'Log Kya Kahenge?': Navigating 'What Will People Say?' | Listener Q&A

This is a Q&A episode where I respond to a listener’s question about how to navigate the thought/feeling of “what will people say” (Hindi: “log kya kahenge”). 

You can submit your own question for Q&A at any time too! Just head to @deliciousdignity on instagram or email me podcast@dilshadmehta.com.

Here’s the episode outline:

1. A reality check of the world we currently live in: What’s really going on and what lies beneath how people see you or talk about you
2. Do we ever stop caring about what other’s think or say about us?
3. Safety as the foundation for building a strong spiritual immune system
4. A powerful affirmation that blew my mind when I came up with it
5. A two part ritual for establishing safety 

📖 Ritual Accompaniment For This Episode: Each episode has a webpage with the full ritual questions, pictures, notes, & relevant downloads (no sign-up needed). 

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Transcript

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Dilshad 0:00

Welcome to the Delicious Dignity Podcast. Let's settle in securely and ever so nicely into the brilliance of our own dignity. Welcome, everybody. This is a very special episode because this is a Q&A episode. And in case you didn't know, I am very open to receiving questions from our listener community and putting together episodes to answer those questions. So you can send those questions to me anytime and I will put in a listener Q&A episode for you. I'm really excited because today we have a question that is a very common question that I get with almost all my clients and I also think it's one of the quickest ways to lose your dignity or give up your dignity because it relates to other people, specifically what other people think of you. So the question was from Richa who says, I'm very interested to hear the problems slash log kya kahenge, which means what will people think and what will people say that came about when you started living your life the way you wanted to. That one thing always holds me back. Whether it was me deciding to live in the US or leave the US, even something as simple as me wanting to wear Indian outfits because I love them, but it's no longer in fashion. I'm so interested in knowing how you navigate those things in life. And like I said, this is one of the quickest ways we all do this. We all lose our dignity when it comes to trying to navigate and trying to balance who we are and living our authentic lives. self, if you will, while at the same time keeping one eye on what other people will say, think, or do? And it's a lovely question. And I don't think you realized it, Richa, but it's a pretty deep one because it's tied to so many things. And each of those things are, it's a very strong tie to each of those things. For example, we can look at this from many different angles, right? We can look at this from the angle of being a woman in the world. And how does that affect this thought process of what will people say, what will people think. We can talk about it from cultural inheritance that we've gained from our parents and our grandparents. What will people say? What will people think? We can talk about it patriarchy as in general. We can talk about the emotional intelligence of other people and how that relates to this thought of what will people say and what will people think. So we can look at this from many different angles. And I've already looked at it and explained it from the angle of all the different thoughts I have of what other people will say or think about my podcast in the first episode of this podcast. And you can see how I navigated each question and each thought that I have. And also a future episode, it'll come out in like one or two episodes from now, is an episode that I'm doing about the difference between real true feedback versus projections. What is the difference? Whom to trust? Whom not to trust? What to take as feedback? What to leave behind? I will talk about it from that perspective. What will people say? What will people think from the point of view of what is feedback? What is projection? And so that's coming up soon. So for the sake of this episode, what I want to do is answer it from the perspective of safety. Safety as an energy and safety as a concept. So I want to first start with just directly answering your question. What will people say? What will people think? And the answer is very simple. People will think everything and nothing at all times, at any time, and at no time. There is not a single thing you can do or say about it. And maybe there is, but do you really want to? Do you really want to adjust your behavior, adjust your thinking, adjust your conversation even? based on what people may or may not say or do. People are full of opinions and projections. And a lot of adults are actually just children in disguise. And from what I have faced in my life, for me, it takes a psychic or a therapist or a really, really aware person, someone who's done their inner work, to be able to just talk to me in a way where they're really seeing me and not projecting their stuff onto me and not judging me