From Self-Judgment and Self-Criticism to Self-Love with Soul Recovery

Ever wondered how to transform that relentless inner critic into a source of strength and empowerment? In this episode, Rev Rachel shares personal stories and practical Soul Recovery tools to help you turn those harsh self-judgments into a powerful voice of courage. Through reflections on personal experiences with self-criticism, we explore the essential role of compassion, tenderness, and grace in our journey towards self-love and healing. By prioritizing our own well-being and recognizing our inherent wholeness, we can better navigate external pressures and stresses and live from our Higher Self.

For more information about Rev. Rachel Harrison and Recover Your Soul- visit the website www.recoveryoursoul.net  use the code TRYASESSION for 40% off your first Spiritual Coaching session when you book on the website.  Visit the website for all events and groups to get involved in Soul Recovery and the community.

Soul Recovery Support Group on Zoom -The 1st Monday of the Month, 6PM Mountain Time. This is a drop in support group where we can come together to explore, connect and support each other on our Soul Recovery journey.  Visit the website to register and receive the meeting invite.  Free to attend and donations appreciated.

Join others on the Soul Recovery journey on Monday July 1st from 6-7PM on Zoom for the FREE Soul Recovery Support Group. This month we will be talking about 'Criticism and Judgement.' I will give a brief talk, open for questions and then we will break into small groups.  Register on the website, or if you have already registered- be on the look out the day of the meeting in your inbox for a reminder email.  

This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not allied or representative of any organizations or religions, but is based on the opinions and experience of Rev. Rachel Harrison. The host claims no responsibility to any person or entity for any liability, loss, or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly as a result of the use, application, or interpretation of the information presented herein. Take what you need and leave the rest.

Transcript

Rev Rachel Harrison: 0:59

I'm sure I'm not the only one that has a pretty intense inner critic or judge, and as we finish up this three part series the first part being when we get criticized last week was when we criticize others, and I realized it was really important for us to finish up by talking about when we're critical to ourselves. How can we use soul recovery tools and concepts to shift that voice inside of us that is incredibly painful and can keep us from living our fullest life, keep us from being our fullest self, pushing it Away. It's about learning how to have compassion and tenderness and grace in your own experience and transforming that voice into a voice of courage and power. It's about learning how to have awareness. Enjoy the episode.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 1:57

Welcome to the Recover your Soul podcast a spiritual path to a happy and healthy life. My name is Reverend Rachel Harrison. I started Recover your Soul after having profound changes in my life from my recovery of alcoholism, codependency and control addiction. I was guided to share the tools and principles of spirituality and soul recovery to help others transform their lives as mine was transformed. For us to overcome external circumstances, we need to turn the attention to ourselves, focusing on our inner change and healing. Positive results in our lives will follow. Welcome to Recover your Soul. I'm Rev Rachel and I thank you so much for choosing to spend your time with me here right now, having me in your ear, to really connect with yourself, to step away from the outside world for just a moment and all of its pressures and remember your wholeness, remember the attunement to source within you that you can heal from anything, that you can handle anything. That you may have walked through these doors because something on the outside feels really overwhelming or too much or painful, but when you walk into soul recovery, you discover and remember yourself.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 3:19

The last two episodes we have been talking about criticism. The first episode was when we get criticized by others, and then the next episode was when we criticize others, and I realized, as I was talking about flipping the coin from one side of criticism to the other, that there's actually something even greater that is really driving a lot of it, and it was the criticism that we have for ourself, how critical we are of ourselves. That that criticism we feel from others pushes a button. When we're critical of others, we have a belief, a perception of that they have done something wrong or could do something different, and that is a protection as well. It's the button from another perspective. But what I want to talk about today is our inner critic, and I want to talk about it because it has been hitting me hard. And it hit me hard just in the working on these past two episodes.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 4:23

And it's interesting that the more that I dive into my own spiritual journey and I remember the minister that I went to for a long time at the spiritual center he would say that as soon as he picked a topic for that Sunday that it would show up in his life to give him something to chew on and something to work on. And I find that to be true in terms of my leading this community and sometimes creating talks for spiritual centers in the Denver area. And it's interesting because when I first started this podcast, there was so much going on inside of me that I was processing and I didn't have what I felt like was the pressure of 1000s of people listening. I was just this human being starting out in my closet, talking on my phone, sharing those experiences of awakening and really coming into myself and beginning to look at the hurts and the wounds and the patterns that were really keeping me stuck in dysfunctional belief systems and codependence and addiction. And as the podcast began to grow and I began to feel more pressure to show up for you in ways that will really move you, help you.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 5:42

