After being told off by mum one day, I stormed out the house almost taking the door off its hinges when I slammed it behind me, thudded up the garden and then I turned around and gave her the two-fingered salute. I didn’t know the impact of the hand signal (I was 7 or 8), but needless to say, I had an audience, she saw it, then she moved like a tornado after me. She went all Olympic runner, caught me, and I got hauled back inside for another rollicking.
From that day, there was always this little niggle that whatever I got up to, the parentals would be there, like they had invisibility cloaks or some other weird and wonderful magic ability. Ready to judge, comment, raise an eyebrow and ‘tut’, nicknamed ‘The Watchers’.
Then, when I became an adult and moved far enough away to not be ‘caught’, I substituted the parentals for other people.
Constantly I would be wondering and worrying about the audience: a generic term because I couldn’t even tell you who they were, I don’t have their names. I would hold back just in case I was making a mistake or worried about how my behaviour would be viewed in their eyes. I would join in when I wanted to separate, laugh because the audience was laughing even though I didn’t find it funny, I would be nice so as not to be hated. Recite the script that I didn’t write or believe in. Stay seated, even when I wanted to stand.
We think others are watching and judging us, more often than not we are watching and judging ourselves.
As you work on your goals in your life, and whenever you hear the words in your head, ‘What will people think?’
Ask yourself: which people specifically? Or have you got an imaginary group of Watchers, throwbacks from the growing up years? Journal the hell out that baby! Seriously. Nobody is watching you, they have there own battles going on.
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