Found this while doing some spring cleaning. Not sure if I wrote it or someone else, but it resonates:
10 Rules of Being a Zen Master
1. Stop caring what others think about you. Learning how to stop caring what others think is the foundation. Their opinions say more about them than about you.
2. Stop trying to compete with anyone or anything. Figure out how you can meaningfully contribute instead.
3. Stop judging yourself and others.
4. Feel through your anger (and you ARE angry). Release it. It doesn’t serve you.
5. Stop regretting things.
6. Stop worrying about things. Worrying is just poor visualization with a deep resistance to feeling what you need to feel.
7. Stop blaming yourself and others.
8. Feel your guilt (we all carry some). Let it go.
9. Feel your fear (we all carry some). Let it go.
10. Whatever is happening in your life, take a pause for self-reflection. Feel into your life until you can genuinely belly laugh at it!
The Key That Makes It Work
Do all of these things from the body, emotional, feeling level. Leave your mind out of it.
The mind will try to think its way through these rules. It won’t work. These are felt truths, not intellectual ones.
Why We Care So Much
Here’s what I’ve noticed about caring what others think. It’s rarely about them. It’s about the version of yourself you’re trying to protect.
We care because somewhere along the way, we learned that other people’s approval equals safety. That fitting in equals belonging. That if everyone likes us, we must be okay.
But that math doesn’t work. You can have everyone’s approval and still feel empty. You can fit in everywhere and belong nowhere.
The Real Freedom
Stopping the caring isn’t about becoming cold or indifferent. It’s not about numbing yourself to feedback or ignoring everyone around you.
It’s about locating your center somewhere other than in their eyes.
When your sense of self comes from within, other people’s opinions become information instead of verdicts. You can hear criticism without crumbling. You can receive praise without needing it to validate your existence.
This is what freedom actually feels like. Not the absence of other people’s thoughts about you. But the absence of those thoughts running your life.
The Feeling Practice
I keep coming back to this truth. You can’t think your way out of caring what others think. The mind created this problem. It can’t solve it.
But the body knows how to let go. The body knows how to release what it’s been holding. You just have to give it permission.
Next time you catch yourself performing for someone’s approval, pause. Feel where that need lives in your body. Don’t analyze it. Don’t try to fix it. Just feel it.
That’s the beginning. Not a thought about freedom. An actual taste of it.
The rules on this list aren’t things to accomplish. They’re invitations to keep returning to what’s real. And what’s real is never found in someone else’s opinion of you.
This is dwelling in action.
If you’re ready to align with something greater than strategy, explore the Bible Mystic practices.