99% of a person's pain, worries, and internal conflicts are not simply due to weak character or lack of ability, but rather a "loss of sovereignty" happening deep within the brain. In this process, your self is gradually castrated, leaving only a compliant shell. Once you understand this, your life truly begins to change, and your inner strength grows.

So, what is "self"? It’s not mysterious; many people overcomplicate "self," thinking it’s some elusive soul. But it’s actually simple. The self, in essence, is your unique way of living, or rather, your exclusive response mechanism to the world. When you eat something delicious, you feel happy. When you hear a harsh sound, you frown. When you encounter injustice, you get angry. This entire set of genuine feedback systems formed by your body and life experiences constitutes who you are. If a person can live according to their self, anxiety, internal conflict, entanglement, and suffering will be greatly reduced. You will feel grounded, free, consistent internally and externally, energized in body and mind, and able to naturally and smoothly do what you truly want.

How is sovereignty lost? It’s over-concern with others’ opinions. The problem lies precisely here: too many people care too much about what others think. As a result, a "harmony filter" is forcibly installed in the brain. The terrifying part of this filter is that your genuine feelings are hijacked and harmonized before they even reach consciousness. For example: you want to wear a pink dress to work. Your self signals are: happiness, beauty, confidence. But the "harmony filter" immediately alarms: Isn’t that too flashy? Will colleagues think you’re flirtatious or unprofessional? So, to cater to that "imaginary other," you cut off the happy signals and replace them with commands for "safety, mediocrity, conformity," and end up leaving the house in a gray T-shirt.

The long-term consequence is that the self becomes "worn out and discarded." A few times isn’t a big deal, but long-term, it leads to major issues. You gradually turn off your true feelings. Physiologically, this is called "disuse atrophy." When you repeatedly prioritize "others’ opinions" over "your feelings," your body judges: since my feedback is always rejected, I might as well stop giving it. The result is: you start not knowing what you want to eat, what you like, what kind of work suits you, or even whether you love the person in front of you. You slowly become an empty shell. A human radar that only reflects external signals but has lost the ability to proactively emit signals.

What’s even more brutal is that catering to others is inherently a contradictory and rotten standard. Some urge you to get married, others cheer for being single. Zhang dislikes your weight, Li dislikes your thinness. Whose opinion do you listen to? So, you keep dismantling yourself: shaving off a piece for Zhang, then adding a piece for Li, until all your unique, sharp, interesting traits are smoothed out. You become a shiny, smooth sphere. The sphere is the safest, but also the easiest to be pushed around. Wherever the wind blows, you roll. And a sphere cannot grasp anything. You lose friction with the world, and can only drift with the flow.

Why are you willing to give up your self? A harsh truth: over-concern with others’ opinions is essentially a form of mental laziness and a giant baby mentality. It’s not that you’ve lost your self, but that you dare not truly own it. Why do we love listening to others so much? Because obeying is the safest strategy. If you insist on being yourself and fail, all the responsibility falls on you. You must face the consequences directly, with no backup. But if you listen to others and mess up, you can confidently say: It’s not my fault, they made me do it, societal pressure forced me. Others’ opinions then become your refuge and scapegoat when you fail.

How to regain sovereignty? A three-step self-rescue method: 1. See through the fragile nature of "others’ opinions." Others’ opinions are not standards, let alone truths; they are background noise or even psychological projections. Their evaluations are like weather forecasts or roadside noise—just listen. Next time you hesitate because of "what others will think," ask yourself two questions: Do they pay my salary? Do they feel bad if I get sick? If the answer is no, then their opinions are NPC lines. 2. Exercise your "self muscle": small sovereignty declarations, starting from the smallest choices. Restart your perception-decision loop: choose a dish just because you want to eat it, refuse a gathering you don’t want to attend, wear clothes that feel comfortable, and deliberately record: what truly happens when I follow my own feelings? You’ll find that most of the time, there’s no disaster. 3. Take full responsibility: the ultimate ritual of sovereignty restoration. In major decisions, even after listening to advice, tell yourself: this is my choice after considering all information. I take full responsibility for the outcome. Success is your achievement; failure is your lesson. The weight of responsibility is the measure of your existence.

Finally, don’t turn yourself into a reputation scoring system, constantly watching others give you stars. Your feelings are your built-in GPS. Don’t keep turning it off to ask for directions. That still-burning, longing core in the late night is your most authentic self. Listen to it more. Even if you go astray, that’s still your life. If you blindly listen to others, even if you get it right, you’re just a supporting role in someone else’s script.