and not being just generally one track minded. It really takes a very self-aware person or a highly trained person to see you properly in your full glory. And I don't mean just seeing you for all your positive sides and not only gassing you up and making you seem larger than life, but also the parts of you that you need to work on. They can give you solid, honest feedback that is not just judgment in disguise. So that's something I want to say to you. And that is something that can be very hard to hear that in the world we live in, it's just adults who are actually children and they don't have the skills and they don't have the capacity to see another person without gossiping or saying things behind their back or basically projecting their shadows onto that person. And nowhere is that more true than when it comes to a woman living the way she wants to. So I just want to say that to you upfront, because I feel like a lot of times that is not acknowledged. I saw this Instagram video the other day where this woman was saying, if everyone doesn't like you, no matter where you go and what you do, then the problem is you. And that is some BS psychology or whatever you want to call that pop psychology, because that's not true. Because what I have noticed is, is if you are a truly empowered woman, if you are truly lit up from the inside, Everywhere you go and no matter what you do, you're going to encounter a lot of resistance. That's just the way the world is right now. It may not always be like this, but that's the way the world is right now. You're going to ruffle a lot of feathers. You're going to, especially other women's feathers, not just men, but other women are going to be ruffled by the way, how free you are, how alive you are, because they're not feeling the same way. So I want to acknowledge that what will people say and what will people think, it's a very real thought and it's related to feeling safe in the world as a person, as a woman, just being, just being normal in this world or just being a human being in this world will come with that thought. Now, that being said, there is a way to turn down the volume of these voices in your life. So I said this in the first episode, where enlightenment is not about never having bad thoughts, never having fear, blah, blah, blah. Enlightenment is about, or progress is about, or self-awareness is about feeling the fear and doing it anyway. And also over time, that fear will get lower and lower in volume to the point to which one day you might not even notice it's there, or you see it's there, but it doesn't affect your behavior. So going back to how I deal with it, which is the question you asked, like, how do I navigate it? I still hear those voices. And I've elaborated on each and every different voice in episode one and what those voices mean to me and how I navigate them. But the point is, is that I don't let those voices stop me. That's the point. They don't hold me back. They're just there like background noise, like static. And how do you get to that point? And that's what I want this episode to be about for you and for everyone listening, because I want to introduce the concept of safety and dignity as it relates to safety. So the first part of this, I want to explain to you about safety inside of yourself. One of the most potent, powerful affirmations I ever made for myself was about, I think, five years ago when I made up this affirmation. I am a safe place. I am my own safe place. I have safety in my body, in my soul, in my emotions, and in my mind. I am not scared or angry or upset with myself where I abuse or neglect myself. I am a safe place. What does that mean? It means the best way you can start feeling safety inside yourself is to start with your body and I'll tell you why it has to start with the body in a second but to start by feeling safe in the body makes you have a kind of solidity and groundedness to you that when the opinions come when the projections come which they eventually may or may not come it's a reality it will come but when they come and if they come you are strong enough to not only to handle it, but to sort of sidestep it. Just do a quick one-two, you know? And I don't know if you can hear it in the recording, but I actually moved. Like you just sidestep, you know, like you're a ninja walking through the planet and you just go boing and you turn your head to the right. Boing, it's coming from the left, so turn your head to the right. You know, that's the kind of safety I want everyone to cultivate inside of their body. Because it's not about controlling other people, right? As you well know, it's about... being so strong in yourself where these outside forces minimize their impact on you. So how do you feel safe in your body? I think the quickest way to do that is to go to the gym, lift weights, because you're literally getting stronger in your body. You can even do yin or restorative yoga, which is a lot of somatic release work. It's a lot of even just basic stretching. you know, some really good stretches in the morning when you wake up, what you're doing is you're releasing any stuck or stagnant energy that makes you feel weaker. And you're