When Strangers Started Mattering More
- Abhijeet Chauhan
- Oct 9
- 12 min read
I keep having the same conversations in sessions.
Someone crying about not having love in their life. Someone else devastated they can't afford to travel like their feed shows them. Another person feeling like a failure because their house doesn't look like the aesthetically curated homes they scroll past daily.
And when we actually sit down and go deep, get to the core of who they are, most of them don't even want those things.
The doom scrolling convinced them this is the life they should want. The algorithm told them what to desire. And somewhere in all that consumption, they forgot to sit with themselves and figure out who they actually are.
There's no judgment in this. But there are consequences. When you spend your life becoming someone you're not, chasing things you don't actually want, performing for an audience that doesn't know you, something breaks inside.
The shift I keep watching
There's a moment that happens. You can see it. Someone goes from creating because they have something to express, to creating because they need confirmation they exist.
The question changes. Instead of "what do I want to say?" it becomes "what will perform well?"
Last month a client spent forty minutes talking about a photo she posted three days earlier. Not the content. The engagement. Why it didn't hit like her previous posts. What she did wrong. Whether she should delete it.
When I asked what she actually wanted to say with the photo, she looked confused. That wasn't the point. The point was metrics.
I get it. The pressure is real. Everyone around you is doing it. Your friends say it's normal. The algorithm rewards certain content. You're just playing the game everyone else is playing.
But something gets lost in that translation.
What's actually happening to identity
Your sense of self used to come from somewhere inside you. What you valued, what you created, relationships with people who actually knew you. The work you did in the world. Quiet moments facing yourself without an audience.
Now I watch people measure themselves entirely through numbers. Likes, comments, shares. Algorithms designed to keep them chasing something they'll never catch.
They've handed their self worth to strangers who know nothing about them and will forget they exist the moment they scroll past.
When they're alone without a camera, they feel empty. They don't know who they are when nobody's watching. The authentic self got buried so deep under performance they forgot it existed.
In Sanskrit this is called Avidya. Not seeing clearly. Mistaking the temporary for permanent, the external for internal, the reflection for what's real.
"Usually when we have a problem that is circumstantial, we are facing the reality of life. When we have a problem that is chronic, we are facing the reality of ourselves." — Brianna Wiest, The Mountain Is You
I ask them: when's the last time you did something without thinking about how it would look posted?
They can't remember. Because they don't do that anymore.
The commerce nobody names
Here's what people won't say clearly.
When most of your followers are men you don't know, when your most popular content is your body, when comments are about how you look and not what you're trying to say, you're not inspiring people. You're not expressing yourself.
You're engaging in sexual commerce. Selling access to a fantasy version of you.
The unwillingness to admit this creates a psychological split that makes you feel crazy.
I'm not making a moral judgment. I don't care what you post. This isn't about social standards or what's appropriate. But I do care about the cost. And the cost is your ability to know yourself without strangers confirming you exist.
Last year someone said to me: "I know exactly what photos will do well. But they're not me. They're the version of me that performs. And I don't know where the real me went."
That stayed with me.
The pattern that repeats
They post the photo. The one that shows more than last time because last time didn't hit like it used to.
They get likes. Comments about how hot they look. How stunning. How they're slaying.
For maybe fifteen minutes they feel validated. Seen. Important.
Then the hollowness comes back. Stronger than before.
They know why even if they won't say it out loud. None of those strangers see them. They see a body. A performance. An ability to trigger something. They don't know thoughts, struggles, actual life.
The validation has nothing to do with who they actually are. It's about how effectively they can trigger arousal in people who don't know they exist beyond the image.
This kind of attention can never fill the void where real recognition should be. Because it's not about them.
They're being desired for the performance, not loved for who they are. Some part knows this. That's why the high never lasts. Why they need more each time. Why each photo reveals more than the last.
That's not weakness. That's how the trap works.
When strangers matter more than family
We've built something strange. A culture where you value what strangers think more than what people who love you think.
They'll ignore family concerned about them while desperately seeking validation from people who see them as entertainment for thirty seconds while scrolling.
Building identity around reactions from people who know nothing about you, care nothing about your wellbeing, will forget you the moment they move to the next image.
Giving strangers more power over how you feel about yourself than you give yourself. Letting people who've never had a conversation with you determine whether you feel worthy.
I had someone say: "My mom keeps telling me I'm beautiful, but it doesn't count. She has to say that. The strangers choosing to say it, that's what matters."
I understood exactly what she meant. And also how backwards that is.
What's being drained
Most people don't understand what's happening energetically. And I realize talking about energy can sound abstract.
But here's what I see in practical terms: sexual energy is creative life force. In Vedic tradition this is Swadhisthana chakra. Your sacral center. It governs creativity, pleasure, relationships, life force. This is Prana. What creates babies, art, businesses, spiritual experiences. The power to manifest things in the world.
