how to deal if I feel bad when people talk negatively about me then do this

Any person gives an opinion about someone. For example, suppose someone says that I am mad. Now, whether I am mad or not, the real question is—why do I feel bad?

I know myself. I know that I am normal. If someone calls me mad, does that change my reality? No, it doesn’t. That person doesn’t know the truth about me, who I really am. And if he doesn’t know my reality, why should his opinion matter to me? It shouldn’t matter at all.

If a stranger, who knows nothing about me, says something, why should it affect me? It makes no difference. But if someone close to me says something, it does affect me. Now, do you know why? Because we believe that the people close to us truly know us. But the truth is, no one knows us better than we do ourselves.

An expert is someone who has deep knowledge about a subject. And when it comes to us, we are our own experts. We live with ourselves 24 hours a day. No one else does—not our spouse, not our children, not our parents. Since no one stays with us 24/7, no one can truly know us. If no one can know us completely, their opinions about us are not absolute truths, they are just perceptions.

We need to remind ourselves of this again and again. The more we become aware of this, the freer we will feel. We will become stronger and unaffected by people's opinions. Their opinions are theirs, not ours.

No matter what anyone says, even if a crazy person shouts something about me, does that make his words true? No, because he is not an expert on me. His opinion holds no value in my reality. The more I understand this, the more I will free myself from unnecessary worries.

But this awareness takes time. It grows with patience. Just because we understand this concept today doesn’t mean we will never be affected again. If someone says something negative, we might still feel bad. Why? Because we have built a habit of believing that others know us well. But the moment we break this habit, we will no longer be affected by others’ opinions.