I don’t know the easiest way to learn how to prevent things from easily getting to me. This is usually my problem whenever I’m around people who say stuff about me I don’t like. How do I learn to ignore or let unpleasant actions and comments bounce off of me?

19 comments

  1. I struggle with this too! One thing that I’ve tried practicing is to just laugh it off. Learning to laugh at yourself takes their power away. I also internally laugh at them for being an idiot but that’s just me. Sorry if this isn’t too helpful but it helped me quite a bit!

  2. Meditation with a focus on stoicism really helped me. It’s about changing how you think about situations.

  3. I think this boils down to how assured you are of yourself?

    At the same time, you can also learn to counter their statements, internally, to help yourself realise that you are not what they say you are. For example, I’ve been said to be bad at sports, but from my own pov, I don’t like certain sports, but there are sports that I enjoy!

    Another thing to realise is that they are just using what they can see to make an opinion about you. It’s not the complete picture, which only you yourself is able to figure out what is in this picture that you paint of yourself.

  5. There’s an underlying idea/value that leads to being oversensitive. Maybe it’s an idea that everyone should like you or that your value is in anyway defined by what people say. Take ownership of that first (shaking it takes time, so don’t worry about that. But look that shit in the eye). After that, here’s the best way I’ve found to handle:

    1. Take a breath and ask yourself if what they said is true. If it is, feel free to wholeheartedly agree. Where they being an ass for bringing it up? Possibly. But take ownership of yourself and don’t expect everyone to think you’re perfect. You know they’re not.

    2. If it’s not true, try to think about why they’d think that way and react accordingly. Do they know it’s not true (or, more often, is it true but out of context)? Maybe it’s time to work on some communication (or maybe it’s not worth the energy).

    Are they just an insecure ass who is trying to boost themselves up in an idiotic way to the people around them? You can call em out on it. They’ll probably either double down or get pissed though cause chances are they’re too insecure to own their insecurities. If that’s not worth ruining your morning over, intentionally decide that someone else projecting their insecurities on you is a them problem and go about your business.

    Trying to laugh it off right away is a passive response that doesn’t really let you shake it off because there’s no intention behind it other than to not make waves for the sake of keeping the peace. You’re making yourself the victim by sacrificing your feelings to the environment. But when you do the above, you are owning the environment and deciding to respond on a way that is best for you. If you decide to laugh it off it’s then because you’ve determined that it works best for you in that moment without harm to yourself. Power over passive.

  6. Learn to laugh at yourself, be confident, and for the love of god talk shit back (in a friendly way of course)

  7. Try silence. Whenever you’re in a situation where you feel attacked. Just don’t react. No words. No actions. Practice this. Soon you’ll just know how to ignore it and not take it to your heart.
    The initial tries will be depressing. It gets better at the 15th or 16th.

  8. You don’t. You feel this way because internally you believe them to be true. So you can either change them or accept them. Can you give me an example of what is being said?

  10. Never be afraid to tell someone to go fuck themselves. Odds are you will never be treated that way by that person, and if done in a group of people it will probably deter them as well.

    Edit sp

  11. Working out the best approach depends in a large part on who the people are & what sort of “stuff” they’re saying. E.g. the way you handle a parent who doesn’t approve of some element of your lifestyle is going to differ from how you handle a stranger on the bus you overhear whispering to their friend that they think your jacket is ugly.

    In general though, in my experience a key way to developing a thicker skin is to remember that we’re all walking around as main characters in our own story & spend most of our time focusing on ourselves. Unless you’re the victim of targeted bullying, there’s a high likelihood that whatever they don’t like about you is really just a reflection of something they don’t like about themself. It doesn’t make it ok, but it can help you put some mental distance between yourself & what they said so you don’t feel the same emotional impact.

    The other key element is to be really honest with yourself about whether there’s any truth to what they’re saying. E.g. if you heard a coworker saying they don’t want to work with you on a project, that would be hurtful. But if you’ve been really on edge the last 3 months & that has made you snap at people and miss your deadlines then what your coworker said might be hurtful but it’s also reasonable & a sign you need to improve.

  12. Once your brain determines those comments are worth your attention, then unfortunately you’re stuck. You can’t just decide to stop caring.

    If, however, you gain a better understanding of *why* they say those things, they won’t bother you as much.

