Do you ever have what I refer to as “hot pants” moments — moments when you are overcome with self-judgment?

I call them this because one of my most vivid memories of self-criticism came when I was 13 years old and hot pants — three-inch-long shorts that barely cover the butt — were all the rage. I was chubby, but that didn’t stop me from squeezing into my very own pair of bright pink hot pants.

On the day of my hot pants debut, I overhead one of my friends saying to another, “Can you believe Marci wore hot pants today — with those thighs?” I was crushed. When I got home, I took off those tiny shorts and stuffed them in the back of my closet where I’d never have to see them again. But I couldn’t get rid of the self-judgment that easily.

For a while, every time I looked into the mirror, I heard “Can you believe how fat you are?” Later, when I was 19 and didn’t have a boyfriend, that voice asked, “Can you believe what a loser you are?” And years after that, when I gave a talk and thought someone in the audience looked bored, the voice was still there: “Can you believe what a lousy speaker you are?”

If you’re like everyone else I’ve ever met, you have the equivalent of a “hot pants” story in your life and your own version of self-judgments that have put a lid on your experience of love and happiness.

Decades after this hot pants incident, I started studying self-esteem and later taught courses on how to raise self-esteem. Certainly having high self-esteem is great, but while writing Love for No Reason, I realized there’s a big difference between self-esteem and self-love.

Self-esteem is conditional — it’s based on “loving myself, because…” I’ll love myself if I’m good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, do a good enough job, and so on. The limitations of this are clear. What happens when I don’t live up to the exacting standards that I hold? Then I plunge into self-judgment, close my heart, and feel unworthy of love.

On the other hand, self-love is unconditional — it means being able to love yourself no matter what — whether or not you look good in hot pants or do a fabulous job at work.

Here are two practices that can help you develop greater self-love. They’re especially useful when you’re having a rough time or being particularly judgmental with yourself:

1. Practice self-care: Most people aren’t in the habit of taking good care of themselves and honoring their own needs, which is fundamental to self-love. To reverse this, three times a day, stop what you’re doing and ask yourself, What’s the most loving thing I can do for myself right now? And then follow through on the answer.

2. Practice self-compassion: Developing self-love requires that you treat yourself kindly — as kindly as you would your neighbor or your friend. If you’re stuck in self-criticism, try thinking of yourself as a completely separate person. Ask yourself, what would you say or do if you saw a friend hurting the way that you’re hurting? Give yourself all the benefits of having a good friend — from the inside out.

So, the next time you have a “hot pants” moment, give yourself an internal hug and remember that you’re worthy of love — no matter what.

With love for no reason and every reason, Marci

What a wild week! I’m sending my thoughts and love to everyone who was affected by Hurricane Irene.

Last Friday afternoon, I got a first-hand experience of being part of a mass exodus. Like so many others, I was trying to leave New York City as it was preparing for the storm. After my final appointment there, I rushed to hail a cab to take me to JFK airport so I could catch one of the last planes out before the airport was to shut down.

I had a big suitcase with me (I’m still learning how to travel light), and when the driver stopped to pick me up, I fully expected him to get out of the taxi and help me hoist my heavy suitcase into the trunk. No such help! To my shock, he continued on his phone call and motioned to me to put my suitcase in the trunk myself. Ugh.

On any other day, I would have waited for another taxi, as I didn’t appreciate his attitude, but on this day, I was just eager to catch my plane before the airlines stopped operating.

 So, hoist I did and off we sped. He continued to talk on the phone in a language I didn’t understand, while ignoring me completely (at least he did have his earpiece on and was hands free). I got more and more impatient and judgmental as we made our way through the city, lurching forward at every green light, and screeching to a halt at every red light. This continued for about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, I was busy formulating a scathing monologue to deliver to him when he got off the phone about how rude he’d been. I had all kinds of stories in my mind about what a “bad person” he was.

At last, he hung up the phone and I got ready to let loose. But before I could begin my finely crafted monologue, he turned slightly (but safely) around and in the sweetest manner, he apologized profusely. He said how sorry he was that he hadn’t helped me with my suitcase and that he never talks on the phone with a passenger in the car. This had been an emergency.

He went on to explain that just before I’d gotten in the car, he’d received a frantic call from his brother in India whose 13-year old daughter had been in a bad car accident and was in intensive care at their local hospital.

Wow. That certainly reframed the situation for me. My irritation melted into compassion. We continued to talk about his niece, his brother, his children, and his life for the rest of the drive. He was a sweet, delightful, caring man with a big heart — nothing at all like the monster that I’d made him up to be in my mind.

How much energy had I just wasted in all of my judgments? How much had my heart shut down before I’d heard “the rest of the story”?

How often has this kind of scenario happened to you?

So many of the judgments we make are based on wrong or incomplete information. And they end up robbing us of our energy and happiness.

This week, if you find yourself caught up in judgments of someone, try reframing the story you’re telling yourself. This will save your own heart and happiness. Here are a few suggestions:

1. Give the person the benefit of the doubt. There’s probably more to the story that, if you knew, would help you feel more compassion.

2. Make up a new context for the situation. Create a story that would soften your heart towards them.

3. For extra credit and extra benefit to yourself, beam them love as if the story you’d created were true.  

Yes, Hurricane Irene did her fair share of damage. But how much damage are we doing to ourselves by our inner hurricanes of judgment? We’ll feel so much freer and lighter when we transform those hurricanes into winds of compassion.

With love for every reason,

Marci Shimoff