Expert Advice

Acella Pharmaceuticals, LLC., is partnering with Helene Zahn-Chilberg, MA, LPMHC, LCAS-A to bring greater awareness to the importance of thyroid care and education. This post was sponsored by Acella Pharmaceuticals and should not be construed as medical advice. Please talk to your doctor about your individual medical situation.

Self-judgment is a very sticky place of unkindness that rarely creates anything but feeling bad or wrong. It can impact self-esteem and self-worth and even lead to self-loathing. It is a cycle that can be difficult to break.

Those managing hypothyroidism and stuck in this vicious cycle may be dealing with increased stress and anxiety. All of which may be triggers for hypothyroid symptoms.

But any bad habit can be broken if you are willing to practice positive alternatives. I suggest to my clients that they start to steer away from self-judgement by embracing self-evaluation.

Self-Evaluation Over Self-Judgement

Simply put, self-evaluation is the process of evaluating yourself to determine your progress in any area of life. This can be a helpful way to look at choices that you have made, what those choices have created, and what else is possible to choose now. Let’s look deeper at the three parts of self-evaluation as an alternative strategy.

Step 1: Be vulnerable with yourself.

A fundamental starting point is to be willing to be vulnerable with yourself. It’s important to be willing to look at choices you’ve already made for insight, not just to make yourself feel like you’re wrong. Be willing to ask, “Did it create what I desired to create?” We cannot change anything we are unwilling to look at. However, when you use self-evaluation as a judgment and make yourself feel wrong or bad for past choices, it can be a very stuck place. The way to not stay stuck is to move on to the next step.

What information is the choice I made giving me? How can I use this information to make a new choice? Before we choose, we have limited information about what will happen. We may have an idea, but ultimately, we do not know for sure until after we make a choice. Often, people choose from what they have already determined will be the outcome and are then disappointed when they don’t get the outcome they desire.

What if every choice that we make is just a source for more information? When this happens, is it possible to just reassess and choose again? There is no self-condemnation or judgement in that. The choice itself is what gives us more information – even if takes us closer or farther away from our target.

Step 2. Be actionable with your choices.

The next step is to be willing to make a new choice at this moment. This is our place of power. We can only create the future we desire from this moment right now. So what would you like to choose? What choice is possible that will steer you closer to the future you desire?

Understand this is not one choice. You must make a choice, gain information, make another choice and gain more information. You are always moving forward. There is no one choice that is the perfect choice.

Step 3. Commit to the process.

Take a moment right now and think of someone that you know who you would say is successful. It may be easy to see how they have made many choices that led to their success. No one singular choice gave them that outcome. It was the willingness to reassess and keep choosing that resulted in success.

We always have the power to choose, over and over again. Does it shift anything to acknowledge that at any moment, you have the power to choose something new? Choices give us more information; they are not the end game. In other words, when you make a choice, you are not stuck with it forever. What if you made the choice today to move forward in your life, creating from choice rather than judging? Are you willing to have compassion for yourself and give yourself the gift of choice? Creating a life that includes choice allows you to be kind and caring to yourself! Here’s to your greater health and happiness!

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