Greetings to everyone! Today we will talk about other people's opinions and dependence on them. What are the reasons for this dependence? It’s worth starting with the fact that people in general are very dependent, unlike the animal world. For example, human cubs become independent later than others, both physically and in terms of making their own decisions. The second important aspect is that each family has a very different attitude towards freedom, the ability to express their thoughts. Hence the question: who and why becomes dependent on other people’s opinions? First: as children, our opinion was rarely asked at all. They bought us things, toys, took us to theaters, zoos, without asking our opinion. And most often, the child is given the opportunity to express his opinion only in adolescence. More precisely, the child himself wins this opportunity. And then the parents experience shock, get scared and blame everything on adolescence. Although the teenager at this moment simply expresses what has been inside him all this time. Second: parents often express their opinion about the child’s acquaintances, thereby making it clear: “create such a social circle as to be acceptable to the people who are important to you.” After all, it is known that for a child, mom and dad are the primary and ideal people. At the moment when a child first wants to show independence, when he first stands on his feet or when he wants to run to the other half of the yard, mothers are not ready to give the child such responsibility. At the same time, sometimes you can also hear the following phrase: “Are you running through puddles again? Mom doesn’t love you when you do that.” What's the outcome? “In order to be loved, I must do as the person important to me says.” And then, after many years, adults in training realize that all their lives they “deserved” love and good attitude from people dear to them. Those who were scolded a lot for mistakes in childhood are also dependent on the opinions of others. The words of abuse spoken at the same time are very well imprinted in the brain, and the child transfers his behavior to adulthood. The result is “it’s better to do as they say, then at least they won’t scold you.” “Listen to mom, mom won’t give you bad advice” - have you ever heard this phrase? If yes, you can be sure: the roots of your lack of self-confidence and dependence on other people’s opinions come from childhood. This “listen to mom” echoes in the child’s head like this: “only mom’s opinion is the best and most useful. All other opinions can harm me.” And sometimes it turns out that a child under forty asks his mother for advice in everything. And he not only asks, but also acts like this. Such people are often subject to rebellion in adulthood. They can give up everything, change jobs, change cities, or complete a successful project. But without resolving the internal contradiction, the same things will happen in the “new” life - having gotten out of dependence on some people, a person immediately becomes dependent on the opinions of others. Often such “oppressed” men find powerful wives. What to do in such situations? What does a person do when he first realizes his dependence on other people’s opinions? “Urgently, urgently stop listening to other people’s opinions!” - he says. But in the end, a person not only stops hearing other people’s opinions, he also does the opposite. And this is not your own opinion, this is a violent contradiction to any other opinion. What to do? It's enough to know about it. And if now you are working on self-confidence and feel attacks when you want to do anything, but not as someone says, know: you are now in this period of denial. It is important to remember that this is normal and try to mitigate this period. The next stage is to learn to hear useful information for yourself in the opinions of other people. To do this, you need to start working on yourself in a variety of directions. I will give you several exercises for this work: Exercise 1: Choose a movie or book that everyone is talking about now, something that is heard. Watch or read this movie or book and form your own clear opinion. Answer for yourself: what you liked and what you didn’t.