Tiny Buddha's Guide to Loving Yourself: 40 Ways to Transform Your Inner Critic and Your Life (9 page)

by Jarl Forsman

If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher
.

—P
EMA
C
H
Ö
DR
Ö
N

Every person you meet has something special to give you—that is, if you are open to receiving it. Each encounter offers you the gift of greater self-awareness by illustrating what you do and don't accept about yourself. An honest look will show you that the reactions you have to others give you more information about yourself than about them. You can never know for sure what motivates other people, but you can learn what you are accepting or judging in yourself.

For instance, if someone makes a remark about you, and it's something you also judge in yourself, it will most likely hurt. However, if they make the same remark and you
don't
have that judgment about yourself, it probably won't bother you at all.

I remember an experience that now seems almost insignificant but at the time really hurt my feelings. I was scheduled to go to a special party and I didn't feel I had the right item of clothing to complete
my outfit. I didn't have the money to go out and buy something new, and I was a little distraught. I was walking home, preoccupied by this wardrobe dilemma, when I happened upon a box of clothes for people in the neighborhood marked “free.” I don't usually look in free boxes, but this time, for some reason, I did. I took a peek inside and lo and behold, I found the
perfect
top to complement my outfit. Not only was I excited about the outfit but I felt like I had experienced some serious magic. I told a few friends at the party what had happened that day because I thought it was proof positive of the synchronicities occurring in the universe that we are rarely aware of.

I was at an event later that month when one of my friends who had been at the previous party walked up to me and said, “Oh, you're wearing
that
old thing?” Now, had I simply been grateful for the fortuitous (and free) gift that I'd received, which perfectly fulfilled my couture conundrum, I probably wouldn't have had the slightest reaction. I would have felt happy and lucky. But when she said those words, I felt like I'd been stabbed. I immediately felt self-conscious and less-than, embarrassed and a little ashamed. And the reason I felt this way was because I had judged myself for not being able to buy a new top and wearing a scavenged piece of clothing. If I had not had that judgment of myself, her words would have simply rolled right off me like water off a duck's back.

Our reactions always have more to do with our own self-judgments and feelings of inadequacy or strength, than what the
other person may say or do. Most judgments we make about others stem from one of these basic causes:

You wouldn't tolerate the same behavior or characteristic in yourself
. For instance, you might be shy and encounter a very gregarious person. Your judgment might go something like this:
What a show-off. They are so loud and obnoxious
. Because you would be embarrassed to act this way, you resent somebody else doing it. This type of judgment might reveal that you are not fully expressing yourself, hence you feel resentful or put off by others doing so, even if they do it clumsily. Becoming aware of the truth of this reaction and working on expressing yourself more fully and authentically would result in a valuable gift of freer self-expression.

You display the same behavior and aren't aware of it, so you project your disowned behavior onto others and dislike it “out there.”
Everyone has encountered this at some point. Someone is complaining about a friend or acquaintance and you think to yourself, “That's funny, they do the very same thing they're complaining about!” Take an honest look within to see if you share some of the characteristics you dislike in others. You may be surprised to learn that you do. This discovery can offer valuable insight and help you gain greater self-acceptance and compassion for others.

You are envious and resent the feelings that come up, so you find something wrong with those who have what you want and end up judging them
. Someone who has attained recognition in some area may remind you of your own lack of success by comparison. You may resent their higher degree of accomplishment and then find something wrong with them in order to avoid your own feelings of inadequacy. Since inspiration is a much more effective motivator than competition, you'd be more likely to experience success if you got inspired by other people's victories instead of wasting time finding fault with them.

Most judgments of others are ego strategies to avoid uncomfortable feelings. However, if you lack the awareness of where they come from, they can lead to even more discomfort down the line. Becoming aware of the nature of your judgments doesn't mean that you no longer have preferences. You may still notice that certain types of behavior seem unappealing. But with the right understanding and a little personal work, discernment rather than judgment kicks in and causes you to feel compassion for others, even if you're not enthusiastic about their behavior. At the very least, you'll feel neutral.

Discernment is awareness and understanding without an emotional response. Exercising discernment feels very different from getting your buttons pushed. Judgments that cause emotional reactions are clues to help you find personal insight.

When you explore your beliefs and assumptions instead of judging people, you open a door to expanded self-awareness and self-acceptance. Rather than unconsciously delighting in the ego gratification of judging others, you let your reactions and judgments help you achieve greater self-understanding—and accordingly, greater happiness and success.

When you use your judgment of others as a mirror to show you the workings of your own mind, every person's reflection can become a valuable gift, making each person you encounter a teacher and a blessing.

1. See yourself as a work in progress
.

When you focus on perfection, you inevitably feel dissatisfied because perfection is unattainable. Shift your focus instead to lifelong growth, and recognize that we are all works in progress, constantly evolving and never finished. From this space, you're better able to see challenges and setbacks as a valuable part of the journey—which is in itself the destination—rather than an obstacle to where you want to be.

