Be Free to Love Yourself and Others

“Self-judgment is the punishment you give yourself when you fail to meet your own expectations, when you fall short of what you think you are supposed to be.”

Don Miguel Ruiz Jr, Living a Life of Awareness

Codependents are masters of judging themselves—and others-- harshly. What we don’t understand is the process we go through in condemning ourselves and others.

The process works like this: Expectation—Belief—Judgment. Somewhere along the line when we were children, adults placed expectations on us. We accepted those expectations as true and worthwhile. We came to believe in them and we also learned to judge and criticize ourselves harshly when we weren’t able to live up to these expectations/beliefs. We learned to judge ourselves in the same harsh way that the adults who imposed these expectations on us did.

For example, we came home with a report card that has a “C” on it, and we were immediately scorned for having made a “C.” We were told “You are so much smarter than this and you can do much better. I am so disappointed in you. You have failed and embarrassed me.” The adult expectation is that we should have done better than we were capable of doing. We were then shamed into believing that a grade of “C” is a bad reflection on our parents. We felt shame and guilt for not being good enough. We then expected that we should do better next time and we came to believe that we are not good enough unless we do get better grades. The next report card came and it also contained a “C.” We scolded ourselves and judged ourselves as being stupid. We “should” have done better. And so we learned to humiliate ourselves before we could even show the report card to our parents.

As we grew into adulthood, we continued the process of clinging to expectations that adults placed on us as children. We built beliefs around those expectations that reaffirm we are not good enough “unless” we can do this or accomplish that. Every time we come up short, we lash out at ourselves mercilessly with our harsh judgments.

Even worse, we learned as children to impose our expectations on others, to build beliefs around those expectations and then to judge others harshly when they disappoint us by failing to live up to our expectations of them.

Well, today is the day to set ourselves and others free from unreasonable expectations, skewed beliefs and harsh judgments.

Next time you find yourself criticizing yourself or someone else, stop. You are making a judgment that is based in an unreasonable expectation and the false belief that is attached to it. Get to the root of your false belief and the unreasonable expectation that fuels it. Then choose to rid yourself of the expectation and the belief. They do not serve you well, and they certainly don’t serve anyone around you well.

Stop judging and start loving yourself and others!