I come back on a regular basis to remember that it is my own healing. That is the number one priority, that you come here because you've been guided to, because somebody told you to, because you searched something, and it's going to resonate with some of you and for some of you it won't, and that's okay. But I recognize my critic that has been really heavy on my heart in terms of how I produce and create this content. And that is that sneaky piece again that I talk about all the time that we have to remember, to stay in our own lane, to remember to continue to do our own work. And recently in meditation, when I was in this place of recognizing that my critic has really been on me, that inner judge, I had a definite opening that just said don't forget, forget. This is about your own healing, this is about you sharing what's happening with you. And this part of being critical to ourselves is so universal, so painful, so true, so true that I think it's a fabulous way to really clean up and tidy up the end of this three-part series on criticism, because ultimately, criticism is judgment and ultimately, judgment is our desire to control. It is us having a perception of something. It is us having a perception of something Now, when I look at myself and I look at this criticism that I feel of myself, this inner judge and the minister, rev Scott, that spoke at the Unity Church that I attended for almost 20 years and he was a minister for I don't know at least 15 of those I think this was one of his big topics was the inner judge and the ego.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 7:48

Part of us, this personality, part of us, doesn't necessarily immediately have a judge. The judge, the critic, is actually the element of ourselves that is making those perceived beliefs around ourselves. Those perceived beliefs around ourselves, that is a piece of us that is coming in in this really sometimes insidious way and trying to make sense of what's happening in our lives and trying to keep us safe in ways that can be incredibly, incredibly painful and damaging. Recently, one of the things that I've been experiencing in my own criticism of myself, my own judgment of myself, that is, I believe, part of my unfolding and releasing my identity, and the more spirituality I do, the more awareness I have around the importance of relieving this attachment to self, but in that my self that has been created doesn't want to be released.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 8:55

I have a lot of attachment to this identity, this person that I've created, and one of the things that has been happening recently around it is around my physical self and I don't know if you're like me, I have a Amazon fire stick and so the TV's on, but we're not watching a show. I've chosen for it to do slideshows and you know you would hope that it would bring up a whole bunch of memories of our family and pictures of what's going on. But part of that is pictures of me, and some of them are selfies and some of our pictures of me and Rich and with the kids. And I'm having this real awareness. I don't know if any of you can relate if you're in middle life, like I am around how incredibly intense the passage of time is, that I have been so critical on myself, around how I look or what my body looks like, and now I look at pictures that were just two, three, four years ago and the whole time I'm thinking, wow, aging is so fascinating and interesting on some level.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 10:06

I know for my spiritually centered whole self that it isn't about the wrinkles or about the changing in the face. It's around your energy that's flowing out. And I know that, since I've had this incredible healing in my life, there is more light that shines out of me, that I'm more present, that there is a beauty that is radiating out that comes from my feeling good about myself. And yet that critic, that inner judge that is so insidious and so cutting, looks at those pictures and says oh look, rachel, you were so much younger than. Oh, you're getting older. Oh, you're not that pretty. Oh, your hair looks so much different. Oh, look at the grays. And I'm fascinated at how painful that is and how we speak to ourselves in ways that we would never, never, never speak to a friend that when I look at pictures of my friends, even a couple years ago, and I'm watching them age and I'm watching them age and I'm watching the same things happen for them, I don't look at them and think, oh girl, you look terrible now you should have had Botox or you should have gone to laser. What I see is I see beautiful, amazing women who are becoming their older selves, and I see their wisdom and their light and their love pouring through them as I am being so critical to myself. But what I am grateful for in this journey is that it catches sooner.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 11:43

It isn't about the fact that we're trying to stop criticism, either to others or to ourselves, or recognize that people will always criticize us. It's around having space between how attached we are to believing those thoughts. We don't have to believe everything. We think that this is part of our brain that wants to understand, that has this judgment to it. And the truth is I do look different. I do look remarkably different than I did years ago, in some ways better, in some ways older. My hair is gray, it is getting wiry and strange. Sometimes I know how to make it be really good and sometimes not so much. And that part is about really stepping into compassion and gentleness and kindness to yourself as you're releasing the part that's attached to the body, that's attached to the self, attached to the identity. And the same piece happens in the self-criticism of trying to match and meet people's expectations.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 12:55

So this piece of me that's so interesting all of my podcasts are 90% 99% stream of consciousness. I have a knowing of what concept that I want to share with you. I say a prayer before I get started. I center myself and remind myself I'm here to be of service. I try to get myself out of the way. I close my eyes which is why for the general podcast there isn't a video and I turn within and I connect to something that I asked to give me the words that need to be shared. And when I'm in the middle of it, when I can truly feel a connection to something within me that is a knowing, that's the higher self that I work so much with expanding in myself, that I work with expanding in the people that come for spiritual coaching with me, I feel comfortable, I feel at ease, I feel confident in the words that come out more and more all the time.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 14:08

