Judging the Judge

Are you tired of negative thoughts permeating your being? Are you tired of negative things happening in your life, feeling bad or insecure all the time? Do you want to stop it? I hope so. The question is where do you start and what do you do? There are any infinite number of things that you can do but I’ll start with something really simple. Fire the judgmental voice inside your head? Don’t become alarmed or get defensive on me. Of course, I realize that there are very good reasons for us to have judgment and the ability to discern good from bad. What I’m talking about is the internal critic. You know the one I’m talking about, the one that judges you no matter what you do. Sometimes it might be easiest to focus on one aspect of judgment. Start with the voice that judges other people. You know that one too. The one that says, “Gosh, look at the way that girl is dressed. I can do so much better than that.” Maybe it’s the one that says, “I’m glad I don’t look like that” or even the one that’s a bit hostile that calls people names. When you hear that voice saying anything derogatory about another individual, tell it to stop and just think to yourself in response to the judge, “well, that may be but that person deserves love, I deserve love and to be accepted for who I am.” It’s really simple huh? That’s all you need to do…notice when the judge is judging other people.

After a while, it becomes very easy to hear the critic from the millions of other thoughts inside of your head. You’ll begin to notice the negative stream the internal critic throws in your direction. When you hear that critic and no matter what it says, turn that negative thought around with a positive. If you make a mistake and the critic in your head says, “Duh ya idiot! What were you thinking?” Immediately turn that around by saying, “everyone makes mistakes and everyone has the right to learn. I will learn from this mistake and choose better next time.” How can we expect the world not to beat up on us when we beat up on ourselves so harshly? It’s unreasonable. So, stop beating up on yourself with your thoughts. Turn them around. It’s really important because like most definitely attracts like and one negative thought can breed an entire army of negative thoughts and really ruin your day.

It takes practice to notice the negative thoughts. If you’re the type who frequently verbalizes criticism, watch that too…that is if you want to change. Things are not always what they seem…negative and critical people are met with more negativity and their internal critic never stops. Stop the internal critic and don’t fight back with the Negative Nelly’s of the world either. Save your energy for positive focus. It hurts when people put us down but only if what they say is true or we fear it’s true (provided we have normal psychology on our side and we’re not in denial). When I run into the Negative Nelly’s who make it a point to tell me how bad I did at something or another, I say “wow, is that so? Hmmm, I’ll have to think about that” and then I let it go. I don’t say it with attitude but I won’t argue the point. Who am I to force people to change their minds about me. That’s a tough job to try to control how everyone else thinks about you. So, instead, control what is within your power to control…you and your thoughts.

I’ll write some more on this later. Think positive and know that no matter what your internal critic says, you have a right to be here, you have a right to be who and what you are and you are loved. Peace!