When you broadcast this to strangers who consume it without seeing or loving you, you're not expressing yourself. You're leaking your life force into a void that can't give back.
They feel it. The exhaustion sleep doesn't fix. Restlessness scrolling doesn't cure. Sense that something vital is draining.
Creative projects have no juice. Relationships feel shallow. They're disconnected from their own power.
Every time you post content designed to arouse, you create energetic cords with everyone who engages. In subtle energy anatomy, these are actual structures allowing energy flow between people.
"The energy around your body is made up of several different layers: energetic, physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. This field fills the space three to four feet above, below, and around your body. It's an incredibly sensitive system that influences your thoughts, feelings, emotions, decisions, and behavior without your knowledge." Danielle Mackinnon, Soul Contracts
Through authentic intimacy and love, cords nourish. Through consumption of sexualized content, they drain the consumer and feed the creator.
You're on one end or the other. Either scrolling and feeling depleted after looking at people
you'll never meet. Or posting and feeling the high of being desired then crashing harder each time.
Energy moves but nobody gets fed.
The addiction pattern
I've heard it described like this: "I know I'm addicted. I know the photos that get engagement aren't really me. But I can't stop. Because when I don't post, I feel like I don't exist."
"Self sabotage is simply the presence of an unconscious need that is being fulfilled by the self sabotaging behavior." Brianna Wiest, The Mountain Is You
Same pattern as any addiction. Temporary hit. Crash. Need another hit. Escalation to maintain the high.
When someone points out it's addictive, the defensiveness proves the point. If it was healthy, you wouldn't need to defend it.
What I notice about the screen
Women posting the most provocative content often feel least powerful in person. Not always. But often enough that I notice the pattern.
Starving for validation they can't generate internally. Harvesting it from strangers who'll never actually see them.
The screen becomes armor. They can perform confidence, sexuality, power while avoiding real intimacy where someone might see their actual humanity.
I've heard variations of this more times than I can count: "Online I feel confident. In person I'm anxious, awkward. My real life feels too dangerous so I live online instead."
The tragedy? Mistaking desire from thousands for being valued. Confusing attention with worth. Never realizing that seeking external validation proves disconnection from authentic power.
If this is you, I'm not shaming you. I'm saying it because you already know it's true.
The love that doesn't come
The more you seek love through sexual validation from strangers, the further you get from receiving real love.
Real love requires being known. Someone seeing thoughts, character, struggles, growth, authentic self. Someone caring about wellbeing when you're not performing.
Attention from revealing photos has nothing to do with being known or loved. It's consumption.
And the more you orient around this attention, the less capable you become of receiving genuine love. You believe your value is sexual appeal, not authentic being. Can't trust someone could love you without sexual performance.
Become suspicious of people interested in your mind, creativity, spiritual growth. Don't trust it because you've been conditioned to believe sexual appeal is your primary asset.
The saddest thing I hear in sessions: "When someone likes me for my personality, I think they're lying. Or they're trying to manipulate me. Because I know what I'm actually valuable for."
That broke my heart. Because she believed it.
What gets lost
When sexual energy is constantly harvested, you lose access to creative power.
Restless but can't focus. Crave connection but relationships feel unsatisfying. Want to create but can't generate juice for sustained work.
Sexual energy is life force. When chronically drained you lose natural magnetism, ability to manifest, capacity for deep intimacy, creative inspiration, connection to joy, spiritual experiences.
You look outside for the energy you're giving away. Consume more content seeking connection. Chase validation trying to fill the void. Develop addictive patterns around sex, food, shopping, substances.
Meanwhile people harvesting your energy develop their own addiction. Dependent on external validation. Lost touch with authentic creative power. Constantly generating more content, more appeal, more ways to capture attention.
Mistake the high of being desired by strangers for genuine worth and creative expression.
Sacred vs profane sexuality
True sexual energy is creative, life giving, expansive. It connects you to divine creative force. Generates art, love, spiritual experiences, new life. When flowing naturally, sexuality becomes gateway to sacred.
Commercialized sexual energy is extractive, depleting, reductive. Takes sacred creative force and uses it to generate artificial connection, temporary validation, ultimately money for someone else. Instead of creating life, creates emptiness disguised as fullness.
You can feel the difference in your body. Sacred sexual energy leaves you feeling more alive, more creative, more connected to yourself and others. Commercialized sexual energy leaves you restless, dissatisfied, slightly ashamed, somehow less than before.
The tragedy is most people have become so conditioned to commercialized version they've forgotten what sacred version feels like.
Some of the most sophisticated energy harvesting happens in spiritual communities. People talk about "divine feminine energy" and "sacred sexuality" while using concepts to justify what's essentially the same dynamic. Using sexual appeal to harvest attention and energy from others.
The spiritual teacher whose marketing materials are clearly designed to be sexually arousing. The "goddess" workshops really about learning to use feminine sexual magnetism to get what you want from others.
