Juicy Joy – A Personal Development Book of Authenticity and Self-Love

I’m off to Tampa for another spectacular Hay House conference. How cool is my life? (Universe, have I told you lately that I love you?) Tune into Hay House Radio this Wednesday at noon EST to hear me and my juicy soul-sister Karen McCrocklin dish about authenticity and the best ways we’ve found to deal, feel, and be real. (Click here on Wednesday to listen and call in.) We’re all born gloriously authentic but our socialization ensures our authenticity is beaten out of us. Here’s what I had to say about that in the Juicy Joy book:

Over and over throughout our lives we’ve absorbed the message, implicitly and explicitly, that “image is everything,” and “you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.” My friend who works in sales for a large publishing company likes to quip, “Anybody who says you can’t judge a book by its cover never tried to sell one.” The cover is all we judge by! And all of us want us our covers to be the shiniest, most impressive covers we can manage to project. But where does that really leave us in terms of self-love and genuine connection with our fellow humans?

At the root of all people-pleasing tendencies, and most inauthentic tendencies in general, is a fear of being judged. Many of us grew up with some degree of a fear of abandonment from being found unlovable if we were judged and came up short. And we all judge ourselves to varying extents. If you think you don’t judge yourself, it probably just means you have a judgment about judging yourself.

If you’re sensitive to the criticism of others, consider this: The extent to which you feel hurt by anyone’s judgment of you is directly proportional to the degree to which you judge that trait in yourself, either consciously or subconsciously. If I called you a jerk you might feel insulted, because most of us have a fear, deep down, that we have the capacity to be jerks. But if I called you a rhinoceros you’d probably just think I was nuts and shrug it off. You know you’re not a rhinoceros, so there’s no way I can insult you with that—unless you have a big nose or a big butt that you’re sensitive about, in which case your own self-judgment would cause you to feel insulted.

Juicy Joy training transmutes your self-judgments into self-love, but that doesn’t mean you won’t have incentive to make further changes in yourself toward ever-greater degrees of Juicy Joy. Of course you will continue to grow and evolve, but you will do it much more speedily and effectively. Genuine change can only happen when you are first accepting and loving every part of you.

If you try to change anything from a position of “I hate this aspect of me,” you’ll gain nothing from the change. If you hate your nose, and get a nose-job so you have a perfect nose, it will only be a matter of time before you hate something else about yourself. Your nose wasn’t the problem; hating yourself was. Conversely, when you accept and love all of who you are, making changes is juicy fun! You can be as creative and daring as you please. You know that you are fantastic now and you will continue to be fantastic, and that makes it exciting to change and grow. from Juicy Joy – 7 Simple Steps to Your Glorious, Gutsy Self

My son, Tuck, decided to make history this year with his science fair project by proving that humans can feel the energy from crystals. When he told me his idea, I was reluctant to jump on board. The truth is I’ve never personally been drawn to the whole crystal energy thing, even though it comes up often in my metaphysical circles and I have friends who are very much immersed in it. Through me, Tuck has had the opportunity to meet several crystal healers, and those shiny, pretty rocks have always fascinated him much more than they did me.

I didn’t want to be unsupportive (after all, his science fair projects have consistently been unconventional and well-received) but I recognized that little inner cringe I still occasionally get when my worlds collide. I’ve gotten much better at managing those moments when my woo-woo-world meets my perfectly-regular-person world, but this situation revealed to me that I still have a bit of work to do there.

I’ll just say it: I was worried about what his teacher would think of him (me). Hmmm . . . what is that I always tell my Juicy Joy students about “worry”? Oh, yeah. It never helps and usually hurts.

So I sucked it up and pushed past my teensy discomfort and did all the supportive-mom things to help him bring his master plan to fruition. And he rocked it! (Pun intended). He devised a test, performed it on 20 subjects, and proved his hypothesis that people can feel the energy from crystals.

Have I mentioned he’s one of my greatest teachers? He not only helped me past my cynicism about pretty rocks, but he helped me to face and clear up my lingering vestiges of insecurity about being judged for my metaphysical affiliations. Rock on, Tuck. Rock on.

Last night I went to hear my fabulous friend, Tia Crystal, speak about her life experiences as they relate to Elizabeth Gilbert’s experiences in Eat Pray Love. Listening to her gave me the same tingly sense of excitement I got from reading Eat Pray Love, and got again from watching the movie – that expanded sense of certainty about the abundance of the universe and the deliciously infinite possibilities available to any one of us.

Like Elizabeth Gilbert, Tia worked long and hard to find herself, make peace with herself, and to eventually love herself. Her journey includes many years of self-loathing and personal sabotage. Her relatively recent discovery that she is a gloriously powerful and talented creature is shiny new and still exciting to her. How beautiful is that? Her gallery, The House of Tia Crystal, is a tremendous gift to our community – a peaceful oasis for meditation and all sorts of spiritual pursuits. If she hadn’t overcome her own self-doubts, she never would have created this exquisite haven that has helped so many people, and she wouldn’t have created the spectacular, crystal-encrusted paintings that line its walls. If Elizabeth Gilbert hadn’t overcome her own self-doubts, millions of readers and movie-goers would have been deprived of Eat Pray Love.

When I first met Tia, I lacked the kind of sparkling confidence and self-love I perceived her to have. So I made Tia my inspiration, and as our friendship grew, so did my ability to sing my own praises. When I felt my natural tendency to deflect a compliment, I stopped myself and accepted it graciously instead. When I felt my tendency to shirk away from self-promotion, I channeled Tia long enough to enthusiastically spread the word about a new book I had coming out or a fabulous new workshop I was giving. My new mantra, WWTD? (What would Tia do?) worked so well for me that Tia’s uber-confidence quickly became my favorite thing about her.

Go see Eat Pray Love. Maybe, in moments of self-doubt, you can channel Elizabeth Gilbert. If that doesn’t work, and if you are harboring any uncertainty about your own utter perfection and fabulosity, find yourself a Tia, befriend her, learn from her, and love her until you’re loving yourself just as much. You will be amazed at the effect it will have, and how far the ripples will reach, when you step fully into your own glorious, gutsy self.