Stop the habit of inner critic and your outer world transforms:

I woke early, around 6:20am and sat up…..my legs hit something warm and lumpy under the patch work quilt. It was Cleo, the ‘retreat’ cat, and she had decided I would make a nice warm body to snuggle against. She must have been sleeping me with me for hours but I never knew, I slept so deeply! I went into the bathroom and as usual avoided looking into the mirror.

After I washed up I involuntarily looked up into the mirror and was stunned to see the image looking back. She had no bags under her eyes (despite only 6 hours sleep), her skin glowed, her hair perfect (What?? Perfect hair in the morning, right out of bed???), her eyes twinkled. Oh my God who is she? Then I realized, “She” was the ‘me’ that I was born to be. The ‘me’ without judgment, the ‘me’ that only sees life through eyes of love.

Wow. If only I could bottle this and give it to other women!! Since it was very early in the morning and everyone was still asleep I decided on a morning walk. I walked down to the pond where I was greeted with more beauty, a couple of families of Geese!! With their babies!! Sooo cute!!!   After spotting 2 foxes cresting the hill I thought I better head back to Tigh Shee Retreat to make sure the other cat was safe.

Back at the retreat all was well, and actually everything seemed to glow with some kind of magical pixie dust. I felt in awe of life. It was a magical morning but the thing that really gets me as I now think back is how I truly saw the world and every single person in it from a place of pure love and devotion. No judgments. It was day 2 of our women’s retreat and I found every woman who arrived that morning to be stunningly beautiful, with gorgeous smiles and sparkling eyes. These were the same ‘physical’ bodies that I had met the day before but now I only saw their ‘glows’ of beauty whereas the day before (much against my conscious heart-based views: who me, judge?? Never!) my subconscious mind had another agenda and she, yes I’m sad to say she judges.

My intellect hates that, but alas, the judge lives within. She judges, sizes up, ascertains everyone’s attributes in a nano second: oh she’s short, she’s tall, she’s skinny while that one is fat, she has crooked teeth, she has curly hair…good, bad, the ugly, it all gets ‘summed’ up in that second until my higher conscious gets wind of what that devilish subconscious is up to and I shake it off…..no, no, no there will be no judgments, but by then it’s too late. The view is tainted with that filter. You can’t ‘help’ but stare at that bleach spot or that hair growing from the chin! But on day 2?? After I stopped judging ‘ME”… wow, transformative is barely an adequate word…. I saw nothing of the day before. I saw so much more!

I saw beauty and love and strength in all those women. Resilience, independence, creativity, a glow in each of them. And only upon this reflecting back and truly encapsulating the full impact did I understand what is meant by “inner, so the outer”….what we put upon ourselves is how we view our worlds. If you judge yourself (my legs are too chunky, my bum too big, hair too frizzy, on and on we go) then you judge others. It’s really that simple. But once you stop judging yourself, magic occurs. Heaven on Earth opens up for you.

Stop the habit of being a self-critic. Stop judging yourself and you will automatically accept thy neighbour….. without judgment!