also building up your body to become stronger at the same time. I have to say, I don't like yoga. I know that's a very, very big statement to make, especially in this day and age, because when I would do yoga, at least the way it's taught in America, it did not make me feel good. In fact, it felt really nauseating to me. But yin yoga or restorative yoga, that type of yoga is absolutely incredible. And I've never seen a single person say that they don't like that kind of yoga. So I highly recommend those things because what they do is that it helps give space in your body and it helps you feel safe in your body, which I think, especially as a woman, we inherently don't feel safe in our body. Building that up makes you able to handle the noise of the world. I'm not saying you're going to be impenetrable, but I am going to say you're going to be really strong. And so the volume will decrease. You know, in fact, I'm having a full circle moment here, Richa, because one of the reasons why I even made the energy cleansing or energy hygiene course was because I interviewed you and a about what you need in this day and age and what I realized is we all need energy release work and energy cleansing work and energy hygiene work and part of that is learning how to feel your body and learning how to be in your body and learning how to release stuff from your body and you helped develop that course which is so funny that we're talking about this now so This is a full circle moment. And actually I should probably say, please don't go looking for this course because I'm still, I decided to revamp the course and make it a shorter course and more potent. So I'm revamping it right now. So you can't find it on the website. Don't go looking for it. It's not ready to be re-released just yet. But my point is, is that this feeling like you can settle into your body is one of the strongest ways I know to I want to read this quote to you by Dr. Clarissa Piccola Estes. And she wrote what I consider to be the Bible on womanhood, which is women who run with the wolves. And this is that quote from that book. Here we begin. The body's purpose is to protect, contain, support, and fire the spirit and soul within it, to be a repository for memory, to fill us with feeling. That is the supreme psychic nourishment. It is here to lift us and propel us, to fill us with feeling, to prove that we exist, that we are here to give us grounding, heft, and weight. It is wrong to think of it As a place we leave in order to soar to the spirit, the body is the launcher of those experiences. Without the body, there would be no sensations of crossing thresholds. There will be no sense of lifting, no sense of height, weightlessness. All of that comes from the body. The body is the rocket launcher. And in its nose capsule, the soul looks out of the window into the mysterious starry night and is dazzled. That's why I feel like starting with the body, is the most important thing that we can do. And if that's not something that you want to start off with, because I know trauma lives in the body and we all can be very sensitive to that, you can start by just repeating the affirmation, I am a safe place, or I am a safe place for me. I am a safe place for me to land. I am my own safe place. However you want to make that up. And I want to say that it's one step at a time and it builds on the previous step. If you're trying to push to go ahead when you're not actually ahead or when you're not ready, it's actually making yourself feel unsafe within yourself. So then you can't trust yourself. For example, you asked how I navigate it right now. And I'll tell you, I have a podcast episode that I really, really want to release. It is extremely wildly personal, but I don't feel safe talking about it. I don't feel safe releasing it because I'm afraid of what people might say, think, and do when that episode comes out because it's highly politically charged and there are some family dynamics to navigate before I release it. So I don't feel safe doing that. And that's okay. There is a reason why I don't feel safe. I'm acknowledging that. But there are many ways I could do that. Maybe I don't release it to the public. Maybe I just talk about it in a group course, which I have done before. Maybe I have a paywall for only people who've subscribed to the podcast who will get that episode. Or maybe I don't talk about it at all. But I don't have any illusions that I will be completely safe when I do this episode. Nor am I going to drop the idea of doing a podcast altogether just because I'm scared. I will share whatever I feel safe sharing. And when I feel strong enough to handle what may or may not come as a backlash, that's when I will release that episode. So I'm creating that safe place for myself by not pushing myself before I'm ready. Now, sometimes you do have to push yourself before you're ready, but it's never towards danger, right? It's always towards just growing and growing as a person. And this feels like danger to me. So I'm quietly navigating that and I'm giving myself the time and space to figure out how I'm going to do it, but I'm not pushing myself. And more and more that you take steps