But then it's interesting because then I press stop all the time. But then it's interesting because then I press stop and I go back to edit it and my critic comes in and I worry that it is a good enough. Am I saying the things that will help? Am I speaking clearly? Am I going to resonate with people? And that part of me is so interesting because it's tied to so much of the same things, the same aspects of my wounded self, my fearful self, that have the button that gets pushed in the criticism from others and is on the same turn the button and the part of me that is reacting to critiquing others as well.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 14:56

But what I really want to remind us in this spiritual podcast a spiritual path to a happy and healthy life is that the more that we can just be present with the awareness of how our brains are working, the awareness of this desire that we have to be critical to ourselves, the more that we can actually open to compassion. I think last time I also did a quote from my tiny Buddha calendar that one of my listeners gave me, and yesterday's tiny Buddha said trying to control perception is exhausting and absolutely pointless, since we can't ensure that everyone likes us, no matter how hard we try to please or impress them. All we can do is be ourselves and recognize that we're not for everyone, and that's okay, lori Dishini. And what I loved about this that went along with this concept of self-criticism is I am caring what anybody else thinks. Part of a huge part of our self-criticism is protecting us from that criticism of others, that if I am hard on myself first, then you can't get to me myself first, then you can't get to me. I want you to listen for just a moment to that voice that comes in and judges and criticizes you, and notice and recognize that it is not you, it is not the wholeness that you know that you are.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 16:31

The beauty of me sharing a spiritual journey with you is that we're all in this together. There is no one who doesn't have these experiences, and yet it can feel incredibly alone, incredibly isolating to have what is happening within our mind, what is happening within our mind speaking to us in the ways that it does, and it doesn't feel safe or like that. There's a place for us to share with somebody else of what's going on with us, and even that makes us be more judgmental and critical for ourselves. Ultimately, it's around our isolation, our belief that we're separate from source, separate from others, and I believe strongly that our souls are here to have this human experience. That is complicated, that is around bumping up against concepts and belief systems and personalities and other relationships that push us to look at aspects of ourself in ways that are inviting us to open up to something even more.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 17:48

If you're ready for soul recovery, as a spiritual coach I can support your healing to help make real changes that will bring you a life of peace, happiness, connection and abundance. You can also work in smaller groups by taking a deep dive in a Zoom workshop or with me in person at a retreat or an event. Join others on the Soul Recovery Path, once a month for the free Zoom support group or daily on the private Facebook page. Visit the website recoveryoursoulnet to book coaching sessions with me or find all the information you need about soul recovery dates that are coming up and how to register for those groups and workshops. To support the podcast and the community, check the links in the show notes to make a small monthly donation or a one-time donation of your choice. That will make a huge impact to support this community and the soul recovery mission.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 18:39

Together we can do the work that will recover your soul, and I think that part of me that's so true and I know that it resonates with you as well, because I've heard it from people when we're sharing is that there is something to the fear of living in our fullness, to loving ourselves completely, that it almost feels safer to stay small, to let that critic keep you small, to let that judge keep you from jumping out into the universe and taking the great leap. I had a recent Oracle card pull that said leap, leap and trust that the universe will carry you. And because we are so afflicted with this judgment of ourselves, it keeps us perception, belief, this peace that thinks that this is keeping us safe. But it isn't safe to be locked within the jail cell, it isn't safe to be in a place where you are constricted to not live from your fullest self. So this self-criticism that potentially is keeping you from truly healing, are the parts of us that think, if I let this go, if I let go of my belief that I did something wrong, the shame, that deep shame that we can have, that there's something wrong with us, guilt being that we did something wrong.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 20:27

That if we release these aspects of ourselves and we truly understand that every single situation, every single circumstance that we've had in our life is there to show us something, is there to expand our consciousness, is there for our soul to have this bigger expression, and that we can choose to be happy, that we can choose to see that voice as something outside of ourself, that critical voice is something outside of ourself, and recognize that it's just another protector, but that we don't have to listen to it. And in this quote that says I'm not for everyone, we're not for everyone, that reminder that whatever I'm saying here is not to save the world mind is mostly meant for me, to remind myself how I can walk and how I can show up and how I can be kind to myself and how I can be kind to the people around me and how I can let go of control and then, through that, if I can offer that experience to anybody and that gives you strength to do something in your life, that's the only ask. It's not for everyone and that's okay. The critic that we have for ourselves when we can see that it's true undertone is protection, and then you, instead of rejecting it, you open to it.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 22:15

