It’s interesting how my presentations change as I grow and develop and broaden my life experiences! Just recently I have been finding myself speaking more and more on judgment and how it affects everything we do. Evan Enklemann, a once mentor of mine, said we should ‘use judgment, not make judgment’. Oooooh! Use judgment, not make judgment. When I started thinking about judgment, I didn’t even realize how I was judging everything!
It was so much a part of my everyday thinking that I thought it was normal! Of course , none of you reading this would be like me I am sure, but perhaps there is the odd judgment cell in your body?!
The ‘idiot’ driving in front of you? The crazy person on stage making you do all sorts of funny things?! That pig for treating me that way! Your boss , the moron? Your coworkers , the lazy ones? How could she combine those two colors? How could they treat someone like that? How could they be so stupid? Irresponsible?
And so on.
We don’t see , we perceive and judge! That is not my original thought sadly, I can’t acknowledge who said it but it is so true! We really don’t see people at a heart level, we perceive them through all our own filters and previous life experiences and then we judge them! And this disconnects us from them.
If you are thinking well , I don’t ever judge, I bet if you pay attention to it today , you will find yourself doing it at least once, and more likely , 50 times!
Most people do. one of the ways I used to stop doing it as much was to continually repeat to myself ‘ there but for the grace of God, go I”
I don’t know if it would work for you , but it did for me as a starter. I did try to catch myself judging others and asked my friends to point it out to me when I was and I obviously didn’t realize.
When we are in our heads we tend to mind read, to assume that people are doing something with negative intentions; or that they are plain idiots and cannot think! When we heart read , we use our heart to see through all our mental preconceived notions and filters and beliefs and see the other persons heart, where the truth is.
I know that with my husband, If I could use my heart more often to read him or a situation, I would have less strife! It’s a great learning opportunity for me!
When we are disagreeing over something, I am in my head and thinking of all the factors that make him so ‘unreasonable’!! Fancy him not wanting to do what I want to do or what I want him to do! And then all the judgments come out again! And soon we are in a huge fight.
If I can learn to be in my heart more often and read what is in his heart, I bet I would break through that pattern and become a wiser person.
What about you? Can you think of other situations where is you read people with our heart instead of your mind, the interactions would be different?
What about colleagues at work; teenagers at home; friends or even people you have never met but you see in magazines and you form ‘opinions’ of them. I wonder if opinions are just often disguised judgments!
So often in audiences, I can see people who are madly judging me and what I say and clearly think I am from another planet! And if they could actually get out of their heads, which is telling them ‘this is silly’, this is ridiculous’, I am a mature adult I am not going to do this childish stuff’; I am so embarrassed’ etc, and be in their hearts, a whole new world opens up for them!
Learning shuts down when judgment kicks in. once we are in judgment, there is no space for new information or experiences, we are trapped in a past filter or belief or experience.
Take embarrassment for example. Why do people feel embarrassed? I think it is because they are very worried about other people judging them, because they judge so much they assume everyone else does the same thing! I can honestly say I don’t care what other people think about me! Now, I don’t want to hurt anyone consciously or unconsciously, I don’t want to wound someone by something I do; nor do I want to be inappropriate , but it really doesn’t matter to me if people think I look silly; or can’t believe I am acting in a childlike way (notice I didn’t say childish!); and I don’t worry much (or at all really!) about how I look.
I want to be clean and not smell of course, but In terms of makeup or fashion or things matching, it really doesn’t bother me too much. I think my wonderful mother was pretty good at somehow instilling in us a confidence so that we didn’t spend much time at all thinking that other people were thinking about us and worrying about what they were thinking!! Or feeling shame based on what other people MIGHT be thinking of us!
The truth is that most people never think about you! Because they are so busy worrying about what YOU are thinking about THEM, they don’t have time to think about you!!
Dwell on that sentence!
And check yourself out. How much are you judging? How often do you feel embarrassed? What are you saying to yourself when you feel embarrassed? Are you judging yourself when others aren’t?
Most importantly though, try heart reading people (and yourself) for the next month and avoid mind reading. See what unfolds. I bet you’ll be surprised! And much more relaxed! Zooties!
amanda
