Most of the people who work with me already believe that if they lower their sense of judgment that they will have a happier, more rewarding life. Where they need help is that they believe they will become ‘good’ if they are able to avoid making those ‘judgments.’ The problem is that, ‘good’ is a ‘judgment.’
It’s true, they would be better off by not making those judgments. But not because their ego avoided using language to disapprove of someone or something in some way. Trying to be ‘good,’ or to ‘avoid judgment’ is only how we describe what we’re doing using language. But those are just words. What is important is what they symbolize.
‘Good’ is not the opposite of ‘bad.’ ‘Good’ merely represents a healthy state of acceptance; a state of open psychospiritual flow. In that healthy place we are unimpeded by resistant, unaccepting thoughts about ourselves, others or the wider world.
But, if we have judgmental thoughts about some person, place or thing, then those thoughts act as impedance to our flow. The thoughts add friction and resistance to our sense of being. If those thoughts last long enough, they can impede our access to our natural power to the point where we shut down.
If the cord on a radio is long enough, it will eventually offer so much impedance that the radio won’t have enough power to operate properly. Likewise, if our thoughts are busy enough and last long enough, they will offer so much impedance to our lives that we can lose touch with our connection to the universe.
We don’t want to stop our judgmental thinking because it’s bad for us. We want to be in a state of flow because we truly understand that flow feels better in the moment we are experiencing life –and that moment is our life.
We are wise to cease our judgments. But we are even better to alter our understanding so that we see our opinions and judgments less as ideas formed into words, and more as just an unnecessary and unaccepting impedance to our psychospiritual flow.
If we succeed in seeing our thought-based experiences for what they really are, then we are focused on opening our sense of flow. If we are focused on our own response, then we have essentially removed our thoughts about the offending person, place or thing from our mind.
The choice to not think about an offending person, place or thing is powerful because we often can’t change those other people, places or things. But we can always lower our thinking into a more open state of flow –a state where that offending person is allowed to be the way life made them. Our reaction is the one thing that is in our total control.
More thought won’t help. Thought creates our ‘problems’ and then knots them up with more thoughts to make them look even bigger. As those thoughts grow, in comparison to the size of the thought-problem, we start to feel more and more insecure.
If we do not shift our thinking, it can get to the point where many people feel they were born ‘broken,’ or ‘faulty,’ and that their life’s work is to become better. But the truth is, everyone is born just right. It’s just that the way we are won’t suit every possible person or experience. But that’s impossible anyway, so we just have to stop resisting our own life by thinking we should be someone else. Because in reality, we don’t need to work to be great. We only need to relax and succeed.
peace. s
A serious childhood brain injury lead Scott to spend his entire life meditating on the concepts of thought, consciousness, reality and identity. It made others as strange to him as he was to them. When he realized people were confused by their own over-thinking, Scott began teaching others to understand reality. He is currently CBC Radio Active’s Wellness Columnist, as well as a writer, speaker and mindfulness instructor based in Edmonton, AB where he still finds it strange to write about himself in the third person.