The following quote really speaks to me in a powerful way.
Each time you judge yourself, you break your own heart. ~ Swami Kripalvanandji (1913-1961)
I’ve been teaching people the importance of loving themselves for over 25 years, and know that negative self-judgment is one of the major obstacles to overcome in the process of reaching a place of unconditional self-love. What I never put together until reading the above quote is the impact of self-judgment on your heart.
When a loved one hurts or betrays us by judging us negatively, we often say that person “broke my heart.” We feel it in our heart! Why is it then, that when we judge ourselves in an unkind way, we don’t think about it as “breaking our heart?” And, yet that is exactly what it does. I can see now that each negative thought we have about ourselves is like a poison dart to the heart. As we allow our negative self-judgments to accumulate, the poison in those darts paves the way to a broken heart.
Let us resolve today, that we will nurture our hearts by ceasing all self-judgment and begin a heart-healing process of self-love.