Soulshine

“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...

When you stand in front of that mirror and you’re beginning to cringe with discomfort, and the familiar old thought races through your subconscious mind “You are so unlovable,” remember this: You weren’t the first person who said those words to you. Someone else said them to you first. You accepted those words based on the false judgment of that person and you began the process of believing them. You started repeating them to yourself every time you looked in a mirror and you started that at a young age. You then became what you chose to believe about yourself. You made the conscious choice to believe the judgment someone else executed against you. And you can make the choice to stop believing it. Right here, right now you are the one who has to decide what you really believe about yourself. And you can choose to believe anything you want. You can choose to be anything you want. And you can choose to love what is—to love yourself just the way you are—if you really want to. ...