So true! This fear of people's judgment begins within us when we are very young, likely when we start making friends at school. I think the sooner we learn that no one is truly thinking of us and teach it to our children, the less time we spend in anger/anxiety and fear.
I love the is way of thinking- similarly, how you’ll never be “the very best” at anything. But in the same way you’ll never be the worst, which makes trying more freeing once you internalise that there actually is no best. You know?
I think I've lived my entire life between the thought and expression of this. Once I told myself I didn't care what people thought of me and that I just had to live my life as I thought was right and do my work and get it out, my life got better -- but I also know the truth that when people do respond positively and sincerely and truly get what I am aiming for, it means the world to me. I don't expect everything to connect, and never with everyone, but that one note that someone sends that says how much it did, it is truly gratifying. This post really connected. Thanks for sharing it with all of us Stepfanie.
Thanks so much, Ted. It definitely feels good to know someone connected with our work. I think the line we have to draw for our own sanity and inner peace is this: if something resonated with someone else, that means they were meant to find it. If someone "didn't like" something we created, it just wasn't for them. There's also something to that fact that people who are miserable or insecure in their own lives are typically the ones who take the time to write negative comments under someone else's work. They're not critiquing—they're insulting from a place of deep inner disconnect. It's helpful to keep that in mind, too :)
My biggest post on Substack didn't get traction until after being live for over 2 months! It had less than 20 likes for 2 whole months... you just never know when your words will find who they're meant to find 😊
I've been publishing my Journal here and Facebook for years, I published daily for a huge stretch of days, besides a 2 hour mid-day break outside people and car watching, chatting with sidewalkers and petting dogs, doing my mid-day Prayers, waking-up 3:14 am and 2-hours in morning prayers and meditations, .. the rest was Journalling about my inspirations while meditation, day after day after day until God gave me a break by frying my CPU, Praise God! and I knew I had served Him and He was pleased - perhaps my writing opened a souls eyes to Convert ..
.. that's a big deal to God, especially if they advance right-ordered toward Salvation. God will forgive me many sins, even killings if they were Just and not Vengeance - I've not killed anybody in this version of life, but I have killed and killed and died and died, a lot of battles and no one mirrors Death like I do when in my Black-Knight body, I've taken on Angelic being for higher levels in that form .. but .. um, never mind.
What was I going to say .. oh, yea, I barely get read in this plane-of-reality, that is if the metrics can be trusted which I don't. I have described things that some people really want to know, and yet the viewer numbers under ten and often zero when I happen to notice it, and that changed when Federal Government stopped funding USAID of some-such .. but I couldn't care less about that because I write for God and the Multiverse, and if people in this plane-of-reality are too demonically-enslaved to accept my Service, well, God Bless you and maybe I send a form of me back to drag some of you out of Hell - for the Fun of it and for God's Love. I like fighting that infinitely Black Shiney Winged insect-faced being .. It is my Sin and it's moves so fast it takes real skill to hit it with the Holy Light-balls.
Alright, You want to know what Purgatory really is?
So beautifully written and resonates deeply. Spending 4 decades of wanting to look good in front of this imaginary audience has taken its toll. Thank you for this reminder ❤️
It's liberating when we can move on from the imaginary audience. I'm not too far from my 4th decade as well—it takes time to figure it out (sometimes we never do) 😊
This is true for free societies. But where every written word can be used against you, it can be dangerous. Unfortunately, showing vulnerability also attracts a lot of unpleasant people: psychopaths know exactly which buttons to push. I think you have to know who you open up to, how and when; demonstrating your vulnerability to a global audience is risky.
I don't hide what I am moved to share, and man oh man when I remember the endless suffering I could not understand because I was evil-blinded and had never been targeted by a powerful Witch and her coven of two, had never know a human with such pure evil.
And they are multiplying. Each time I hear about a school, workplace, or public shooting I silently hope that no innocents died and wonder if he killed some of the Witches. But they are hard to kill, they Sacrifice babies to a certain demon to know the future and if you go to their cabin to kill her, well she already saw you coming and she keeps shooting you and the grave is already dug, and you return, she shoots you, in grave, and you return and on and on until in Holy Anger you drag you corpse out of the grave in the middle of the night and you will her cabin door to blow off hinges and fall in word and the that door keep you from grabbing her screaming in terror body as runs out and into the night, and you thing - F-it- and return to grave to fall in and return to death. Don't get me that pissed,
I don't return because the Terror drove her to God, Praise God .. better ending then me ripping her apart like she does with unborn babies. Don't you think.
