Watch What You Criticize!

One of my first Truth teachers often said that we must "watch what we criticize."

In the beginning it didn't make a lot of sense to me, but over the years the wisdom contained in the phrase has been brought home to me many times; and, unfortunately, I've experienced the fruits of the poisoned tree of criticism.

There was a significant person in my life many years ago whom I criticized often and strongly about the way he handled finances. Not only did I criticize him to his face, but I played a tape in my head over and over about how unstable and irresponsible he was with money.

One day several years later I had one of those A-HA moments where I realized that I was handling money the same way he did. It was a tremendous wake-up call.

Whether we're criticizing or praising, we're always creating mental/emotional patterns in our consciousness that will play themselves out in our outer reality.

As I thought about this, I argued with myself, "But he was irresponsible." And the fact is that, yes, he was.

So how could I have handled this in a way that would have served me or at least not created chaos in my future financial experiences? It's an interesting question. The only answer that comes to mind is that I could have eliminated him from my life much sooner than I did, or I could have simply accepted him the way he was and focused on his more positive attributes.

It was definitely a learning experience and it has certainly made me more mindful when I start to feel critical or judgmental around someone's behavior.

We're all doing the best we can with our current state of consciousness and if we want a better outer reality we simply must create a better inner mental/emotional mindset.

Mindset Mastery is what I teach and what I'm striving to master day by day. It's a process. There's always more to learn and more to do and it does get better and better as we stay more focused on the qualities we desire and admire.