How do you stop caring what others think? A filmmaker and a therapist answer | Baron Ryan and Stephanie R. Yates-Anyabwile
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You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas and conversations to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. TED Intersections is back for a second season. This original series features unscripted conversations between TED speakers taking on subjects at the intersection of their expertise. In this conversation, internet filmmaker Barron Ryan sits down with marriage and family therapist Stephanie R. Yates Anyabwile to answer the question, how do you learn to love yourself? They dig into the struggles of people-pleasing, why we care so much about what people think of us, and how we can resist that sneaky urge to compare ourselves to others.
I respect my dad's opinion a lot. And so oftentimes I won't call him for advice because I'm scared.
That I'm wrong.
That I'm wrong. And because I respect it so much that I know there's something inside that says he is right no matter what. Yeah. Yeah. But I think one of the wisest things we can do is not listen to our elders too closely. There's a great value in discovery, in doing the wrong thing and learning for yourself, as opposed to learning what the wrong thing is and never trying the wrong thing.
So the first question I have is how do you see people pleasing manifest in your relationship with yourself and others?
I think you could probably answer this question better than I could. But I think for me, realizing that I have people-pleasing tendencies was a slow evolution, a slow revelation. I realized that I was comparing myself to people that I thought were obvious people-pleasers, like my clients even. But I started realizing that When certain people would ask me for things, even if it was something I was dreading for weeks beforehand, I wouldn't say no, just because I think I was afraid that if a specific person saw me as difficult, then that's true. So I think for me, it was very much based on my level of respect or desire for a person to love or appreciate me. And if a person didn't fall into those categories, I could say no.
But if they did, then I had a really hard time with just even saying, this is going to be a challenge for me, but sure, I'll do it for you. And I would almost act as though I was excited about it. So people pleasing has shown up for me in multiple ways. And I think in the last two or three years, it's been a lot more obvious for me and something I've been working on a little bit more intentionally addressing. How about for you?
You said people pleasing. You never had it. It's for other people problem. I am the other people problem. Yeah, no, I think I still am a people pleaser. And it's very funny that I can admit that because my talk is about people pleasing. But I think you'll see it. There's no solutions. I think I just see the solution. I see the light and I don't know how to get to it. I think I especially have this tendency where once I'm aware of what I'm doing, I think that's it. Oh, problem solved. I'm done. And that's not it. I see it happening pretty much like just everywhere. I don't know. Just walking, just like the Uber here, the air conditioning was just way too hard. And I just didn't say anything.
Yeah.
And he asked, like, is it too cold? And I said, no.
Yeah.
It was too cold.
Yeah.
And I just, I recognized it and I didn't do anything about it.
Yeah, and see, I'm the type of person who that kind of situation... I would absolutely say something. Even when we were just sitting in a talk, I saw the lady next to me pull out mints. I'm like, ooh, can I have some of your mints? I don't know her, but I didn't have any issue asking for that. But I have some family members that I'm very close to. That kind of thing, they would never do. They would never ask because they're just that cognizant of being an inconvenience or feeling like a burden on someone. I think... I do believe that there are things that can be done about people pleasing. I don't think that it's something that is solutionless. I think the first thing is admitting to ourselves that something is bothering us or could bother us and feeling comfortable to even just communicate that possibility to ourselves.
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