Stop beating yourself up.
It serves nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
We all have things about ourselves that we want to change or don’t like so much.
However, beating yourself up in order to change actually has the opposite effect.
Beating yourself up for not being loving enough or compassionate enough like the Dalai Lama.
Beating yourself up for any reason whatsoever serves nothing and is a waste of time.
There is so much pressure and expectation from society to conform, to be a certain way, to behave in a certain manner. It can suffocate your authentic expression.
Sometimes, in an effort to improve, we end up being very harsh and critical towards ourselves. We impose unrealistic expectations and pressures given by those around us. We bombard ourselves with unkind mental chatter and self talk.
Get all As.
Be perfect!
Never feel sad or negative.
Don’t make waves.
Be nice.
It becomes easy to be judgmental towards yourself.
Judging yourself as a way to be better will only lead to inner resistance and internal rebellion. It always backfires.
Whatever you judge about yourself you reinforce. Judgment is simply a way to perpetuate the very thing you are judging. It keeps you stuck.
Judging yourself doesn’t change the thing you are judging; it just tends to make it worse.
Anyone can be loving in an ashram. Anyone can be loving to Mother Teresa. But can you be loving to yourself?
There comes a moment when, no matter how much healing or therapy you have done, how many books you have read or seminars that you have attended, you must make the bold choice to love yourself no matter what.
Loving yourself is a great act of courage. The simple, yet powerful, decision to love yourself no matter what is the key to your freedom.
It’s easy to love yourself when you perform, when you do it “right,” when you get all As, or when you are your ideal weight.
But can you love yourself even when you screw up, collapse, or fail? This is when it counts. This is the real spiritual practice.
You might find that the more kind and compassionate you are with who you are being and not being now, you actually end up getting to who you want to be much more quickly.
So commit to loving yourself, even when you don’t succeed in fully loving yourself.
Can you love yourself even then?
Beating yourself up in order to get yourself to love yourself only creates more self hate.
Self hate never leads to self love. Beating yourself up in order to get yourself to improve more quickly actually slows you down.
We often think that when we heal and become whole, we will then finally be worthy of loving ourselves. When in fact, it is the very act of loving yourself that will help you heal and feel real self worth.
When you accept yourself exactly as you are and exactly as you are not, you set yourself free.
So today, can you be a bit more kind to yourself?
Healing is applying love to all the parts of you that hurt.
So stop beating yourself up and start loving yourself in this moment.
Nothing else needs to happen.
You don’t need to be any different.
You deserve it just because you ARE.
Love.Now
Kute
If you are ready to transform your life and ready for huge breakthroughs, then check out Boundless Bali Bliss!
Kute Blackson is a life coach and speaker. Unlike those who promise to simply help people “get” what they want, Kute’s work instead reveals to people what they have to give, by liberating who they are most truly and deeply. The focus: Freedom. For more on Kute, please visit his website and follow him on Twitter.
*Image courtesy of kelseyxsunshine.
