Judgment
In 1991, Donald Trump said, “You know, it doesn’t really matter what [the media] write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass.”
Boy oh boy, that made me mad. He was basically saying women are something to wear on your arm like a nice wristwatch or cuff links. And it’s their ass that will determine whether or not they’re valuable.
It hurts when someone uses women as objects based on their physical attributes.
I rushed to judgment. He’s a misogynist! He’s a narcissist! He has no emotional intelligence! He’s crude! His white male privilege is dripping all over the place! What the?!?
Sugar
In 1996, I discovered I was addicted to sugar. Literally addicted.
I only ate Rice Krispies to get to the sugar on the bottom of the bowl. I piled sugar on my toast with a little dash of cinnamon. I ate piles of cookies, candy bars, and cake. My brain lit up when I ate sugar and it craved more and more. Whenever I was hungry, I just wanted sugar! And I was hungry a lot.
To take care of my sugar addiction, I didn’t stop eating sugar. That would have been too hard. What I did was add protein to my diet. The protein helped me not get so hungry. My stomach would feel full. Because the protein held off my hunger, I didn’t eat so much sugar.
So instead of saying no to sugar, I said yes to protein which was healthy for my body
Trump
Let’s get back to Donald Trump. I realized shortly after he was elected that the more I stewed on the things he said that I disagreed with, the more judgmental I became. My anger was like gas on a fire.
But this anger and judgment caused me to be weak. It made me think LESS clearly. I was blinded by rage and spent too much time thinking about how bad he was.
My anger and judgment were just like the sugar. The more sugar I ate, the more sugar I craved. But sugar made my body unhealthy. In fact, sugar caused me to be weak.
So Now What?
Just like adding protein to my diet so I would quit of eating so much sugar, I needed to add some ‘protein’ to my emotional diet so I would stop spewing so much anger and judgment. Anger, judgment, and sugar are bad for me. They make me weak.
What is that protein?
The first thing I needed to figure out what my anger was telling me. Why do I get so riled up by another person’s words? What caused this dramatic reaction?
This is going to sound a little weird at first, but please take a moment to let it sink in. When we get angry at other people’s comments and judge them, we are taking them personally. We do this because we agree with them a little. Don’t stop reading!
I don’t agree with Donald Trump that “it doesn’t really matter what [the media] write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass.” Something in that statement, however, was making me angry, compelling me to judge.
There’s a little girl inside of me who was treated unfairly because she wasn’t pretty. That’s what’s bothering me.
I’m sad because I know he’s not the only one who thinks this way. That bothers me.
I may, at some level, believe what he says because he has more authority than me. That bothers me.
So what’s my protein? It is the truth about age, beauty, and a person’s worth. I need to KNOW that I am beautiful and no one else needs to validate that besides me. I need to embrace my unique abilities. I need to eat only what’s emotionally good for me.
Feeding myself this protein will make me strong. It will keep my mind focused. It will stop me from being distracted by anger. It will allow me to come up with good solutions. This protein is empowering.
Here’s my recipe:
I am beautiful
I am strong
I am competent
I am capable
I have authority over my own life
My value lies in my unique abilities
I do not need validation from anyone else
Optional ingredients: I am created in God’s image / Add other truthful statements
Repeat as many times a day as you are triggered by statements that dispute these truths
When we eat this recipe, our minds are clear and unencumbered. We are stable and secure. Our judgments are reduced as we come up with good and rational strategies to combat what we deem is wrong in the world. Nothing weighs us down. We are healthy. We act from a position of power.
Think of the force for good that could be unleashed
if every time we felt angry, we used this recipe