Q: I feel like one of my biggest problems in life is worrying about what other think/will think of me and my choices. What does ACIM have to say about this? Am I projecting? Is everyone a mirror of me? It’s driving me crazy. Thank you for any advice you can give.

A good question, you ask! Worrying about what other’s think is an area where your ego knows it can hook you. It is a defense that the ego uses to keep you believing that you are a body, and that the separation is real.

One of the things that happens here is that by listening to the ego (caring about what other’s think), it keeps you from trusting the thoughts that come to you from the Holy Spirit. You judge the thoughts as being good/bad/potentially embarrassing, and therefore you don’t act on them or say them out of fear of judgment. The ego keeps you right where it wants you (which is not turning to the Holy Spirit).

I’ve definitely struggled with the same thing! The way that I have worked with this is that when I notice the fear thought about being afraid of what others will think, I acknowledge that I’m creating it (it is my ego’s defense) and I find the willingness to give those feelings to the Holy Spirit – and I ask to see it differently.

Another way of looking at this is that I’m afraid of others’ judgment, because I’m doing the judging. On a superficial level, we’re judging others all the time! When we practice non-judgment of others, we start to fear it less. I love the saying “What you think of me is not my problem.” On a deep ACIM level, the judging that we’re doing is that we’re doing the Holy Spirit’s job for him/her. This means that WE are deciding what is good/bad, real/unreal, what is best for us, and where it is that our happiness lies. The truth is we don’t know! It is all of this that we’re asked to take to the Holy Spirit to let the Holy Spirit do the judging… and the HS’s judgment is ALWAYS that we are love, and our blocks to love don’t exist.