Focus on You.

Any time we criticize someone else, we aren't thinking about how we can be OUR best selves. This is very powerful. If every time we opened our mouths (or busied our minds) to say something negative to or about someone else, we instead considered how we could refine ourselves, we would all be much more loving, evolved individuals. 

It's important to remember that your experience of someone is NOT who they are, but who you are making them out to be. We can all make the decision to view everyone through eyes of love and compassion, rather than through a lens of skepticism and hate. ("Promote what you love instead of bashing what you hate.") Experience everyone around you as love - see the innate light in everyone. Often times we micromanage and pick apart other people to avoid improving ourselves and finding our own light. Of course it seems easier to put the attention on someone else's "shortcomings" or whatever else you assign to them. But, ultimately, the other person feels unloved and unaccepted, and we remain stuck and not personally attended to. It's a lose-lose situation.

I learned this lesson in a big way recently. And I want to remind myself, and all of you, to turn the focus from others to within your own self. Don't beat yourself up by any means; be kind to your heart. But be aware of how you are or aren't being your absolute best version of yourself. Ask yourself if you are living a life as love. Or if you are leaching happiness and love from your life with your criticism and avoidance tactics. Try your absolute hardest to see the light in everything and to have real compassion for the experiences of others. They don't need our negativity or our judgement. They are probably getting a hefty dose of that from their own ego and insecurities. Why layer more onto their plate? So that they are wrong and you are right? So that your self-righteous self doesn't have to think about how YOU could do better? BE LOVE. Embody it. Ooze it from every pore. Look like it, talk like it, walk like it. That's always a good look. And others will surely follow.