to take baby steps towards doing the thing that scares you, but not pushing it so far that you don't feel strong enough to handle the consequences of the thing that scares you. That is the sweet spot. And over time, you get proof that your way works for you and the voices of other people are not as loud. because you trust yourself, because you are your own safe place. And so having that proof of your own efficacy, your own incredibility, that proof is what will carry you forward. And you ask how I have navigated it so well. It's because I've had years and decades of proof that when I do things my way and in the way in which I can see them, hear them and feel them, then I've never regretted it, ever. And I've been very pleased that I have followed my own way. Have I gotten voices from other people? Sure, but I don't even remember them. I don't remember them. I know I've had them, but I couldn't tell you what those voices were. That's how irrelevant the voices become. And that's where I hope everyone can get to at some point. Just to give you an example of how I handled it in the past. It's definitely a new and new unfolding. There's an unfolding. It's a constant unfolding how over the years, I have not paid attention. I've not let those voices hold me back. I can't say that I don't care anymore because that's false. And I don't think anyone can get to that point realistically. Maybe some people have, but I don't think a majority of people can get to that point where they simply just don't care what other people think of them and they're not going to be embarrassed or ashamed, et cetera. But I do notice that Every year, I am less and less impacted by the voices of other people. And in episode four, I started my story at 17 for how I started getting out of hustle culture. But really, when I was a kid, I just felt like a fish out of water for so long that I started relying on myself. I felt like a fish out of water in my school, in the family dynamics. I just didn't feel like I belonged anywhere. Because I saw the pointlessness of the systems I belong to, the pointlessness of the education system, the fact that it was not really education, it was just indoctrination. I saw the pointlessness of the so-called teachers, adults who propagated these systems. I saw the pointlessness of jobs and how people were treated in their jobs. It just felt like everyone was playing a game, but nobody was willing to admit that it was a game. And it felt hypocritical. And I saw the world as foolish. And I saw this that maybe six or seven years old, I felt like everything was just foolish. So I started distancing myself from the voices of other people since I was a kid. So if it looks easy to you now, I would caution you against thinking that it was easy because I started from a very young age and it's been years and decades in the making for me to get to this point where I am not impacted by the voices of other people as much. And it took me a long time to value or even want feedback from other people. I think I was well into my 20s before I first asked for feedback. And I asked it of a friend that I had known for years. Up till that point, I never asked for feedback, nor did I want it. And I just think that because I had such a difficult time in school where I was sort of gossiped about and people were spreading rumors about me that were completely untrue, I just started to see how there was no point in surrounding myself with people that I'm afraid of, that I don't feel safe around. Because it hurts so much when you are around those people and you keep trying to get more therapy, become a stronger person, become a better person, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but you still surround yourself with people you don't feel safe with. No amount of therapy, no amount of personal work will make you immune to the people that you chose to have around you. The people you choose to have around you has to be a reflection of your highest values, your ideals, and just generally your love in the world. So I learned this lesson really early on in life. Like I said, I started around maybe six or seven years old and I started to realize that there's nothing as pointless as living somebody else's life because I'm a second-rate version of myself as opposed to a first-rate version of myself because I'm trying to lead somebody else's life. I'm trying to be somebody else's version of me. And I did do it. As I said in episode four, I did it. I tried to live the way other people said I should live and it didn't work. And the other caveat I want to mention about the voices of what will people say, what will people think, I think just in general, getting older, hormonally, chemically speaking, biologically speaking, I don't know what happens to you as a woman, but there's something about hormones that when they start changing, you care less and less. And you don't feel so impacted by other people. And some of this is truly hormonal and chemical and biological. So there's that aspect to it too. And I don't want to ignore that and pretend that doesn't exist and only talk about it from a mental health or spiritual health perspective. There is a biological