I think it's important to have gratitude for the shadow sites of ourselves, for those protectors or those defense mechanisms that we've used in our lives to try to keep us safe, that no longer serve us, to let go of what no longer serves you, and that awareness that that critic, that judge, wants to protect you. And you say thank you for the desire to protect me. I would like support, I would like to have the same energy that wants to look in the mirror and see an aging woman and be hard on myself and think I should do something different to love myself. I would love, love, love. To have that energy resourced in me to grow old gracefully, to just see myself as I am and to release my body more and more and more every day and to treat my body with the respect that it deserves, through fitness, through healthy eating, through kindness, through good sleep, through meditation. To remember that part of our journey as spiritual beings is to transcend this body that we're in and move into the higher states of consciousness that are opening us up into releasing the stories that we tell ourselves, including the stories that we tell ourselves about ourselves.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 23:44

Whatever happened has already gone and we choose, as I say so often, to replay the old wounds, to be hard on ourselves, to have this grievance against ourself for not being enough, instead of saying, ah, that's what I learned there. That was a really painful experience. We have to walk through the darkness to get to the light. We have to have this existential crisis to be willing to do what it takes to move into a new way of being, and so the judgments that I have on myself that are so old, old wounds of not being smart enough, not being able enough, not being popular enough. Those pieces of me are slowly, slowly, slowly releasing them and the more I witness the experiences that I had that seemed to reflect those situations in my life and remind me that those felt true, the more that I can let them tell me the story and then I can rewrite the story. We can rewrite our story. We can let that inner critic tell us what parts of us need to be healed, need love and compassion, need forgiveness, need grace.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 25:14

And this isn't about anybody else. This is about us, uniquely in ourselves, taking our power back to ourselves, recognizing that the more that we're needing the world to reflect to us something, the less we're actually putting the energy within ourselves to look in those dark corners and shine light, knowing that you're always, always, always going to be offered loving kindness when you open to it. But we have to choose to want to open to it and we have to look at what is the cost of staying in judgment of ourselves. What is it costing me and for me? What it costs me is it costs me peace and contentment and ease and love for myself, just in my physical well-being. It makes my body hurt. It makes me make food choices that are not going to benefit how I feel I'm going to go back to old addictive behaviors that are trying to soothe and keep me from being my full self.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 26:26

I know who I am. I feel a knowing that I am so loved and held to be my full self and to love myself exactly as I am. And that fear really goes back to younger pieces of me, to unsettled parts of me, goes back to lower vibrations, goes back to fear. And when I remember that I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be with all of these feelings, that these feelings, each and every one of them, is actually rattling cages within me that need to be released, this desire that I have to truly love myself on a level that isn't about anybody else, that I don't need to be defined by anything that came prior to this moment today, that I can allow the people in my life to be exactly who they are, that, whatever anybody thinks of me is not my business. It allows me to stand in the four agreements with more integrity and truth, from a place of strength.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 27:42

To not take anything personally that's when people criticize you. To not make assumptions. That's often when we criticize others. To be impeccable with my word, to speak and act and think with integrity and honesty, knowing that our words are powerful. Our words are powerful.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 28:09

And then to do my best to truly live in these principles, to to embody the soul recovery journey, to allow myself to be in whatever the process is and notice when I'm in criticism of myself and see that that is the overarching energy that will either keep the anger and the frustration and the grievance and the fear alive or will be the place where I can have grace and compassion and forgiveness and love and awareness and be curious about all of these feelings, to be curious about what's going on inside of me and then to love myself, to forgive myself, to accept myself exactly as I am and not try to be anything outside of what that is. Then the judge becomes quiet and I feel a wholeness and I feel a connection to myself and I feel a peace and I can be present in this moment, the only moment that is. The more that we can be in this moment with this tender heart, the more that we can listen to the guidance of source and something greater still that is inviting you to be, to be in your greatness, to be in your fullness, to live from your higher self. It's not about rejecting your inner critic. It's about looking at it from compassion. It's about listening to that voice and giving space that allows it to share with you what its fears are, so that you can work on what that is. Work on what that is, so that you can release and let go of the grip that it has on you that is keeping you locked in the cage. Allow yourself to work through the whole process and every time, just come back a little bit more to self-love, self-compassion, self-acceptance, self-forgiveness, and you can access this by becoming a subscriber through Apple Podcasts for only $3.99 a month, or become a Patreon member, and on this platform, you can choose $5, $15, or $25 a month to show what you want to support the show with.

Rev Rachel Harrison: 31:00

On both of these subscriber platforms is an entire catalog of back episodes intended to inspire and support you on your soul recovery journey. I really want to invite everybody to attend the free once a month, every first Monday of the month support group. This is on zoom. Everyone is welcome to attend and by giving a like or a review and sharing this with your friends and family really helps us to share the soul recovery message with even more people. We are on social media. We are on all the platforms. I am on TikTok. You can listen to guided meditations by Rev Rachel Harrison on Insight Timer. Thank you for supporting the show. Thank you for being part of the community. To find out more about soul recovery and everything that's being offered, visit the website wwwrecoveryoursoulnet. Together, we can do the work that will recover your soul.