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Posts tagged with “judgment”

You Are Good Enough and You Have Nothing to Prove

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“You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anyone.” ~Maya Angelou

I sat on a big, cold stone on the beach next to Lake Ontario and watched as the waves lapped upon the shore.

To my right, there were swans and ducks floating on the water. The swans were graceful and beautiful as they glided along the shoreline, and the ducks were being their usual kooky selves.

It always made me laugh to watch them dive underwater, kick their webbed feet in the air, and wag their feathered bums back and forth. They were so natural, so unaware …

Dare to Stand Out: 3 Ways to Let Your Unique Self Shine

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“If your number one goal is to make sure that everyone likes and approves of you, then you risk sacrificing your uniqueness, and, therefore, your excellence.” ~Unknown

I can remember many times in my life when I was afraid to stand out.

When listening to a lecture or panel discussion at school, I always had questions to ask, but the moment I finally raised my hand, my heart would start palpitating and gravity would force my arm down.

The same thing happened in business meetings. I struggled to articulate my ideas, although I was sure they could have brought some …

How to Respond to Negative People Without Being Negative

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“Don’t let the behavior of others destroy your inner peace.” ~Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

A former coworker seemed to talk non-stop and loudly, interrupt incessantly, gossip about whomever wasn’t in the room, constantly complain, and live quite happily in martyrdom.

It seemed nothing and no one escaped her negative spin. She was good at it. She could twist the happiest moment of someone’s life into a horrendous mistake. She seemed to enjoy it, too.

At first, my judgmental mind thought her behavior was quite inappropriate. I simply didn’t approve of it. But after weeks of working with her, …

Are You Limited by the Fear of What Other People Think?

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“It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living.” ~Eckhart Tolle

A few months ago, I found myself on the busy streets of London’s Covent Garden.

It was a mild Friday evening in the capital and the masses were out celebrating the end of the working week, looking forward to the weekend ahead.

But that’s not why I was there.

I’d come to Covent Garden on that day for a special project.

For most of my life, the fear of what other people thought of me had kept me trapped. It had prevented me …

How to Be Hurt Less by So-Called Evil People

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“Every sweet has its sour; every evil its good.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

There were monsters in my closet—or so my five-year-old self believed. As soon as my mother kissed me goodnight and flipped the lights off, they would appear.

See, in my room, the sliding closet doors were kept open, and on the top three shelves, monsters would magically appear in the darkness. Their wide mouths closely resembled folded towels and their eyes looked like the buttons of my sweaters, but I was too scared to notice.

I could only see evil creatures staring at me, and after a …

The Antidote to Criticism: Turn Others’ Doubt Into a Standing Ovation

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“Criticism is something you can easily avoid by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.” ~Aristotle

Gangly and skinny, I never attracted much attention from the opposite sex during high school. I was the friendly and funny sidekick to the popular girls—fun to hang out with but not to date.

When an older guy approached me during my last year of high school, I thought it would be a normal high school romance.

It turned out that our relationship wouldn’t be anything close to “normal.”

As I began to get to know him, everyone around me started to object to …

Get Past Disappointment: Release Expectations and Live Your Own Life

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“Serenity comes when you trade expectations for acceptance.” ~Unknown

Several years ago, I decided I had issues with surrender. I was often angry or resentful believing my life was not playing out as it should have been.

I found a great measure of peace by performing a wonderful exercise I first learned of in Abraham-Hicks material.

I took a large rectangular piece of paper and drew a vertical line, top to bottom, down the middle. On the left side, I listed things I felt responsible for and on the right side, I listed what needed to be turned over …

How to Stop Fearing Disapproval: 3 Lessons from Accepting Judgment

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“Lean too much on the approval of people, and it becomes a bed of thorns.” ~Tehyi Hsieh

I remember reading somewhere that the best way to face a fear is through repeated exposure.

In the case of my lifelong need for approval, I have found this to be true.

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted, needed everyone to like me. And not just like me, but agree with and sanction my every choice through obvious signs of validation.

I remember auditioning for a community theater production of Annie when I was twelve.

My …

Tiny Buddha’s Guide to Loving Yourself (and the Self-Love Bonus Pack)

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10/9/13: The pre-order promotion is now over. You can learn more about Tiny Buddha’s Guide to Loving Yourself here!

Two years ago I surveyed the Tiny Buddha community to crowdsource wisdom for my second book, which was going to break apart the idea of success.

Around the same time, I experienced a series of life-altering events, including a major surgery, financial hardship, a break-in, and the death of my grandmother.

Within the following months, I dramatically decreased the amount of time I devoted to blogging. After almost three years of regularly sharing my feelings, I wanted space to explore …

Improve Any Relationship by Challenging Your Perceptions

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“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.” ~Friedrich Nietzsche

This morning, I found my wife desperately trying to make her printer work after having set herself one hour to get some good work done. I told her she should use my printer and concentrate on more important things. Surely her printing goal was to get the document in hand, not to spend her one precious hour fighting the machine?

