How to heal self judgement to soften into peace

Something I’ve learned after being on the self-development journey for so long is that you can do all the things in order to be a “better” version of yourself.

Yet, when it’s coming from the need to fix yourself—because the self judgment (i.e., inner critic) says you are not enough—it never leads to the peace and wholeness that we long for.

This is especially true in today’s image-driven, social media age where it’s so easy to judge yourself based on the “results” you produce. It’s easy to get caught up in a mental loop of self judgment and shame when you’re not where you want to be yet.

I know this because I’ve been there. My inner critic used to beat me up like an unforgiving, all-time-champion boxer.

Anytime I would post online, my inner critic would be the first to comment—insisting no one would like what I shared. And even when people did like my posts, she still wasn’t satisfied. She would tell me, “See? It’s not enough. Nobody cares about you. You’re pathetic. Good for nothing.”

It was an uphill battle—trying to prove my inner critic wrong, only to feel like I failed again and again.

The inner critic felt like a clenched-up dinosaur jaw, grinding me up with thoughts of what I “should” have done, constantly questioning whether I could “make it” or not. She made relentless judgments about my past and was always critical of my potential. It was hard to feel proud of myself when self judgment ran the show 24/7.

And if you’ve spent time in the self-development world too, you know that these self judgments don’t serve any good.

For one, they create a heavy emotional load and result in inaction or paralysis. For example, the thought of “I suck at writing” would keep me from posting content as much as I wanted to—and that meant I wasn’t serving the women I felt called to serve.

On the surface, it might seem like the inner critic is helping you “improve” yourself.

But when you look closer, you’ll find it’s pruning you so harshly that it ends up cutting off the stem of your desires.

In other words, what the inner critic mostly does is putting a cap on what you can do because we end up retracting and withdrawing ourselves. (I wrote about the inner critic and how it stops your creative expression here). 

To stop self judgment, I tried “bettering” myself. Like when my inner critic hated my “skinny fat” legs, I went to the gym religiously to get the “perfect” body… only to discover later that I still didn’t like myself. The inner judgment just shifted to a new flaw.

This happens often—even to people who get all the plastic surgery and Botox they want. They find that the self judgment doesn’t disappear with mere surface-level changes.

The truth is, no matter how much you try to fix yourself, your inner critic will always find something to critique.

That’s because self judgment comes from a deeper root within us. You can’t perfume over the stink of self-loathing. Think of it like spraying air freshener over garbage—it doesn’t eliminate the source of the smell.

That’s why, to stop self judgment, I had to go inward. I had to face the root of my own self-judging thoughts.

And so here I wanted to share with you how I finally stopped self judgement that was the cause of most of the suffering in my head. That is, the self judgement that is never pleased with you and make you feel like your “ideal” version is far away.

See yourself through eyes of love

To finally heal the self judgment that caused me to constantly try to “improve” myself out of fear of not being enough, I had to look at my deeply held beliefs.

I realized I had repugnant thoughts about myself—things like “nobody cares about me” or “I’m unlovable”—and that these came from long-standing inner narratives: that I was small, invisible, unworthy.

Then from reflecting on different painful scenarios (such as in business in my business where I felt rejected), I came up with a list of all the negative beliefs I carried deep inside.

Once I had that list, I then sat with each belief and asked where it came from.

For me, I receive insights during meditation—Spirit would show me unhealed memories or patterns (which I wrote about here). For others, these insights can arise during journaling or quiet reflection. Sometimes the roots run deeper, like repressed trauma or past life imprints. That’s when I use my intuitive gifts to help clients uncover what they’re not consciously aware of.

Personally, I receive insights about it while meditating for a little while and Spirit would show me images of the unhealed memories/ patterns (which I talked about in this article here). To most people, these realizations of how the negative beliefs got installed can surface easily, but there can also be times when it’s much deeper (like a repressed childhood traumatic event or a past life memory). This is when I use my intuitive abilities to help uncover the roof of deep-seated beliefs and memories that my clients may be unaware of. 

To show you an example, I used to be so afraid that people would see me when I share my unpopular thoughts online. When I looked closer into it, I saw that it came from a belief that nobody likes me and that nobody cares about me. And that made sense because growing up, I always had this uncomfortable feeling of being a black sheep who didn’t fit in with the rich, cool kids in a private school I went to. I felt unlikable and unlovable because I was bullied for being more tanned than other pale skinned mixed-Chinese kids (and I am Burmese). 

And one of the ways learned how to stop judging myself was by giving a new meaning to the “traumatic” event: the kind that sees love.

So instead of giving a meaning that me having tanned skin = me being unlikeable by other people, I gave a new meaning that my soul chose this skin color so that she could stand out and express herself. I gave a new meaning that the reason why I was mostly invisible to boys when I was young was not because anything was wrong with me. Rather, my soul wanted to give me the gift of freedom that comes with being “invisible.” 

Your beliefs may be different, but you can stop self judgment by shifting the meaning behind your past wounds.

Because ultimately, your inner critic only judges you based on the meanings you once gave to your life—and you have the power to create new ones.

See the gift of it all

Alongside rewiring the way I felt about my past, what also helped me stop self judgement was seeing the gift of it all— including the so-called negative perceptions of myself. 

This is important because we only harshly judge ourselves because we believe that some parts of us are “bad” and therefore must be controlled.

This leads to the feelings of “not being enough” — as though something is missing and lacking inside of you and and that you must “fix” yourself to feel whole.

The truth is, most of our human suffering comes from blank-and-white thinking. We think that if we want to be a “good” girl, we can’t be a “bad” girl. We think that if we are to be “smart,” we can’t show our foolish side. And to be “beautiful,” we must hide the parts that feel messy or unpolished. We think that we can only be appealing in some aspects of us but not others. 

