Letting Go of Self Judgement: How to Step Into Our Gifts Despite Internal Criticism

Have you ever found yourself steeped deeply in the creative juices of your passion, floating on the imagery of what success would feel like to you? The heart flutters of oxytocin pumping through your body when you see yourself living your fullest potential. You remember the feelings of previous success and you envision more of those experiences to come; But then a paralyzing fear runs through you. Your stomach clenches, and feelings of doubt run through you minimizing your experiences, and making you second guess if they really happened. That my dear, is gaslighting and an example of how sometimes we are our biggest enemies.

Our Ego and our highest selves are at war with each other. Swords and shield are at armed dancing for power within ourselves. Our since of vulnerability is lost in fear of being open to our greatest potential. Our clarity and inner truth is clouded by self judgement, criticism and deep guilt. Most times these voices that we are at war with isn’t even ours. They are ideas imposed on us by the family and community that we were born in to. When we find love where its available, within new positive relationship with self and others, we are reminded that everything will not end badly, that the dreams we seek can and will come to fruition.

Internalized criticism unfortunately may always rear its ugly head every time we level up on our personal spiritual path; So here are tools and spiritual guides to help you along your journey so that self love and confidence may begin to come more naturally over self judgement.

Checking our Emotional Response

Emotions are our vehicle to intuitive healing and a powerful mirror of self-reflection. Have a curious outlook on the emotions that may arise when shifts, changes and or adversity arise in your personal life. Fear, one of the most common emotions to change can either paralyze us or move us quickly into the wrong decisions. Sometimes fear clouds our gut feeling with glittery deception. We see something that seems like a way out, a quick fix, an alternative to the hard self work and we choose that route despite our better judgement. We feel our gut tell us that something isn’t right, but we fear and self doubt tells us otherwise. Sometimes we feel the opposite, our gut , mind and heart are all in alignment for our greatest good, but we gas light ourselves into thinking that its all made up that its not for us.

Unity within Self

Many Native American nations and other cultures around the world have Animal totems. Totems were usually an animal or group of animals carved into a large tree trunk like wooden pole. It resembled the oneness of a family or nations clan. In our case, it will resemble the oneness and unity within self. Its our self work, to hold guardianship over our mental and emotional wellbeing. We have to begin to mindfully choose what we decide to believe about ourselves, what we tell ourselves and allow our entire being to fall into alignment with that. This sovereignty will help us shift our focal point to what we can’t achieve to what we are capable of. We notice the mountain and we believe in our strength that we possess to get over the mountain.

Boundaries

“My clear boundaries allow me to protect myself, nurture my intentions and follow my true self.” -Soulful Woman Guidebook.

Think of your boundaries like a door, you can open your door to what serves you, and close it to what does not. A lot of times we think of setting boundaries to the people in our lives which is necessary, but we also have to set boundaries on ourselves. We have to close the door to negative self talk and open the door to positive affirmations; close the door to overwhelming anxiety and fear and open to the door to trust and opportunity. With the help of a therapist or wellness coach, creating healthy boundaries will begin to protect our emotional and mental health and nurture our gifts.

Work cited:
Soulful Woman Guidebook, Shushann Movsessian & Gemma Summers; 2016