I was holding my breath the whole time I was reading because I felt so exposed as if I was being read inside out, until I could breathe out at your final question like I was giving out on something. It feels like all the imaginary cameras I had put on myself have all switched off at the same time. Who was I performing for? And it was so relieving. ❤️
The fear of being judged - comes from being judged. I think, that I think… the solution is like everything else, ‘be the change’ if you want to be free of judgments then don’t judge.
This article was both very freeing and very important, thank you. It resonates a lot with something I have written myself, talking about that need to rehearse and perform, even if only for the self (https://gabsdigitaldiary.substack.com/p/architecture-of-the-self-chapter?r=5fjp7q) - which is probably why I felt heard. I would argue that the judgement of the self is far more terrifying than the judgment of others, but I hope to free myself from that too one day.
I took a Buddhist psychology course in college. The professor told a story about a friend who was his own harshest critic (something perhaps many can relate to). The professor asked her friend, "Would you treat others this way?" "Of course not!" the friend replied. "Then what makes you so special?" She asked him. It was the first time I considered that harsh self-criticism could be a self-serving habit: a way for people to prove their specialness and perhaps superiority. They can take it. And perhaps the critic is so harsh because the person is sure they are better than average. I wonder if acting as the "stars of some invisible documentary about How to Be a Proper Human Being" follows similar logic.
I love this anecdote and perspective, Laura. I think you're right... there's something deeply arrogant in what I wrote here, that you pointed out: "stars of some invisible documentary about How to Be a Proper Human Being"
It is a form of arrogance to think we'd be the star of anything, even if only for ourselves
One of the most important articles one could read. The shadow of the imagination, it’s been behind me, beside me, over me, with me all these days.
So true! This fear of people's judgment begins within us when we are very young, likely when we start making friends at school. I think the sooner we learn that no one is truly thinking of us and teach it to our children, the less time we spend in anger/anxiety and fear.
I love the is way of thinking- similarly, how you’ll never be “the very best” at anything. But in the same way you’ll never be the worst, which makes trying more freeing once you internalise that there actually is no best. You know?
I think I've lived my entire life between the thought and expression of this. Once I told myself I didn't care what people thought of me and that I just had to live my life as I thought was right and do my work and get it out, my life got better -- but I also know the truth that when people do respond positively and sincerely and truly get what I am aiming for, it means the world to me. I don't expect everything to connect, and never with everyone, but that one note that someone sends that says how much it did, it is truly gratifying. This post really connected. Thanks for sharing it with all of us Stepfanie.
Thanks so much, Ted. It definitely feels good to know someone connected with our work. I think the line we have to draw for our own sanity and inner peace is this: if something resonated with someone else, that means they were meant to find it. If someone "didn't like" something we created, it just wasn't for them. There's also something to that fact that people who are miserable or insecure in their own lives are typically the ones who take the time to write negative comments under someone else's work. They're not critiquing—they're insulting from a place of deep inner disconnect. It's helpful to keep that in mind, too :)
There's an old quote from pop-culture media star Dr. Phil, “You wouldn’t worry so much about what people think of you if you knew how seldom they do.”
Reading this after publishing a post and listening to the crickets. 😅
Just, keep, publishing! 🐟
My biggest post on Substack didn't get traction until after being live for over 2 months! It had less than 20 likes for 2 whole months... you just never know when your words will find who they're meant to find 😊
That might be the one I read last night! Blew my mind in the best way possible. Such an inspiring, generous post! xx
I've been publishing my Journal here and Facebook for years, I published daily for a huge stretch of days, besides a 2 hour mid-day break outside people and car watching, chatting with sidewalkers and petting dogs, doing my mid-day Prayers, waking-up 3:14 am and 2-hours in morning prayers and meditations, .. the rest was Journalling about my inspirations while meditation, day after day after day until God gave me a break by frying my CPU, Praise God! and I knew I had served Him and He was pleased - perhaps my writing opened a souls eyes to Convert ..
.. that's a big deal to God, especially if they advance right-ordered toward Salvation. God will forgive me many sins, even killings if they were Just and not Vengeance - I've not killed anybody in this version of life, but I have killed and killed and died and died, a lot of battles and no one mirrors Death like I do when in my Black-Knight body, I've taken on Angelic being for higher levels in that form .. but .. um, never mind.
