Judgers Gonna Judge

I can remember it like was yesterday. I had just started teaching yoga and I was hiking with one of my mentors and I asked, “but what if they judge me?”

And she said, “oh they will of course judge you.”

WAIT WHAT!!!?!?! You mean I can’t control each and every mind and make all of the people everywhere think of me how I want them to think of me?!?

Surprisingly this has been one of the most freeing lessons I have learned (and have had to learn over and over again).

“Letting” people judge me as I teach yoga or coach or do motherhood or live in the world is one of the best gifts I can give myself.

And I have to give it to myself again as I put myself out there by way of #bloglife.

So when people comment on my posts and I realize that they haven’t gotten my intended point. Or they tell me to love myself more. Or they disagree with me in real life. Or they think I am shallow for posting a picture of a scale.

My knee jerk reaction is to want to explain my way out of every little critique or minor misinterpretation.

We act like it matters. The people and their judgements.

We think “Oh I better not do this really awesome thing because this one person might think blah blah blah blah.”

We think our mom and our friend from 2nd grade is “Everyone”.

We act like people judging us is a reason to stop what we are doing.

I have to remember it is not my job to manage your opinion of me.

Your opinion of me is actually none of my business.

I have to on purpose let people be wrong about me.

What if people judging us meant we were right on track? What if the more people that judge us meant the bigger the impact we are having?

And PS so much love and respect to my *real* blogger friends who I am sure have learned this lesson on a whole new level. You and your unbreakable backbones are so inspiring.