Are we our own worst enemy?

A little less self criticism and judgment, says Henkels. (Designed by Gargi Singh)

Henkels goes on to share a childhood trauma, and how it changed her personality. How she judged herself growing up, counting her freckles and looking at her teeth. “I looked bad, I was terrified to open my mouth… It felt much safer to keep my mouth shut, and I lost my voice for my need to feel safe… This requires forgiveness, for how bad a person we think we are. And how we forgive ourselves for all the things that we’ve done or felt or thought or said or had done to us?” she remarks.

“It’s a choice,” Henkels states. “It’s a choice to let go of all the ways you have made yourself wrong… Choose to have something way more powerful for yourself in your life… One practice I have is I look in the mirror in the morning, and I say, ‘Susan, just for today, what if there is nothing wrong with you? And live your day into that possibility’,” she says.

Quoting her book, Henkels concludes her talk saying, “I am always amazed by how readily people judge the right and wrong of things they know only from the outside…”