{"id":34217,"date":"2025-04-17T21:34:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-17T21:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/relax-they-arent-thinking-about-you\/"},"modified":"2025-04-17T21:34:00","modified_gmt":"2025-04-17T21:34:00","slug":"relax-they-arent-thinking-about-you","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/relax-they-arent-thinking-about-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Relax &#8211; They Aren\u2019t Thinking About You"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In a recent article in <em>The Guardian<\/em>, Oliver Burkeman describes how to be liberated from people-pleasing:<\/p>\n\n<p>&ldquo;Great news! I found the cure for my anxiety!!&rdquo; the author Sarah Gailey once announced on social media. &ldquo;All I need is for everyone I know to tell me definitively that they aren&rsquo;t mad at me, once every 15 seconds, forever.&rdquo;<\/p>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>I know how she feels. For years, I possessed a remarkable superpower: I could turn almost any work opportunity that came my way into an unpleasant emotional drama, simply by agreeing to do it.<\/p>\n<p>Once I&rsquo;d accepted a deadline or signed a contract, there was now another person in the world who might be growing impatient that I hadn&rsquo;t finished yet, or who might end up disappointed in what I produced. And the thought that they might be harboring any negativity towards me felt hugely oppressive. This same overinvestment in other people&rsquo;s emotions meant I was always saying yes to things I should really have declined, because I flinched internally at the thought of the other person feeling crestfallen.<\/p>\n<p>It bears emphasizing that the people you&rsquo;re worried might be angry with you, disappointed in you, or bored by you almost never actually are. The liberating truth is that they&rsquo;ve got their own troubles to worry about&hellip;. As the novelist Leila Sales observes, poking fun at this tendency in herself: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s weird how when I don&rsquo;t respond to someone&rsquo;s email, it&rsquo;s because I&rsquo;m busy, but when other people don&rsquo;t respond to my emails, it&rsquo;s because they hate me.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>The liberating truth about life as a finite human is that&hellip;you&rsquo;re never going to please everyone, or do everything, or accomplish anything perfectly. So, what would you like to do with your life instead?<\/p>\n<p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[411],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[433],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3394,3433,3559,3671,3717,3979,4227,4254,4619,4624,4656,4910,4911,4917],"tax_ctp_topics":[396],"class_list":["post-34217","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-affirmation","tax_ctp_tags-approval","tax_ctp_tags-character","tax_ctp_tags-confrontation","tax_ctp_tags-criticism","tax_ctp_tags-fear-of-man","tax_ctp_tags-imperfection","tax_ctp_tags-insecurity","tax_ctp_tags-peer-pressure","tax_ctp_tags-perfection","tax_ctp_tags-pleasing-others","tax_ctp_tags-self-condemnation","tax_ctp_tags-self-confidence","tax_ctp_tags-self-esteem"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Relax - They Aren\u2019t Thinking About You - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/relax-they-arent-thinking-about-you\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Relax - They Aren\u2019t Thinking About You - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In a recent article in The Guardian, Oliver Burkeman describes how to be liberated from people-pleasing: &ldquo;Great news! 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