Why Do We Care So Much What Others Think?

By Jen Bennethum

Last week, a client whispered, ‘I don’t even know who I am when no one’s watching.’ That sentence stayed with me. It’s a question that echoes through therapy rooms, journal pages, and late-night spirals: Why do I care so much what others think of me? For many, this concern isn’t just a passing thought—it’s a driving force behind decisions, relationships, and even self-care routines. We curate our lives to be palatable, acceptable, even admirable. And while some level of social awareness is healthy and adaptive, when our worth becomes tethered to external approval, we lose access to our own compass. We become mirrors, polished to reflect others’ expectations, but foggy when it comes to our own reflection.

This isn’t just about vanity or insecurity. It’s about survival. From a neurobiological and relational standpoint, humans are wired for connection. Belonging has historically meant safety. Rejection, on the other hand, once meant vulnerability to harm. So when we feel judged, excluded, or misunderstood, our nervous systems respond as if we’re under threat. That’s why criticism can feel like a punch to the gut, and why praise can feel like oxygen.

The Cost of Performing Wellness

When wellness becomes theater, the center of the performance is not your body or your soul but an imagined audience. The rituals that once soothed—breathwork, movement, mindful eating—get repurposed as props. The motivation shifts from replenishment to reputational maintenance: we pick the smoothie bowl that photographs well, linger longer in postures that signal serenity, shape our disclosures so they land as brave but not messy. That tilt toward optics trains attention outward, so the internal cues that actually tell us what we need—satiety, tiredness, the urge to rest, the presence of grief—grow faint and unfamiliar.

This outward orientation reshapes meaning. Self-care framed for approval becomes conditional and transactional: it counts only if it’s seen, liked, or commented on. The implicit message becomes: “I am only worthy when my wellness is visible and validated.” That message lands especially hard for people who grew up with conditional love or who survived environments where safety depended on compliance. For them, performative wellness is not a vanity project but an extension of earlier survival strategies. Doing the “right” wellness things signals safety, keeps scrutiny at bay, and buys a precarious sense of belonging.

The emotional toll is cumulative. When care is done for spectators, the replenishing cycle breaks. Practices intended to restore energy instead require maintenance—new outfits, curated feeds, a continual stream of evidence that we are evolving. Fatigue, shame, and a brittle self-esteem follow. When a week passes and there’s no external praise, motivation evaporates because the original reward was the gaze of others, not the felt benefit. The body and nervous system, starved of honest attunement, begin to speak in other languages: irritability, bouts of immobilization, impulsive behaviors, or a tightening of appetite and sleep. These are not moral failures; they are the nervous system’s truth-telling about unmet needs.

Performative wellness also narrows our emotional vocabulary. Vulnerability practiced for an audience often excludes complexity. We learn to present palatable sorrow, curated resilience, and edited breakthroughs while sidelining persistent pain, ambivalence, or contradictory desires. That narrowing reinforces shame: we assume the messy parts of us are unacceptable, so we hide them more tightly. Over time, authenticity erodes—relationships thin, meaning flattens, and the inner critic grows louder, using wellness language as another standard we must meet.

Healing this pattern requires shifting the frame from visibility to intimacy with self. That means experimenting with private practices that refuse documentation, allowing rituals to exist solely for their felt effect. It means interrogating the purpose behind a wellness choice: is this to soothe me, or to be seen? It means learning how to tolerate being unseen while still being cared for. When we reclaim practices for their intrinsic value, restoration follows, and the work of healing becomes less about keeping up appearances and more about tending the interior landscape that actually sustains us.

When Caring Becomes a Cage

There’s a difference between caring and being consumed. When our self-worth hinges on others’ perceptions, we outsource our identity. We become hypervigilant to cues of approval or rejection, often at the expense of our own values. We say yes when we mean no. We shrink to fit. We over-function, over-apologize, over-explain.

This isn’t weakness—it’s adaptation. But it’s also exhausting. And it keeps us from the kind of healing that requires truth-telling, boundary-setting, and self-trust.

Two-circle mapping (things you do for approval vs. things that nourish you) and private ritual experiments (a week of unshared self-care) are short, accessible practices to try at home.

Reclaiming Your Inner Compass

So how do we begin to care less—or at least differently? Not by numbing or detaching, but by re-centering. By remembering that our worth isn’t up for debate. That our healing doesn’t need to be legible to others. That self-care isn’t a performance—it’s a reclamation.

Here are a few ways to start:

Practice “internal referencing.” Before making a decision, ask: What do I think? What feels aligned for me? Notice when you're people-pleasing. Pause and ask: Am I doing this out of fear or connection? Build rituals that are private and nourishing—ones that don’t need to be shared or validated. Surround yourself with people who honor your complexity, not just your compliance. Let discomfort be a teacher. Feeling judged isn’t a sign you’re doing something wrong—it’s often a sign you’re growing.

You don’t have to stop caring altogether. You just have to care in ways that honor your truth more than your image.

Closing Reflections: From Approval to Alignment

Caring what others think isn’t a flaw—it’s a reflection of our longing to belong, to be seen, to be safe. But when that caring becomes a cage, it’s time to pause and reorient. Healing begins when we stop performing and start listening—to our bodies, our boundaries, our quiet truths. The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown — A grounded exploration of shame, vulnerability, and wholehearted living that helps readers reframe approval-seeking into authenticity.

You are allowed to be complex. You are allowed to be misunderstood. You are allowed to choose self-respect over social approval. The path to authentic self-care isn’t paved with perfection—it’s marked by small, brave choices to honor what’s real.

So if you find yourself shrinking, over-functioning, or second-guessing your worth, come back to this: You don’t need to be liked to be whole. You don’t need to be approved to be free. You just need to be aligned—with yourself. Please let us know at Integrate Therapy and Wellness Collective how we can help support you and walk with you on your journey to wholeness.