reason why I've gotten to this point as well. Okay. I think also when I was a teenager, because I didn't understand safety, I would either provoke people or situations subconsciously because I was footloose and fancy free and I didn't prioritize safety or I would remain in a tight box. So I was either all or nothing. I was either on high alert or never alert. That was the hormonal imbalance of a teenage girl who did not understand that there is dignity in her safety. There is dignity in her feeling safe within herself. being self-assured and being filled with the proof of her own self-efficacy. I can't describe the word like self-efficacy, so you can Google it to see what I mean. But it's basically, you do something, you see the proof of your own doing, and you are enlightened by it because you see the proof that it worked out. And that self-efficacy, I wish I had just prioritized that when I was younger, but I I never really prioritized feeling safe within myself. And had I done that, it would have been a completely different life for me. However, not that I regret it. I had to go through it, but here we are. So that was my insight number one or my suggestion number one, which is different aspects of I am a safe place. I am safe within myself. I am my own safe place. And as we go down the road, I'm a safe place for other people. Okay. The second aspect of this equation is other people. So we started with you and yourself and that you are a safe place. Now we go on to other people. And in this ritual, if you will, in this second part of this ritual is identifying your log or your people. Log is the Hindi word for people. So identifying your people, the specific people. So you make a list of those people that you are most afraid of. will say something about you or to you or whatever. And you make a list of those people. Let's start with five. And that's your first column. In your second column, what I'd like you to do is imagine or identify from past experience or from your own imagination, the exact words and sentences and phrases that these people will use against you for whatever situation you're imagining. And then in the third column, identify why those statements matter to you. And I know this seems like a lot of work for people who don't like journaling or whatever, but the thing with journaling and putting things on paper is that you get to see what was formerly taking space in your mind. What was taking space in your mind is now out on paper. And that act alone releases stuff in your brain, in your mind, and in your body. And it also gives space to you to actually breathe. So you really do have to confront this. And that's part of the equation is confronting it by yourself, with yourself. So when it does happen, you're not as surprised or shocked or even bothered because you've already confronted this before, if it does happen. So you have to identify your everybody, your people. And you have to identify and confront the exact phrases and statements that you think they will make. And you have to ask why it matters to you. And when you're asking why it matters to you, ask the same question 10 times. So for example, let's say in my column one, there is my friend, I'll just make up a name, my friend Amy. And in the second column, I am afraid Amy will say that I looked foolish doing this dance. Okay, and that's what I'm afraid that she will say. She will think I'm foolish. And in the third column, I have to ask, why does it matter that she says I'm foolish? Well, it matters because I will feel ashamed. I will feel embarrassed. Then I ask, why does it matter if I'm ashamed or embarrassed? Well, it matters because I will feel rejected and alone and unloved. Why does it matter if I'm rejected, alone or unloved? So you ask, why does it matter? Or simply just why? Four or five times for you to get to the juice or the seed of what it is you are thinking or feeling of what you're truly afraid might happen. And you will find that it's usually about not being loved or being rejected or being abandoned. That's really what's happening. But I'll let you go through that exercise and see it yourself. So now when it comes to other people, so now that we've gotten through like the ritual or the actual practice of handling this, I want to just make a few statements about other people. So I told you before that people will do what people will do, right? There's no controlling that. But I also don't put myself in unsafe places just to live the way I like, nor do I hang out with people that I find to be unsafe. I go where I am welcomed or I just don't go at all. Now, let's say I have to deal with people that I don't feel safe with. I have very, very strict boundaries, very strict boundaries. For example, if I have to hang out with someone I feel unsafe with, and let's say a particular event and there was no avoiding them, the second they do or say something that I find to be disrespectful or whatever, I simply just get up and I walk away. Or I fight if I feel like the battle is worth it. But I have very strict boundaries and the boundaries are not necessarily for the other person. They are for me. I need to hear myself, hold myself. I need to