2. Accept yourself in action (and model it for others)
.

Oftentimes when we don't accept ourselves, we look outward for acceptance; but in actuality, it needs to happen the other way around. We teach people how to treat us through our actions. Teach people to accept you for exactly who you are by showing them what that looks like: Celebrate your positive qualities; talk to yourself kindly and make self-care a priority; reinforce that you're doing the best you can, and your best is good enough; and recognize that your poorest choices don't define you.

3. Create stillness to feel more at ease with yourself
.

When we refuse to accept ourselves, there's a feeling of resistance—this sense of fighting who we are and trying to escape or transform it. We naturally feel uncomfortable when we refuse
to let ourselves be ourselves. Take time to simply be, whether that's through yoga, meditation, or deep breathing. From this place of mental stillness, it will be easier to recognize and honor your authentic self—and enjoy all the things that make you feel happy, passionate, and fulfilled. When you grow into yourself, acceptance is a natural consequence.

4. Use your judgments as a mirror to grow into greater self-acceptance
.

Recognize what behaviors you judge in others and use them as a compass to understand where you need to offer yourself compassion, and where you may want to challenge yourself. If you judge people who seem needy, are you ashamed of holding that quality? Can you offer yourself compassion for that trait, and in doing so, start understanding and transforming it? If you judge people who go for their dreams, is there a part of you that is holding yourself back? Can you push yourself out of your comfort zone in some way, which will make you feel proud of yourself?

W
HEN WE
'
RE KNEE-DEEP IN THE MESSY CONSEQUENCES OF A CHOICE
we wish we didn't make, it can be challenging to remember that mistakes are crucial for growth. Sure, we may know this, in much the same way we know that losses often lead to gains, and that it's sometimes a blessing to not get what we want. But when we don't yet see the gain, the blessing, or the lesson, it's not quite as easy to forgive ourselves and feel peace.

We can end up berating ourselves, judging not only our decision but also our character, as if we
are
our worst mistakes. It's a dark, lonely road to tread, and yet we so frequently choose to walk it. We dwell on everything we think we did wrong and wonder what it means about us that we made those decisions: A good person would never have behaved so irrationally. A strong person would never have reacted so emotionally. A wise person would never have responded so aggressively. Then, armed with all this proof that we're not good,
strong, or wise, we can end up feeling ashamed, depressed, and helpless—as if the horrible feeling of this moment will endure, and perhaps we will deserve it.

We then start grasping for some sense of control with thoughts of “what if” and “if only”—as if dwelling on everything we should have done can somehow change what's passed and what's coming. Of course, this regret and self-flagellation never makes a bad situation better; if anything, it compounds it, since it keeps us stuck trying to change yesterday to the detriment of the today.

But it's not only our poorest decisions that we allow to cause us grief and stress. Sometimes we blame ourselves for things we didn't do, or couldn't do, or perhaps didn't know to do—the times we didn't speak up, the people we couldn't protect, or the friends we never knew to help. We expect a lot from ourselves, and we can easily get down on ourselves if we feel we've fallen short or somehow let others down.

If you've never beaten yourself up in this way, then you've grasped what it means to truly forgive yourself and move forward a little stronger from each misstep or challenge. If this all sounds familiar to you, then you may need some help reframing your response to mistakes, allowing yourself to learn from them, and then forgiving yourself so you can move on. Countless Tiny Buddha contributors have addressed these issues on the site, sharing their experiences and insights. Some of those include . . .

by Michael Davidson

Be gentle first with yourself if you wish to be gentle with others
.

—L
AMA
Y
ESHE

Think back to the last time somebody apologized to you about something. Did you forgive them? There is a very good chance that you did. Now think back to the last time you harmed someone else. Have you forgiven yourself? Probably not.

We all make mistakes. Oftentimes, through our actions, somebody gets hurt.

During this past year, I served as a liaison between my fraternity and a seventeen-year-old cancer patient in a local hospital through the Adopt-A-Family program. The patient, Josh Goldstein, passed away around the beginning of March. (I'm not exactly sure when.) My responsibility as liaison was to have a regular communication with Josh. I failed in this responsibility.

In the month after Josh died, I felt overcome by shame. My belief that I was a fundamentally good person was shattered. How could I be so neglectful? Why did I not spend more time with Josh? This feeling climaxed during Family Hour of Rutgers' University
Dance Marathon (a thirty-two-hour, student-run event that raised money for families that have children with cancer and blood disorders). I was standing in the rafters listening to a speech by the mother of one of the families we had helped. I couldn't bear to hear her thank us for all the wonderful things she said we had done when I felt deep down that
I was a bad person!
I literally could not touch my friends, who were standing next to me, because I might have contaminated them with the disease that was my poor character.