Q: How can I stop being influenced by what my friends and others are thinking?

A: Throughout middle school, high school, and even most of college, I struggled with this very thing. It wasn’t so much peer pressure as this overwhelming feeling that I needed to follow what my friends thought. Like if there was a girl I thought was cute, but my friends didn’t like her (or, more honestly, if I thought my friends wouldn’t like her), then there was no way I would consider talking to her. 

I felt like two different people. When I was at home with just my family and maybe one or two friends around, I felt free and happy to be myself. But at school, I felt boxed in, and like I was trying to conform to whatever I thought other people thought I should be.

At the beginning of my fourth year in college, I had the opportunity to study abroad in France. I was very caught up in relationship challenges, fears about my prospects, and my dislike of school, and I was feeling trapped. I was trying to navigate life by what other people thought or what their expectations of me might be. 

At school, I felt like I was trying to conform to whatever I thought other people thought I should be.

But one day in France, I had a transformational experience, which you can read about on JSH-Online.com (see “An always present Love, The Christian Science Journal, September 2010). As detailed in that article, I felt the immediacy of God’s love in a way I’d never felt it before. The funny thing was, it didn’t specifically answer any of the concerns or questions I’d had. But it shifted the entire premise of my outlook. I saw, for the first time, that my life was my own and that it was not at the mercy of what other people thought, did, or expected. Or, to be more accurate, spiritually, I saw that my life was God’s and that it was safe in His love.

The shift that came from this realization was tremendous. I felt free! I’d had no idea how hard it had been to navigate all those different influences, but now that I was feeling so sure of God’s love, I saw that it was the only thing I wanted to let govern me. And indeed, God, Love, is the only true power that governs any of us. 

I’m reminded of how Christ Jesus responded when Pontius Pilate threatened him. Jesus said, “Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above” (John 19:11). In other words, “You could have no power over me at all, unless God gave you that power.” 

Watching and listening for Love, we’ll be less and less likely to give in to an influence that doesn’t coincide with Love and the good it has for us.

Well, nothing against any of my friends, but God sure didn’t put me in their hands. And, honestly, my friendships deepened quite a bit, once I saw that these friends were not governors of my life—which, of course, they probably never intended to be. But their good ideas could definitely inspire me as I figured out what was right for me. 

Before, I’d felt I was constantly trying to adjust to what others might think on any given day, which can be like trying to follow trends that seem to change from moment to moment. But as I discovered that God’s love is steady, not reactive to this person or that circumstance, there was a new steadiness that characterized my approach.

While Love does govern us fully, sometimes we might not be sure how to see that in our lives. For me, it’s helpful to look at each day as an opportunity to feel and trust God’s love more fully. His love doesn’t waver, doesn’t depend on the circumstances around us. God’s guidance never has exceptions. Watching and listening for Love, we’ll be less and less likely to give in to an influence that doesn’t coincide with Love and the good it has for us and for all. This verse in the Bible encourages us: “Dear friends, now we are God’s children, and it hasn’t yet appeared what we will be. We know that when he appears we will be like him because we’ll see him as he is” (I John 3:2, Common English Bible).

We may not be sure of each coming step or how our lives will grow and transform. But looking to God, recognizing Love as the sole power in our lives, we’ll discover that there’s no need to conform to what others think in order to feel loved, because we are already loved, already complete as Love’s reflection.