What was I going to say .. oh, yea, I barely get read in this plane-of-reality, that is if the metrics can be trusted which I don't. I have described things that some people really want to know, and yet the viewer numbers under ten and often zero when I happen to notice it, and that changed when Federal Government stopped funding USAID of some-such .. but I couldn't care less about that because I write for God and the Multiverse, and if people in this plane-of-reality are too demonically-enslaved to accept my Service, well, God Bless you and maybe I send a form of me back to drag some of you out of Hell - for the Fun of it and for God's Love. I like fighting that infinitely Black Shiney Winged insect-faced being .. It is my Sin and it's moves so fast it takes real skill to hit it with the Holy Light-balls.
Alright, You want to know what Purgatory really is?
Enjoy.
Your Servant.
AI generated audio overview;
https://notebooklm.google.com/notebook/8549cfc9-b5ff-4b6a-8570-f36b7e6bd90b/audio
Full article;
"Multiverse Journal - Index Number 2219:, 30th June 2025, Theological Meditations: I live, therefore God exists."
https://stevenwork.substack.com/p/multiverse-journal-index-number-2219
So beautifully written and resonates deeply. Spending 4 decades of wanting to look good in front of this imaginary audience has taken its toll. Thank you for this reminder ❤️
It's liberating when we can move on from the imaginary audience. I'm not too far from my 4th decade as well—it takes time to figure it out (sometimes we never do) 😊
This is beautiful writing. Very strange. Timing… I wrote this about Marcus Aurelius just the other day. https://open.substack.com/pub/markmcinerney/p/let-us-not-flinch-a-stoic-manifesto?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=1b56qu
This is true for free societies. But where every written word can be used against you, it can be dangerous. Unfortunately, showing vulnerability also attracts a lot of unpleasant people: psychopaths know exactly which buttons to push. I think you have to know who you open up to, how and when; demonstrating your vulnerability to a global audience is risky.
I don't hide what I am moved to share, and man oh man when I remember the endless suffering I could not understand because I was evil-blinded and had never been targeted by a powerful Witch and her coven of two, had never know a human with such pure evil.
And they are multiplying. Each time I hear about a school, workplace, or public shooting I silently hope that no innocents died and wonder if he killed some of the Witches. But they are hard to kill, they Sacrifice babies to a certain demon to know the future and if you go to their cabin to kill her, well she already saw you coming and she keeps shooting you and the grave is already dug, and you return, she shoots you, in grave, and you return and on and on until in Holy Anger you drag you corpse out of the grave in the middle of the night and you will her cabin door to blow off hinges and fall in word and the that door keep you from grabbing her screaming in terror body as runs out and into the night, and you thing - F-it- and return to grave to fall in and return to death. Don't get me that pissed,
I don't return because the Terror drove her to God, Praise God .. better ending then me ripping her apart like she does with unborn babies. Don't you think.
An epiphany 🤍
I was holding my breath the whole time I was reading because I felt so exposed as if I was being read inside out, until I could breathe out at your final question like I was giving out on something. It feels like all the imaginary cameras I had put on myself have all switched off at the same time. Who was I performing for? And it was so relieving. ❤️
Absolutely
I loved reading this.
The fear of being judged - comes from being judged. I think, that I think… the solution is like everything else, ‘be the change’ if you want to be free of judgments then don’t judge.
This article was both very freeing and very important, thank you. It resonates a lot with something I have written myself, talking about that need to rehearse and perform, even if only for the self (https://gabsdigitaldiary.substack.com/p/architecture-of-the-self-chapter?r=5fjp7q) - which is probably why I felt heard. I would argue that the judgement of the self is far more terrifying than the judgment of others, but I hope to free myself from that too one day.
Love itttt ❤️ it’s just a perfect reminder of being ourselves and forget what others trying to pretend. Thank you for sharing that w us
I took a Buddhist psychology course in college. The professor told a story about a friend who was his own harshest critic (something perhaps many can relate to). The professor asked her friend, "Would you treat others this way?" "Of course not!" the friend replied. "Then what makes you so special?" She asked him. It was the first time I considered that harsh self-criticism could be a self-serving habit: a way for people to prove their specialness and perhaps superiority. They can take it. And perhaps the critic is so harsh because the person is sure they are better than average. I wonder if acting as the "stars of some invisible documentary about How to Be a Proper Human Being" follows similar logic.
I love this anecdote and perspective, Laura. I think you're right... there's something deeply arrogant in what I wrote here, that you pointed out: "stars of some invisible documentary about How to Be a Proper Human Being"
It is a form of arrogance to think we'd be the star of anything, even if only for ourselves