Self-Love, Body Confidence & Judgement

I’m preparing for my next Tapping Circle on Self-Love & Body Confidence and I feel compelled to share how I believe Judgement & Fear are what’s holding us back from truly loving ourselves, and feeling completely body confident.

On holiday last week, at the end of a week of eating and drinking what I liked, feeling pretty bloated I took the pic you can see. I actually felt fantastic. I’d spent an hour or two reading Judgement Detox by Gabrielle Bernstein, while writing notes and a tapping script. I actually did the tapping as I wrote lots of things down and I felt so free. I’ve only once ever shared a picture of my body online before, and so I am doing so in honour of my search for self-love and body confidence (as I don’t have it all together - I’m running this circle as much for me as for anyone else!!).

To give you a taster of what I’ll be covering in the circle have a read of the below, and let me know what you think in the comments below.

We experience a huge amount of judgement in motherhood, perhaps more than any other time in our life. We are judged on how we look, have we ‘bounced back’ to our pre-baby weight, to how we parent; are we going back to work, are we staying at home, do we breastfeed or bottle-feed our children, do we co-sleep or use sleep training – every decision we make has the potential to feel judged. 

Being honest with ourselves – truly honest, we also judge others too for the exact same things we’re judged for. Why, because we are judging ourselves at the same time. Oh should I have stuck it out more with the breastfeeding, or maybe I should have stayed at home for a bit longer – essentially we question whether our decisions are the right ones.  Is that mum doing better than me? Is she a better mum? What if I’ve messed up?

All of these questions and judgements are completely rooted in fear. And fear/judgement really is a ‘separation from love’, Gabrielle Bernstein – Judgement Detox. With judgement and fear, there is no room for love. They are opposite ends of a scale from each other. 

Ultimately we need to increase the love we feel for ourselves, which will reduce the judgement and fear that we have. The impact from doing this will be substantial and will transpose into every part of our lives.  

When we feel separated from love, we are critical, self-loathing, judgemental, fearful, angry, sad/depressed, egotistical, isolated and lonely. Judgement gives us a quick hit, a high, but is often followed up with a deep sense of guilt. As Mums we can slip into this state so easily and quickly, and it may only last a few hours but for some it can last many years. 

So, how do we break this ‘Judgement Cycle’ and return to experiencing and feeling true self-love? It may be decades since we’ve felt this. Often childhood experiences (even non-traumatic ones) can lead us to separate from love – to withdraw in a preservation strategy.  

Firstly, I believe we need to stop seeking externally for affirmation and confirmation of our worth and sense of love. No one and I mean no-one is responsible for our self-love but ourselves. We also have the power to feel and increase the love within us. We ultimately are all sparks of light, sparks of creator, or spirit inside vessels we call bodies.  

Finding and boosting that inner self-love will have a positive impact on so many areas of our lives, especially body image. 

We spend hours scrolling beautiful images of perfect babies, gorgeous clothes, stunning nurseries and beautiful slim mamas. We look at them and judge both them and ourselves – sure maybe she isn’t happy?, who does she think she is to be flaunting her bikini body already? I wish I looked like that. I hate my wobbly bits……

The truth is, judging others is like holding up a big mirror to our negative self, our ego, or shadow self. What we don’t like in others, we don’t like about ourselves. This my lovely friend is HUMAN CONDITION. Nearly all of us do this. Beneath every judgement is also a core wound, and negative limiting belief. So let ourselves off the hook for judgement, lets accept our judgement without judgement. Let’s focus on building that inner love instead.

Knowing that we can’t find love externally means we can stop looking for lasting self-love from magazines, Instagram, and even from Partners (they’re not responsible for your self-love). It comes internally and from connection to source / universe / creator. 

We are born as pure sparks of joy and love, completely trusting, completely willing to love anyone – and we can return to that joy and love – it doesn’t go, we just start to hold it back to protect ourselves from being hurt. There is an abundance of love available to us if we can just let it in! Our resistance to love is our judgement and fear.

We all want to be happy, healthy, free and to feel loved. Accepting our oneness with others helps us to recognise ourselves in them. We are all connected, as we heal ourselves, we heal those around us. The more we radiate love, the more love will be felt in the world, and in turn will reduce judgement and fear.

As we get more confident in our bodies and feel more love for ourselves, our partners and children will benefit in so many ways. We also become a better example for our children. 

I will lead you through various tapping scripts starting with Judgement to help us let go of the ‘weight’ of judgement we’ve been carrying about ourselves. This can be quite heavy and therefore the impact can be quite releasing. I invite you to join me and some other lovely women to come together to release our judgement and to reconnect with our inner source of love to give us that happiness and body confidence we all desire.

Sending you so much love and confidence xxx