  13. I think there are a few things:

    1. You have to be okay with yourself. That means, clean up the flaws you can, and if there are any that you can’t change, learn to be at peace with them. For example, I have a wonky eyeball. Can’t change it, but I’m over it. I’m fat, and I recognize that, but I don’t hate myself for it. If you are okay with yourself and your flaws, other people pointing them out can’t really hurt you, especially because:
    2. People who would poke at you and try to hurt you for no reason other than their own pleasure are broken, warped people. Don’t give them the power they want over you by giving one fuck about what they think. Then,

    One of three scenarios is true:

    1. Whatever they are saying is true, but you already recognize it and are at peace with it = these words can not hurt you; or
    2. Whatever they are saying is not true and you know it = these words can not hurt you; or
    3. What they are saying is true and you are not at peace with it = the words will hurt you. Back to step 1.

    Two examples: When I meet new people, they often stare at my wonky eye or avoid looking at it. Children will outright ask me “What’s wrong with your eye?” It used to hurt and make me feel like a freak. Now I just recognize that people are reacting to something they aren’t used to seeing, yes it looks a little weird, and it’s understandable that they need a minute to process it. It doesn’t hurt me because I’m used to it and while I wish it weren’t like that, I’m at peace with it. This is a case where the thing is true, but I’m at peace with it, so it doesn’t hurt me.

    There was another weird one that I still don’t quite get, when I was in my late thirties walking in a grocery store and conservatively dressed, a teenage boy walked past and just snarled “slut” at me in passing for no apparent reason. It didn’t hurt because for one thing it’s obviously not true, and I clearly dgaf about what someone like that would think anyway. I spent a couple of minutes wondering why he would do that, and just figured he’s a frustrated little asshole who hates women or just wanted to hurt a stranger for some reason. Not someone whose opinion I value in any case. Water off my back, I do not care.

    I hope this helps, and I know that it’s harder when you’re young and fitting in and even being cool is more important. If all goes well, we do get more comfortable with ourselves as we age.

  15. I have an extremely thick skin and the trick is seeing feedback differently. Negative feedback is infinitely better then positive feedback so view it as such. You will get almost exclusively valuable insights from negative feedback and almost exclusively useless Insights from positive feedback to be specific.

    If you start seeing feedback this way be warned you will start having tons of issues relating to others because this approach destroys every social construct in existence.

    I have straight up asked why society has a completely backwards way of seeing feedback and got almost exclusively downvoted for extremely well reasoned questions to illustrate what I mean by this is extremely socially alienating. Despite all of the above it works wonders.

    TlDR: proceed with caution but a thick skin is obtained by viewing negative feedback as better then positive feedback.

    SIDE NOTE:
    Computers work on this exact same principle as well, so there is a lot of merit to it from a logical perspective as well. (Chess engines the gold standard for feedback loops are built on the Alpha-Beta Pruning evaluation algorithm and were previously based on the Min-Max evaluation algorithm both of which are or were designed to narrow options by elimination instead of reinforcing good options.)

  16. As someone that had thick skin, I’ll say, “don’t”. Being thick-skinned is just as much a defensive mechanism as being thin-skinned, but the end result is the same you become more and more socially isolated until you have trouble relating to others at all.

    The answer is to learn to accept and embrace what you perceive as your flaws. Everyone is a work in progress until the day they die. This is a fact.

    Letting go of the fear of being judged by others requires you to stop judging yourself first.

    Once that happens, you can start being open and authentic in conversations, and laughing off snide comments comes naturally, because usually, they’re commenting on or trying to avoid attention on one of their insecurities (otherwise why would they care enough to bring it up?).

  17. There is no easy way, you eventually have to become desensitized. Learning not to be bothered by things is a sign of maturity, and maturity ONLY comes with environment and age. Pretend you are juice, if you are in the right environment and actively think about it (aka have yeast), then in TIME you’ll turn into wine. You’ll never turn into wine if you don’t have yeast (proper mindset and environment). Also there are DIFFERENT kinds of maturity. What if you need vinegar? What if you want to be of a different proof (too high in alcohol and you end up becoming bitter).
    I know these analogies are weird, but that’s how I can explain what maturity is.

  18. Hold on to the things that are good about you. Writing then down is a good exercise. Hold onto these truths about your value. Repeat them, let them sink in. Believe them because they are true.

    Of course there is a balance with being able to accept legitimate criticism, but holding on to your truth allows you to see the insults as lies that have everything to do with the other person’s need to say them and very little if anything to do with you.

    TLDR; Insults are about their shit, not yours.

  19. process and acknowledge your feelings, and then behave how you think a person without this problem would behave. try to give people the benefit of the doubt, understand their intentions. exposure therapy helps.

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