Being Judgemental About Ourselves and Others
In our daily lives we regularly judge ourselves and others very harshly. We will look at our self-judgement shortly, but first let’s look at how we treat others.
We are often taught from an early age that life should be a struggle, a type of survival of the fittest mentality and we are often taught that we have to compete against each other in order to be viewed by other people as; the most successful or the happiest, to have the most holidays each year, or drive the most expensive car In order to show our prestige and our status, or worth in society. We need to get that high paying, high level job to achieve status, satisfaction, happiness and ultimately “a good life”
When we meet people, even people that we might have been good friends with for many years or colleagues that we might have worked alongside for years. We only see the tip of the iceberg. We only see the part of that person that they want to show to the world. How often do we think about what the background/past experiences of that person or of that family might have been? Do we think about how those experiences shaped their beliefs and perspective in the present situation? Often people speak or react without considering the bigger picture/ other things that the person or family might be going through.
Remember this quote:
“Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be Kind. Always”.
None of us are perfect and in the heat of a moment, it can be hard to take a few seconds before speaking or reacting, especially if it triggers a response in us due to a past experience, a memory of something that might have occurred in a similar way before!!
Imagine what billions of humans could accomplish if we loved and accepted one another, without greed, envy, competing or comparing ourselves.
We can make a change today!
Be the influence you want to see more of in the world, just smiling at someone can make a massive difference to their day. Choose to lift others up. Choose to set the example, the example of kindness and compassion, to the best of your ability.
Coming back to our harsh judgement of ourselves. There is only one voice that we will hear throughout our entire lives and that is the voice inside our own head. When we get stuck with negative thoughts, which replay in a loop, it can be very hard to break out of that loop. The thoughts and conversations can use up a lot of our energy. How many times have you replayed something over in your mind again and again, feeling upset or worrying about it? Did you feel any better after spending hours of doing this to yourself? Did anything actually change as a result? Most of the time it doesn’t change anything, except we might feel worse and often exhausted.
The language we use to talk to ourselves is so important. Studies have shown that negative or toxic thoughts, produce toxic chemicals in the body. This means that every time we think something negative there is a physical consequence that is felt in our bodies.
Try instead to flip negative thoughts around, when you find yourself thinking things like “I ate too much so now I’m going to be fat”, switch it to “I ate a lot today but I have a great metabolic rate and my body will just burn it up” At first it won’t feel true to you, but the more you can practise this, installing positive beliefs in yourself, the easier the switch to thinking more positively becomes.
“I don’t deserve respect from others, I’m a nobody”, this is not true switch it to “I’m worthy” or “I shouldn’t have done or said that” or “Nobody cares about me and why should they?”, “I try so hard but it’s never enough, I’m not enough” etc. When you catch yourself thinking things like this, you can make the choice to switch it and instead say to yourself. “I do the best that I can, to the best of my ability and that is always enough!” “I have phenomenal coping skills!”.
Thank you for reading this long post, beautiful soul. I hope that you give this a try. With regular practice you will find that you catch your negative thoughts more often, you will become more aware and once you have awareness it is easier to make the switch to positivity. Know that exactly as you are right now in this present moment, you are beautiful, you are loved and you are definitely enough!!