This weekend (and for as long as we can sustain it), we would all benefit by engaging with any form of media by challenging and questioning our immediate reactions to it.

Every time we feel compelled to agree with an idea as being ‘right,’ we should reconsider our internal language. We should view the consistency between our view and a person we’re listening to, as being ‘in alignment,’ rather than describing them as ‘being right.’

Likewise we should do the same thing with statements we hear that we disagree with. Rather than defining the speaker as ‘wrong,’ we should see them instead only as differing from our view. After all, when we’re truly wise we realize everyone is a guru. If our judgments mean we decide someone is foolish then we will make no attempt to learn from that teacher.

After all, when we’re truly wise we realize everyone is a guru. If our judgments mean we decide someone is foolish then we will make no attempt to learn from that teacher.

Rather than others being wrong based on our disagreement, we should skip the judgment and meditate instead on the simple question, what life experiences would lead someone to see things that way? In doing so we expand our empathy, our wisdom and our interconnectedness and those things all benefit us even more than others.

This is a very useful exercise, but it demands a lot of consciousness on our part. Even if we’re not that good at altering our narrative, we will all surely gain by paying more attention to what we’re doing with judgments made within our consciousness.

peace. s