A client made a simple statement to me the other day, saying “I should have been out in nature rather than sitting at home watching TV.”
Immediately, I felt the pain in that statement.
Here she is living life, when all of a sudden this judgment appeared, and here’s what happened.
- It made her wrong and bad.
- It put her in a tailspin about what she should or shouldn’t be doing.
- It separated her from the flow of the moment.
- It made her mistakenly believe that she is limited and
small.
- It led her to be disconnected from the infinite peacefulness of her true nature.
Judging is a fear-based way of staying alert to what’s going on around us. It’s a survival mechanism that keeps us on guard so we can feel
protected.
And judgment gone wild doesn’t serve. Judgments of ourselves sit on our shoulders like a heavy weight. How can we be fully alive in this precious life if our minds are telling us we’re wrong or inadequate?
And judgments of others divide and separate. They keep our hearts closed from
compassion, connection, and understanding.
We want to be discerning about things so we can make wise decisions. It’s fine to see a situation or person clearly and intuitively choose one course of action over another.
But personal judgments hurt. Someone has to come up lacking; there has
to be a right and a wrong.
Here’s the good news. Even though judgments appear in the mind, believing them is optional.
- What if you notice the judgment but choose openness instead of fear?
- What if you consider that things are perfectly fine as they are without the mind’s opinion of them?
Your job is not to stop judgments from appearing. It’s to know that you have a choice once they do appear.
You can believe your mind and close your heart to
yourself, others, and the world—or you can come back to yourself and open to the natural expression of this present moment.
Always in love,
