WHY do women apologize for the way they look?
Sorry I’m not wearing any makeup.
Sorry I look grubby, I was just working in the yard.
It comes off as this backhanded way of saying that I don’t look good enough or didn’t try hard enough when it’s really that person’s insecurity about herself. It’s not even that they think I’m judging them, it’s that they’re judging themselves so we don’t.
I know because I recognize the self-judgment.
I’ve tried it.
I had this niggling thought that said I wasn’t enough.
That thought kept creeping in and showing up in new ways of judging myself and not living up to my own standards. I got so caught up in the fear that someone else would judge me and come to the same conclusion as me – that I was lacking – that I just went ahead and judged myself before they could.
I thought knowing what I was doing wrong would help me do better.
I thought pointing out my own mistakes meant I would know what needed to be fixed.
But that’s not how self-judgment works.
Self-judgment isn’t helpful like that. What it did was make me feel even worse about myself and keep me stuck feeling like I wasn’t good enough. It didn’t allow me to see things from a different perspective. It didn’t allow me to find solutions to problems.
It made me less inclined to actually solve any problems because it just seemed like a lost cause.
Self-judgment is a vicious cycle. Like in science. The self-judgment keeps you stuck in that cycle of judging yourself and feeling bad about yourself.
You can break free.
You just have to notice it, decide you’re not going to pay attention to it and keep choosing not to let those false thoughts be true for you.
It sounds simple, but it’s not easy. Self-judgment is sneaky like that. It shows up in so many different thoughts. It’s great at disguising itself as something helpful.
If you want to break the cycle of self-judgment for good, I can help. It starts with one conversation. You tell me how it’s showing up for you, I’ll give you the outside perspective you need to break that cycle AND the tools to keep the judgment out. Click here to schedule a call.
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