Heatherash Amara writes that we all carry the seeds of self-sabotage within our minds in the form of two negative voices; siblings of the same parents, fear and self-rejection. One voice is the judge. The other is the victim.

The voice of the judge looks for what you or others aren’t doing right. My judge is a loud-mouth, the dominant voice in my head. The volume stems from the incredibly high level of my expectations, which branch from my strong attachments to how I think things should be. My judge doesn’t have high standards; it has impossible standards, of myself and others. It is this dominant voice that has kept me in a near-constant cycle of comparison, disappointment and frustration – with myself and others.

The victim, on the other hand, looks for validation, which it never gets. The victim’s voice is the broken record repeating you-can’t-do-it-you’re-not-enough. The victim looks to an internal or external judge to prove its unworthiness. For example, my judge never fails to do just that when speaking to my mom’s victim, her dominant voice. When listening to the voice of the victim, you spend your days feeling powerless and hopeless.

Have you ever known someone who experienced a trauma and blames it for the depression they suffer as a result? Have you ever thought they should get over it or were seeking attention? This is a very simple example of your judge, and the person’s victim at work. Chances are, you have also been on the reverse of this in some way. We all judge. We have all been judged.

The soothing voice of compassion is what can quiet these two bickering children. We need to stop viewing ourselves as victims; broken, misunderstood, not loveable and not good enough. We need to stop judging ourselves and others. The judge and victim are siblings because remember, when we are judging others, it is because we see something in them that we don’t like in ourselves.

I have believed for a very long time that heaven may be comprised of many levels, and that we make our way up through those levels the more compassionate we become. To do so, we are reincarnated over and over until we experience everything: being male, female, animal, poor, wealthy, straight, homosexual, murdered, the murderer, raped, the rapist, and so on and so on. Only through these experiences can we be truly compassionate to all living beings on earth, never judge, and finally rest in peace in the highest level of heaven.

Whether that sounds crazy to you or not, we do know that empathy and compassion lead to patience and understanding. Rather than judging, we can seek out the best in one another, which somehow seems to bring out the best in ourselves.

And if finding the best in someone seems damn near impossible, we can shift our judgment to discernment. Judgment results in messes caused by blame and rejection. Discernment does not stem from emotion, but from clarity. So using the example of my mother, rather than judging her shortcomings and acting out in frustration and ultimately making her feel even more powerless and hopeless, I can try to quiet the voice of my judge and choose instead to remember that the voice of her victim is speaking. This would be an act of discernment and compassion. And maybe over time, the voice of her victim won’t speak so loudly, at least when she is speaking to me.

“The root of suffering is attachment.” – The Buddha

My mom has been depressed and ill most of my life. The little girl that spent her childhood waiting and hoping and expecting her mom to be something more still lives inside of me, and she is still waiting and hoping.

Heatherash Amara explains in “Warrior Goddess Training” that whenever we have an expectation for how people, things, or events should be, that we are forming an attachment. “The stronger the expectation, the deeper the attachment, and the more we suffer when it is not met…” (xxiii). My attachment to who I want my mom to be has led to a lifetime of disappointment. I am only beginning to understand that I want her to be someone that she might just be incapable of being.

The fault is all mine. I have been unable to accept her for who she is, limitations and all.

Detachment, gentleness and compassion on my part is the silver bullet to put an end to my constant disappointment and resentments. But it’s so damn hard, because the little girl inside of me still just wants a mom, and the adult in me struggles so much to understand and be patient with her.

I have to learn to release this expectation of what I want my mom to be, this vision that I am so attached to, for both our sakes, and accept her for who she is. I have the tools and the knowledge, but the little girl inside of me is still longing for a mother…

For most of my life I have taken my suffering out on others, mainly the ones who love me most, like my mother for a very long time, and then my husband, as well. We hurt the people closest to us; they are the only ones who tend to take it. I didn’t really know this until this past year. Only recently have I become aware just how much I have made others suffer for my emotional turmoil.

Just because I became aware of this doesn’t mean I stopped doing it, regrettably. However, I did become more aware of the aftermath; it was exhausting. The hurt feelings, the damaging words, the guilt and shame, followed by regret. I was feeling more and more like a monster, and not at all like the gentle woman that I longed to be. But I couldn’t seem to help myself. That was until I read the following sentence by Byron Katie:

Your suffering is never caused by the person you’re blaming.

I let that sit with me for a moment, then cried tears of shame, regret and sadness for how I had made my husband and mother suffer for so many things that they were in no way responsible for. I realized I had been blaming or taking out my pain on them for 90% of my suffering, when in reality they were responsible for far less.

The statement stayed with me and I spent more time thinking about the true causes of my suffering, which is a difficult thing to do. Then one day I was really upset; I was feeling great sadness and fear and confusion and I couldn’t stop crying. My husband wrapped his arms around me and this would usually be the moment I would lash out at him. Even in that moment, I pinpointed it; I felt the heat rise within me and tasted the tinge of insults on my tongue. But instead of blaming and attacking him; instead of projecting my pain onto him, I let him hold me and I cried into his chest and let my body wrack with sobs.

When my sobs subsided and I felt all cried out and tired, I sat down on my bed. I had a private moment and I realized that for perhaps the very first time I had owned my suffering.

I wasn’t left sitting there feeling the need to apologize for hurtful words, or feeling guilty, or left with an angry husband in the other room. There was no hurricane of rage and therefore no aftermath. I owned my pain, and I actually felt better having owned it and cried it out. It was a tremendous empowering, enlightening moment.

But change is slow, and these things take practice. It is amazing when you can see that practice pay off little by little. Already, my world is a more peaceful place at times, since I am learning to keep the storm contained within and not blame others for my suffering.