My dear, if you ever see yourself that way, know that nothing in nature is black-and-white.

Nothing in nature is unappealing. Every species, every season, every quality has beauty in it and serves a greater purpose. Some people may  judge earthworms as unappealing because of the way they crawl but they create nutrients for the earth. Some people may judge snails as unappealing because they are slow but they clean up the environment and on top of that create snail mucin! (one of my favorite skin care products right now) 

Anyway… my point is to say that everything in nature is perfect in their own way— including YOU! Even the things you think are your weaknesses and are unappealing about yourself contain the most valuable gifts that you may not have been aware of. 

Like for me, my inner critic used to judge me for being the “ugly girl”/ “a crow among the swans.” But I saw that there’s a peaceful gift to not trying to always be the one that turns heads. Like for one thing, this “ugly girl” inside of me is pretty darn prolific in her writings, she is greatly passionate about what she does, and is so connected to the hearts of her clients. 

In truth, we only feel the need to judge ourselves because we are afraid of how perfect we already are, even in the “bad” things about ourselves. However, once you truly allow yourself to be what your inner critic is afraid of becoming, you will be surprised to find how much more magical and blissful your life becomes… with more peace and love in everything you interact with because now you see the peace and love in all that that YOU are. 

Receive for your core needs

Another thing I realized about the inner critic is that she is the loudest when my heart is unfulfilled in my own self. That is, when I am feeling as though there’s something missing that I don’t have *as mentioned earlier. To put it another way, a loud inner critic voice is a mere symptom of feeling an emptiness inside of us. 

This realization came strongly to me when I was feeling unlikable/ that nobody likes me on social media. I realized that the reason why I felt unliked was because some part of me needed to be liked. And in order to be needing something it must mean that I am not giving that to myself. To put it another way, my lack of liking toward myself was creating feelings that nobody likes me on social media. 

Likewise, if your inner critic is judging you that you’re not perfect, that is because you’re not seeing perfection in your own Self. If your inner critic is judging you because you’re slow, that is because you’re not giving yourself the permission to slow down. All the self-judgments of the mind point to the lack of love, compassion, and care we refuse to give to ourselves. 

To some people this realization (that you have the  power to fill up your own needs and therefore silence the inner critic) can feel overwhelming – especially if you grew up with parents who didn’t fill up your needs in ways you wanted. But again, this overwhelm is coming from the part of you that feels empty because it never has been filled up with presence and love.

However, what you will see is that once you are begin filling up your inner needs, you will see that the love inside of you is the key to transforming anything: including making changes in your life. Whether that is, in your relationships or career, to have more peace and fulfillment. That’s because you’re now feeling more whole and complete within, and so experience connection with relationships and opportunities that mirror that wholeness back to you.

Let compassion flow out of you

The last piece I want to leave you with is this:

Most of the time, the voice of the inner critic doesn’t actually want to destroy you—
it just wants to protect you. It believes that if you hide, you’ll be safe. Safe from judgment.
Safe from rejection.
Safe from pain.

But the truth is, hiding doesn’t heal anything. Like a wound kept in the dark, wrapped too tightly in shame, it begins to fester.Air cannot reach it. Light cannot touch it.
And so it aches—quietly, but constantly.

When self-judgment becomes the gatekeeper of your life, you find yourself stuck in a quiet war between longing and fear.
The ache to be seen, colliding with the fear of being seen. The desire to try, clashing with the terror of failing.

It’s like holding your breath for years. You’re not drowning, but you’re not living either.
You exist in a limbo— not quite hidden, not quite free.

The inner critic, in its obsession with doing the “right thing,” ends up paralyzing you.
You become so afraid of getting it wrong that you stop doing anything at all.
And what a joyless life that is— to silence your soul in order to avoid making a mistake.

But there is another way, my dear.

The kind where you let compassion be the one who moves you. Let kindness be the hand that guides you forward.

When love becomes the fuel instead of fear, your self-judgments lose their grip. They can no longer bury you in “not enoughness.”

For me, the shift happened not through erasing my inner critic, but by continuing to write— even when it said I was boring. Even when it said no one would like me.

And that’s when I stopped writing to impress and started writing to connect.
I began having fun— genuine, unfiltered, soul-deep fun.

And I realized: it doesn’t matter if everyone loves me.
I’m here for the ones who are meant to find me.
And I trust that God will carry my words to them.

Healing the inner critic isn’t about wrapping yourself in a spiritual cocoon
and waiting for perfection to bloom.
Rather, real healing happens in the doing. In the showing up. In the willingness to meet the dragon inside of you,
and look it in the eyes with compassion instead of control. That you begin you begin to melting the armor around your soul.

~

My love, the reason we judge ourselves is often because we've been taught it’s normal, even noble— to be harsh with ourselves.

But tell me this:

If you saw a little girl standing in the street, hitting herself for not being good enough, would you let her? Would you walk away?

I know you wouldn’t. You’d run to her. You’d hold her face and say, “You are precious. You are doing your best.”

That’s what the inner critic does to you every time it judges you harshly. It hits the little girl inside you, the one who only ever wanted to be loved.

But if you've made it to this point in this piece, I know what you truly desire— is not just a beautiful life on the outside, but a gentler one on the inside.

The kind of life where your soul can exhale. Where your heart doesn’t shrink in fear, but expands in love.

This is the gift of softening your self-judgment. It is the soul’s spring cleaning—clearing out the old voices, the dust of shame, so you can return to the sacred sweetness of love inside your heart.