hear myself, protect myself. I need to hear myself, value myself. So I need to say that out loud and I need that lived experience of simply exiting when somebody is crossing lines of respect, shall we say. And truly, I never thought that I could ever feel totally safe with people. But over time, I have found it in pockets. And the only reason I've found it is because I've stopped accepting unsafe behavior. And I started prioritizing people that exhibited safe behavior. And what's paradoxical is that my threshold for safety also increased. Because before in the past, everywhere I went, I would say, I'm not safe, I'm not safe, I'm not safe. And my alarms would misfire. And that feeling of not feeling safe, even though I was safe, would give me so much anxiety because I just always felt like I wasn't safe. But because I started prioritizing safety with other people, prioritizing safety in myself, I no longer have those alarms of not safe, not safe. My alarms don't misfire. So my threshold... for feeling safe in the world has increased. And now if I don't feel safe, it's more like, okay, I'm recognizing I don't feel safe. How can I ask for it? How can I feel it? And what do I need to do? Do I need to exit? Do I need to fight? Do I need to, what is it that I need to do? And based on that, I will act accordingly. You asked how I navigate it now. I just simply don't go where I'm not welcome. I don't go to places where I'm just tolerated either. So just because I'm tolerated, that doesn't mean I go there. Being tolerated is not the same thing as being welcomed and loved for your existence, you know. And that's what I have learned, that you have to be welcomed, not just tolerated. So yeah, that's my third angle to the question of how to stop yourself from being held back from the fear of what people might say, do or think. I spoke about it from one angle in episode one. I'm going to speak about it from another angle in episode eight or nine. And from today's episode, I'm talking about it from a safety perspective. There is dignity in feeling safe. Just imagine that. Just imagine feeling so safe in who you are and just ask yourself, can you just feel how your dignity increases as a person when you just feel safe in who you are? When you not only just trust yourself, but you feel safe with yourself. You feel safe in your mind, safe in your emotions, safe in your own spirit, safe in your own body. That is a beautiful thing. And then from there, that place, you're also addressing how you navigate this world with projections and stuff that people throw at you. And you know, maybe that can be the third part of the ritual. I wasn't planning on having a third part, but here it is, is to make a list of people where you feel like the energy is like they're throwing their arms open in a big, wide open hug and saying, welcome. Who are those people that you feel like that with? Even if you can find only one, one is fine. If you can find 10, great. Who are those people that welcome you? with open arms and try to surround yourself with those people as much as you can. And that will also build up your strength because now you're seeing yourself reflected through their eyes, not just your eyes, but also their eyes. And that will build you up to be able to face the world as you need to face it. Okay. There is a part of me that doesn't want to end this episode because I know how important it is. And I know how I have felt through dealing with this and I know how you're feeling. And I just want to keep talking to you to like give you all the juice I can so that you can navigate this. But I think between these three episodes that I mentioned, I think that'll give you a well-rounded understanding of how to deal with this going forward. Just take it one step at a time. Don't push yourself beyond your danger zone. Let me give you an example from your own example. Like you mentioned wearing Indian clothes. Okay. Maybe on Monday you wear a nath or a nose ring, the nose chain that goes from the nose ring to your ear. And maybe you just wear that with some Western clothing. I've done that before. And maybe on Tuesday you wear a kurta with a skirt or jeans. Maybe Wednesday you wear a different item. So you're slowly building yourself up to where you want to be while at the same time doing these rituals that I talked to you about. But That's an example of how you might slowly do it as opposed to just walking out on Monday in a full-blown sari. Maybe that's your style and maybe you're ready for that now that you've listened to this episode. I don't know. But slow and steady is respectful. It's dignified. Yeah, it's just so respectful. And a big component of love is respect. Okay. I hope I answered your question thoroughly, Richa. And I'm sure you'll let me know. And for those of you who are listening, Let me know how this relates to you. And you can message me over at deliciousdignity on Instagram. And of course, if you have questions too, as you can tell, I will answer them in a lot of detail. So ask your questions and I'm happy to do episodes to support those questions. Okay, my lovelies, may you welcome the dignity of being your own safe place. Much love to you. Bye.