Letting Go of the Fear of Judgment and Showing up for Yourself During the Healing Journey

October 26, 2022

Welcome back to the podcast! Happy last week of October! Today’s podcast episode is a reflection I have been having. Recently I have received some not-so-nice comments on Instagram about my body and I really wanted to talk about that in this episode. Today I want to talk about the fear of judgment, playing small, and how that actually only impacts us and what we can do instead.

In this episode, we discuss:

[02:00] Quick update on what has been happening on Instagram

In case you don’t follow me on Instagram, let me give you a quick update on what has been happening. So a couple of weeks ago now, I had a post that was boosted, which means that there was ad money behind it and would be seen by a lot more people based on the company I did a collaboration with. I woke up one morning to a lot of very nasty messages and comments on that post in particular. In that post, I was talking about balancing nutrition as I always do, because you know, balance is key. In that post the messages that I got were that because of the body that I live in, I shouldn’t be able to give nutritional advice. I brushed off the first few comments and then the more and more that those comments came in, it actually did feel kind of heavy. My body was used as a way to justify my qualifications and my body was used to judge my worth.

[05:07] How my healing with food and body affected my response

As I reflected on these events one of the things that came up for me was how thankful I was that I had done the work to heal my relationship with my body. So things like this can come into my world and can bounce back out as soon as they come in. They do not impact me as a person, and they don’t impact my worth. If this comment had come to me five years ago it would have paralyzed and terrified me.

[08:11] Fear of judgment

The fear of being judged is normal so let’s just normalize that from the get-go. Us fearing judgment is 100% normal. It’s part of our human nature. We like to be liked, we want to belong, and we want to be part of a group. When we feel judged, or we think that people are going to point the finger at us and tell us that something’s not good about us, it really shakes our sense of belonging and safety.

[09:30] Reactions when someone places a judgment on us

When someone places a judgment on you, there are one or two options that tend to happen. Either you brush it off or you internalize it. When we internalize it we end up feeling horrible. What determines what happens is often your own perception and your own insecurity.

[16:48] Internalizing and fearing judgment

We are responsible for how we internalize something and how we act on it. Anything that happens within is our own responsibility. We have the power to choose how we want to show up and behave. What is harder than healing and doing this work is staying in a place where we’re always fearing judgment, and we are playing small. That is much harder. It’s a harder life to live when we are in a space where we are trying so hard to just fit in to just belong. Don’t let the fear of judgment, judgment stop you from showing up. You don’t need to play small your whole life. You get to live a full beautiful life.

[19:16] When we fear judgment we are only hurting ourselves

When we are fearing judgment, we are only hurting ourselves. When you are so aligned with yourself and when you are so connected and confident in the choices that you make, people can say whatever they want, and it doesn’t impact you. I really hope for you that you choose to trust yourself, to heal your relationship with food and your body, and to trust yourself that you also get to have this wonderful, beautiful life where you are aligned and where you stop playing small. You deserve that life so so much.