True divine feminine energy is creative, nurturing, life giving. Doesn't need to harvest energy from others because it's connected to infinite creative source.
If you want authentic love
Here's what nobody tells you about attraction.
If you want authentic relationship, real love, a human being who actually sees you, you have to embody that feeling first. You have to become what you're seeking.
You attract what you are, not what you think you'll become if somebody else shows up and changes you.
That's the trap. Thinking the right person will make you feel worthy. Thinking love from someone else will fill the void. Thinking external validation will finally make you feel complete.
But you're broadcasting emptiness seeking to be filled. And you attract people who match that frequency. Either other people seeking to be filled, or people who feed on that emptiness.
The person who can love you authentically shows up when you've done the work of loving yourself authentically. Not performing self love for an audience. Actually inhabiting your body, knowing your worth, generating your own sense of being enough.
You can't skip this step. You can't fake it. You can't perform your way into it.
The real work is becoming the person who doesn't need external validation. And then, paradoxically, that's when genuine connection becomes possible.
The way back
I won't pretend recovery is easy. It starts with willingness to feel empty without constant stranger validation.
Terrifying. Because you've used external attention to avoid inner void so long you forgot you have an inner life.
You have to discover who you are not performing. What you enjoy when nobody's watching. What brings pleasure unrelated to others' responses. What aspects you've neglected maintaining your online persona.
Reconnect with your body as something inhabited not marketed. Physical sensation without photographing. Pleasure without broadcasting. Beautiful without confirmation.
"All of your so called faults, all the things which you don't like about yourself are your greatest assets." Debbie Ford, Dark Side of the Light Chasers
Face wounds that made external validation feel necessary. Usually childhood conditional love. Learning worth depended on pleasing others not inherent soul value.
"All judgment of others is cloaked self judgment. Profound spiritual growth occurs when we bravely pull that cloak away and acknowledge how we feel about ourselves." Robert Schwartz, Your Soul's Plan
It's hard work. Sitting with emptiness instead of scrolling past it. Feeling loneliness instead of posting it away. Facing fear that without performance you don't know who you are.
"You must mourn the loss of your younger self, the person who has gotten you this far but who is no longer equipped to carry you onward. You must envision and become one with your future self, the hero of your life that is going to lead you from here." Brianna Wiest, The Mountain Is You
But this is where actual power lives. Not in stranger validation. In courage to face yourself without audience.
What you can actually do
Unless you're trying to be an influencer or already are one, start here: remove everyone from your account you don't know personally.
You can follow them if their content genuinely makes your life better. What's better? Content that inspires you, not content that makes you feel less. That's the difference.
Look at your feed. Go through everything. Not just what you consume, what you share. See the intention behind it. Are you sharing for people who actually feel happy for you? Or are you broadcasting to an audience that generates emotions you can feel, energetic cords you don't even realize exist?
Instagram has settings. Close friends. Private sharing. Use them. Share things with people who genuinely want good for you, not people scrolling past generating reactions that drain you.
Remove people from your feed who in real life you wouldn't want to interact with. I know that sounds drastic. But think about it. Why would you let them into your mind daily if you wouldn't let them into your life?
I'm not judging you. This isn't about morals or social standards. It's about you keeping your energy to yourself. If your energy is in control, you're not swinging, then do what you have to do. You know your life better than anybody else ever can.
But if you're exhausted, depleted, lost, maybe it's time to look at where your energy is actually going.
An invitation
If you want to keep posting the way you've been posting, that's your choice. I'm not here to tell you what to do.
But maybe there's room for something else too.
You could spend time discovering who you are when nobody's watching. Create something without calculating its engagement potential. Feel beautiful without needing confirmation.
The culture will keep offering you validation from strangers. Your feed will keep showing you what performs well. That's fine. That's just what's available.
But there's another option. Another way to relate to yourself and your creative energy.
Real power isn't in posting revealing photos and calling it empowerment. It's refusing to participate in systems profiting from your insecurity and validation need.
It's developing such strong self worth you don't need stranger confirmation. Connecting so deeply with authentic self that performing feels foreign. Using creative and sexual energy for your growth and genuine connection with people who see and love the real you.
Recognizing sexuality is sacred, attention is precious, life force isn't currency in someone else's economy.
You're a soul having human experience. Here to create, love, grow, contribute something meaningful.
None requiring validation from strangers seeing you as entertainment.
The question is: ready to remember who you actually are beyond the performance?
What if this year, you did?
References & Further Reading
On Self-Sabotage and Personal Transformation:
On Soul Contracts and Spiritual Growth:
Schwartz, Robert. Your Soul's Plan: Discovering the Real Meaning of the Life You Planned Before You Were Born
Mackinnon, Danielle. Soul Contracts: Find Harmony and Unlock Your Brilliance
On Energy and Karma:
On Relationships and Authentic Connection:
Related Articles:
Energy Protection - Understanding what you're broadcasting and what keeps attracting draining patterns
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