The Crucial Role Critical People Play in Your Life (Read time: 3 min.)

Have any critical people in your life?

 There are those people in your life who, no matter what you do or say, find fault with what you've done or said.  Far too often, those people are closer to us than we'd like.  Whether it's a parent, sibling, spouse, partner, or co-worker, when an outer critic is prevalent in your life, you feel it in your spirit. 

And the question is:

What do you do about it?

Here's the thing: those critical people are crucial components of your life's spiritual agenda. They are some of your greatest teachers.  Although there might be pain with their presence, there's also one important thing you're gaining with every experience: power. 

Learning that your opinion of you is more important than another person's opinion of you is one of the most important lessons that come with having a critic in your life.  Those people weren't put in your life to approve of you... and you weren't put in their lives to fight for and gain their approval.  No, the goal of this holy encounter is one thing and one thing only:

To learn that you don't need anybody else's approval

to be who you are. 

In fact, the reason that person doesn't approve of you (and probably will never approve of you) is because they weren't sent here to be your pep coach.  They were placed in your path to teach you that you don't need one.

At the end of the day, when and how you set clear boundaries with critical people is up to you.  But, in doing so, don't think that shutting people out is the answer to the question of life being asked.  When you're presented with close friends or family who constantly criticize you, it's time to stop, step back and ask yourself two questions:

1) Whose approval do I really need?
2) How can I learn to only need the approval I give to myself?

Those are the two powerful questions that help you see critical people in a new way.  When you do, you also realize that you don't have to denounce, disown or destroy someone who criticizes you.  All you have to do is denounce, disown and destroy the power you've given them to determine how much you're allowed to grow.  In that moment, you become so large and so powerful that what they say falls on deaf ears.

Why?

Because you've learned the lesson they've come to teach you:

No one else's opinion of you is as crucial as the opinions you have about yourself... and only you control that.

The Body Ecology Experiment (Read Time: 3 min.)

Hot cocoa and gluten/wheat free chocolate chip cookies... what could be better? 

I've spent the last twelve days working through The Body Ecology Diet.  It's an interesting philosophy- shift your inner ecosystem, change your life.  I totally get it.  And, quite frankly, it works.  I have more energy and I feel like I do have a cleaner digestive system. 

The Body Ecology way of eating, however, is way too strict for my life.  I like the idea of waking up, drinking a green drink, having some warm water with lemon juice, and guzzling down 64 ounces of water before having some blueberries an hour later.  That passes a great deal of the morning so meal one typically happens around 9 am.  What I don't like is the utter restriction of it all, feeling like I can only eat certain things, not feeling free to have some hot cocoa and cookies when I'm PMSing or feeling too scared to have tator tots when I've cooked a big Sunday breakfast.

All in all, the lesson I've learned from this Body Ecology experiment is this: what works for one doesn't work for all.  Donna Gates says that clearly in the Body Ecology Diet book.  At the same time, how do you not feel like a failure when you fall off the bandwagon?

Here's how: commit to eating your way and own it. 

So here's my way of eating: 70% Body Ecology, 30% fun food.  That might be hot cocoa and cookies after a salmon/veggie/quinoa dinner or it might mean tator tots with egg whites and baby carrots on a Sunday morning or it might even mean (Heaven forbid) a slice of chocolate cake on New Year's Eve.  Either way, I'm giving myself permission to eat with my whole life (not just my whole body) in mind and, already, I feel like a winner:)

Five Rules of Self Love (Read Time: 3 min.)

The journey to self-love is an evolving, life long process.  I'm reminded of that almost every day.  As I work on my own level of self love, I hear the words of Louise L. Hay, "When you really, really love yourself, everything in your life works."  Notice she didn't say "Some" things; she said everything. 

As I embark upon this continuous journey of learning how to love myself more, I find myself looking for ways to remember that loving myself is a continuous choice I am honored to make.  Here are 5 rules of self love that I created to remind myself of that very choice:

Rule #1: I love my flaws because they're part of my brilliance.  What makes us unique is also what makes us imperfect.  Loving our flaws means we're okay with where we are.  Things don't have to be a certain way and we don't have to be a certain kind of person.  Right here, right now, exactly where you are, you ARE good enough.

Rule #2: I love my mistakes because they give me permission to grow. Every mistake is an invitation to change.  Without the mistake, we could spend years going on living in the lie that we're perfect.  Nobody is and every mistake invites us to be MORE of who we already are.

Rule #3: I love where I am because it's exactly where I'm supposed to be.  Trusting the process of life is a great way of knowing that where you are is exactly where you need to be.  There's peace in that.  It allows you to be still even as you move forward.

Rule #4: I love people for who they are because they remind me that we all deserve love simply because...  In any moment, we can love people or we can judge them but we can't do both at the same time.  Whatever we do to others we are, on some level, doing to ourselves.  This rule reminds me that all great things begin and end with love.  I can leave criticism and judgment alone because love is what lights the way of change.  When I love someone else as they are, it gives me the room to love myself as I am. 

Rule #5: I deserve and accept the best now.  I don't have to wait to be perfect to deserve what I really, really want.  Knowing that there is no order of difficulty in miracles, knowing that nothing is impossible for God, knowing that in a split second, everything could change for the better reminds me that it's not what I do that brings me my highest good but who I am choosing to be as I embrace the good that lies ahead.