When our argument had died down (yes, it really did get that far!) …

Wabi Sabi: Find Peace by Embracing Flaws and Releasing Judgment

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“Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.” ~Dalai Lama

Several years ago, a colleague and I were invited to give a presentation on mindfulness at our State Mental Health Conference. I was a novice and flattered to be asked.

Singing bowls, which are metal and look like a mortar and pestle, are useful tools in mindfulness practice. The bowl is placed on a cushion and, when struck, makes a beautiful sound like a bell.

The tone and pitch are determined by the size of the bowl and thickness of the metal. They’re …

How to Speak Your Mind Without Making Someone Else Wrong

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“Would you rather be right or free?” ~Byron Katie

Do you have the freedom to say what you really feel? Do you share your true thoughts and ideas, or do you struggle to avoid hurting, disappointing, or angering others?

It can be easier to try to meet others’ expectations and avoid conflict. We may even believe we are making someone happy by not speaking our truth. What’s the cost? Slowly giving up fragments of who we genuinely are: our authentic self.

There was a time when right and wrong worked for me. I had stability, harmony, and a …

People We Don’t Like: When Others Push Our Buttons

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I have a confession to make: there’s someone I know who I really don’t like.

I know this isn’t exactly front-page news. It’s not like I’m the first person to ever dislike someone else. But this situation has brought me face to face with all my strongest relationship triggers.

I find it incredibly difficult to do all the things I’ve written about when it comes to this person. Let’s call him Harry. (I’ve never in my life met a single person named Harry, but let’s just roll with it.)

I regularly find myself wanting to judge Harry before giving him …

A Powerful Lesson in Self-Compassion: Are You Allergic to Honey?

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“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” ~Dalai Lama

When things don’t go as planned, is your go-to explanation that it’s because you did something wrong, or because there’s something wrong with you? For many people, self-compassion is a real challenge.

Most of us want to be kinder to ourselves, but our self-critical, perfectionistic patterns are often well-established, and it’s hard to know how to interrupt them.

When I was in graduate school, I was driving home from school one evening when I noticed that my car was overheating. …

Listen Instead of Correcting Others: What We Gain and Give

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“When you judge another, you do not define them. You define yourself.” ~Wayne Dyer

I have a tendency to want to show off what I know, and in the worst cases, correct other people.

Instead of listening and connecting I unconsciously try to sell to others an image of myself that I wish to project. Some part of me believes that if people are impressed with me then they’ll like me and be interested in my knowledge and point of view.

In this way I fall into the trap of constructing the false self. This is the person I wish …

Start Believing in Yourself: How To Adopt A Language of Love

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“Once you have learned to love, you will have learned to live.” ~Unknown

We are powerful, vivacious, brilliant creatures. Our thoughts and ideas create the very world around us. We constantly, and often unconsciously, exude and radiate palpable energy that permeates through every crack and crevasse of our lives.

Our words hold especially powerful energy and the ability to uplift and inspire others and ourselves, or send us spiraling down the ladder to Bummersville. Learning to recognize our inner Negative Nancy allows us to pump up the volume on our love lingo to bring us back to a place of …

Don’t Let Anyone’s Criticism or Judgment Define Who You Are

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“There is a huge amount of freedom that comes to you when you take nothing personally.” ~Don Miguel Ruiz

I was a chunky, shy little girl who was attached to my mom’s leg. She was my protector and served as a source of unconditional love.

As I left my mom’s side and went off to school, I encountered many new faces that introduced me to criticism and judgment.

Being judged by your physical attributes as an adult, in a society that constantly strives for physical perfection, is hard enough, but understanding those judgments as a little girl can be …

We Need Compassion the Most When We Seem to Deserve it the Least

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“Our sorrows and wounds are healed only when we touch them with compassion.” ~Buddha

When babies cry everyone rushes to find what’s wrong and alleviate their stress. It’s a bit of an instinct to do this in our culture.

We understand that the only way that a baby can communicate a need to us, whether it’s hunger, a necessary diaper change, fatigue, or discomfort, is to cry out. No one wants to hear a baby cry, so we respond quickly.

Unfortunately, as a child begins to grow and learns the language, we assume that they know how to communicate their …

7 Realizations to Help You Deal with Feeling Judged

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“Judge nothing, you will be happy. Forgive everything, you will be happier. Love everything, you will be happiest.” ~Sri Chinmoy

Are you judgmental? Not many people would be aware if they were, let alone admit to being so, but it’s so easy to form an opinion about a person or situation without knowing all the facts.

What if the conclusions people spring to could really hurt someone? I like to think there are very few people who would actively want to upset others. Has someone passed judgment on you? What can you do if you feel misunderstood?

I want to …

People Aren’t Always Out to Get Us: The Good Beyond Appearances

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“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” ~Mother Theresa

Last year, I was on the CTA (Chicago’s public transit) heading to class to take an exam. Rather, I should say that I was rushing to class. I wasn’t running late, but I often got caught up in the hustle and bustle of Chicago during morning rush hour.

Something about the “rush hour” energy made me feel a bit anxious; and, although I, along with others, am at the mercy of the CTA with its frequent delays, rarely do riders strike up conversations with fellow passengers.…