it. I’ve learned the things and people that are worth all of that care and have learned what it’s okay to care less about. When you learn to give less energy to the things that you can’t control and the things that don’t really matter, it leaves more room to pour all of that care into the things and people that do.
