Hi and I'm your host, Dr. Ellen Hendrickson, and every week I'll help you meet life's challenges with evidence-based research, a sympathetic

ear, and zero judgment.

Do people say you stay up too late and got nothing in your brain?

Well, when it comes to what people think of you, it's been

said that bad is stronger than good. In a given day, if you hear 99 compliments and one criticism, you know which one will be running through your head as you try

to fall asleep that night.

But it's normal to care what people think.

Most of us care deeply what the people we love and respect think of us.

Indeed, it's hardwired.

Not so many hundreds of years ago, banishment was the worst punishment possible.

We needed the group just to survive, so our good standing with that

group could actually mean the difference between life and death. Now fast forward a few

hundred years. These days we may not rely on a group for food or

shelter but we still rely on those around us for belonging and support. But ask any given self-help, Guru, about whether you should care what other people

think, and you're pretty much guaranteed to get heated advice about how to stop giving two

something's or a flying something else.

And herein lies the problem.

The tone of a lot of how to stop caring advice is intense and contemptuous, and at

least for me, leaves me feeling like I need to accessorize with an eye roll and a straight out of the 90s talk to the hand stance

Not my style and likely not yours either

So let's go for a middle ground. You want to be able to hear

constructive criticism from people who matter to you while filtering out the

...