Do you ever find yourself worrying what your partner or spouse might be thinking of you? Is it hard for you to be open and honest because you’re afraid they’ll think you’re stupid, dorky, or worse . . . boring? Maybe you’ve found yourself mentally revising and editing what you wanted to say, so much that you got discouraged and gave up trying.
Wouldn’t it be nice if you knew an Easy Way to Escape from the painful struggle of second-guessing yourself? You can do it. (More on that in a moment.)
People often think that somehow they’ll have to “do battle” – that they’ll have to somehow “overpower” their own mind in order to stop worrying what others think. We may work very hard trying to defeat the harsh, judgmental thoughts in our minds. But when we try to defeat our own thoughts this way, we always lose. Then we end up feeling like a hopeless victim. Ironically, by mobilizing the energy of all that struggle, we’ve actually strengthened our belief in our harsh self-judgments!
Here’s how to quickly take back your freedom to live spontaneously, without the fear of being judged by your spouse or partner:
1. RECOGNIZE THAT WHEN YOU FEAR JUDGMENT, YOU ARE IMAGINING YOURSELF AS A PERSON WHO CAN BE JUDGED. In other words, you have an “idea of self,” an idea of who you are, that can be critiqued.
The fact is, we can only judge our IDEA of ourselves, others, or our world. Judging is a thought process.
So a “person being judged” in this thought process is just an IDEA we have. That thought isn’t us, and it isn’t anyone else either.
Look at it this way: If you were judging an actual PERSON, then if they were to pass away, it would mean you couldn’t judge them anymore. And of course, we know this isn’t the case. This is because you were judging an IDEA of that person, NOT the actual person themselves. An IDEA can easily survive the death of an actual person.
Of course, you can agree with your judgment, or with someone else’s judgment. This agreement produces a strong emotion. We mistake strong emotion as proof that what we’re thinking is true. But it’s just a strong emotion – it doesn’t mean our judgment, our thought, is true.
In the same way, hearing someone voice a judgmental thought about “you” doesn’t mean that your Real Self is being judged. If it bothers you, this simply means that you agree with the one judging you – you are both simply sharing the same opinion about an Imaginary Self (who isn’t you)!
2. RECOGNIZING THIS WILL LEAD YOU TO AN EVEN MORE WONDERFUL DISCOVERY: that there was never a possibility for you to be the target of ridicule or judgment, and there never could be. People can only attack or judge a “self” that’s imaginary – a thought of self.
3.TRY THIS OUT FOR YOURSELF! and refuse to live in the trance of being only an imaginary self.
Let me know what you find out!
