Everyone judges. According to Shirzad Chamine, author of Positive Intelligence, this is simply a fact. In his book and his coaching app, Shirzad takes us through a list of what he calls our Saboteurs and coaches us to rewire our brain by hijacking our negative thoughts, the ones our Saboteurs try to convince us are true and turn on our Sage, using its five loving powers. The Judge is the Universal Saboteur. We judge ourselves, others, and our circumstances. Our practice for this past week was to notice these judge-y moments, then practice changing them. Purchase his book to get the details. It is fabulous and life-changing.

I love learning so when I signed up for his course, I was all in. I am a lifelong student to a fault (there goes my judge), always the goody-two-shoes, always doing my homework on time, nerdy you might say. So, when it came time to do this week’s work and observe my Judge, I went full throttle.

If you didn’t know this, I own a gym with my husband. I have also spent many hours in front of the mirror in various dance studios for almost a million years — well, ok, 52 of my 57 years. So body image is a thing for me. A pretty big thing. In true form, I have noticed a daily barrage of negative thoughts, judge-y thoughts, as my go-to pattern when it comes to my body. I was very surprised my thoughts were so mean.

If I were to give you a percentage of the day when I have these judge-y thoughts, I would say, well it is pretty high. It’s every time I see a mirror (which is often in a gym), I change my workout clothes, go to the bathroom, look in the mirror at home, look down at my legs, put something in my face, etc. Do I need to go on?

I didn’t realize I spent much time in these negative thought patterns. The coaching exercises I have done this week with Shirzad have made me very aware of this, which is the point, right? I have had five children, so my stomach isn’t flat. I want it to be and it was for about a day and a half last year when I did a cleanse, but it wasn’t a realistic weight for me and I think people were wondering if I had an eating disorder. Don’t worry, I’m not super thin or overly muscular, I just, as Fergie says am “working on my fitness.” I have to, I own a gym.

If you want to look fit and healthy, especially at my age, there is some amount of thinking that has to go into staying fit. I can’t eat whatever I want which is difficult on two planes — first, the near-constant thoughts of food, and second, it involves discipline, a healthy, slightly obsessive (can those two go together?) amount of discipline. I love chocolate. I love fried foods. I love pizza. I love ice cream, but none of those foods are conducive to the goals I have for looking a certain way. Can I eat them? Yes, but very occasionally.

I also want to be sexy for my husband. Am I allowed to say that? It’s true, I want to look good for him. Not to mention having to look a certain way to uphold the expectation of what a female gym owner should look like. She looks like that because she owns a gym, you know. No pressure, Julie.

I signed up for this, I realize and I’m not complaining, I’m just trying to figure out how my Judge plays into the expectations I have for my body and how I can change them into Sage ways. Changing judgment to discernment is easier when it doesn’t involve my body image.

I know I am preaching to the choir here otherwise, you wouldn’t have made it this far in the blog. I have been working on noticing my stomach and saying “Five wonderful children came from you, not lighten up!” And then, I change my thoughts. I take some breaths, bring attention to the present moment and let it go.

One day, hopefully, sooner rather than later, I can look at my body and simply say THANK YOU. But for now, my goal is to continue to hijack the Judge, The Bully, put her in her place every time she shows up, and, show myself, my body, some self-love and, compassion.