Last month, I went to my annual QI Gong retreat and once again it was amazing. (By the way, they are holding a retreat in California for those of you who are interested. Here is the link http://www.yuantzerenxue.org/april-2021-retreat/)
The opposite of judgment
I have such wonderful Ah Ha’s while I am there and this year was no exception! One of them was that the opposite of judgment (and fear) was …wait for it..understanding! TA DA! Now this may seem like a DUH statement to you but for me it was a blinding flash of the not so obvious!
Stephen Covey in his famous book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People gave as one of the habits “seek first to understand, then be understood.” I have taught this for years in my communication seminars but had for some reason not connected it to judgment or fear.
Most of our fights, disagreements, disappointments or any other unpleasant life experience comes from not being able to see reality or the whole, actual truth!
We perceive and judge, we don’t see reality. The truth of any situation is a culmination of the entire life experience of both or all parties involved, and more, so how can mere humans ever really know all aspects of what is really going on?
However, if we are conscious of our limited perceptions and abilities, then perhaps with some extra strategies and different ways of thinking, we can build tolerance, patience, kindness and the ability to use discernment rather than making judgments. the heart uses wisdom and discernment and the brain judges!
Understand yourself first
The simplest way to understand ourselves is to be aware of what we say to ourselves. It’s not always easy but it’s is simple! We just need to make the decision to start listening to what we say to ourselves.
Our self talk is based on old habits, patterns and programs that automatically and unconsciously run in the background of our brain, like the operating system in a computer, it basically is the platform from which we operate, behave and speak.
Firstly we need to understand WHY we speak to ourselves in these ways, usually ways that protect and defend us. Our self talk is usually based on faulty beliefs we have. What are the wounds or fears that were embedded in the past that now make your unconscious see danger all around; and trigger all the protective and defensive behaviors?
These deep fears make us blame others, feel victims, judge, give up and feel hopeless if we let them. But of course, if we are completely unaware of these fears running our operating system, we don’t really understand why the consequent behaviors keep happening. Or why we keep experiencing the same or similar problems in our lives.
It takes work and time to do this, to actually look inside at these fears and although you may have read about this before in another of my newsletters, I think it’s worth repeating.
The Three Core Fears:
The three core fears that will be the root of all the problems in your life, in my opinion!, are:
- I are not good enough; I am not worth loving or I am not loved
- I am unsafe in some way
- A fear of death or separation
Which one resonates for you?
Yuan Tze (my Qi Gong teacher and an incredible man) gave us a wonderful analogy for this. He described a tree with lots of brown leaves. If we look at the tree and think ”oh gosh, there is something wrong with the leaves, we must treat them“, then we will never ‘fix’ the tree and the problem of the brown leaves.
We can spray them or pull them off but the REAL cause of the brown leaves (which represent the problems in our lives) is not in the leaves! It’s in the roots of the tree. And most importantly, not the superficial roots, but the deeper ones. It is a problem at this deep level that appears as brown leave’s superficially.
So we see the problems in our lives (brown leaves) and blame, try to fix the other person, change a job, change a partner, leave, escape or whatever other strategy we use and nothing changes! Because the source of the problems or issues is INSIDE US!
We need to understand this and dive in to find those roots, which will affect every aspect of our lives. The ‘brown leaves’ may initially only be affecting one part of ‘the tree’ but soon they are all over it, one problem leads to many others and we think the cause is outside us. Nope!!
Our problems begin inside us, with the beliefs and stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and others. Remember they are just fairy stories, something we made up over time based on the fears and feelings we had when we were toddlers!
When we feel unhappy or unsafe as a toddler, we develop beliefs that are not true. But those beliefs are reinforced by our perceptions and eventually become ‘the truth’! Then they form the basis of our operating program.
What to do?
So firstly identify your deepest fears and their original source so that with awareness, you can challenge the truth of those beliefs and fears. They might have seemed real to a toddler that was scared or disappointed but they are not appropriate any more (or useful) for an adult trying to live a joyful life!
Find your inner toddler whose fears rule your life and give them a more mature and realistic view of your current world! WIth this understanding, you can stop blaming and looking outside yourself for causes of the brown leaves and deal with the REAL source!
Ok, so how does this play out in your life? Most of the issues you have at work or home come from these fears. I discovered last year that although I was unconscious of this, my alcoholic father (my parents divorced when I was 5, so I didn’t see him much!) had not created a deep fear that I was not worth loving in me BUT my REACTION to his behavior did!
As a three year old, I had no ability to discern, nor did I understand what was going on, that he was unstable or unconscious of what he was doing. As a three year old, everything in my world is about me, I am the cause of it. So with my tiny little three year old capacity to understand, I decided I was not worth loving cos other wise Daddy would not be this way.
So this fear becomes embedded and over time it becomes the ‘truth’ for that toddler and consequently the adult.
But who thinks that consciously? Not many. However, this is the operating software or platform in the back of my brain that influences EVERYTHING I do or perceive.
In some ways it was great, because it gave me a deep drive to prove myself professionally; to be the best I could be and it has served me well. But, personally it has not been the best belief system to have because NOW…with better understanding of myself and how I operate…I can see that I sabotaged many relationships to prove that I was not worth loving! So at some level, my inner toddler could say “SEE, I told you that you weren’t worthy of love.”
Freedom!
So now I am free! Well, freer. LOL. I have a better understanding of why I do the things I do, and why there are brown leaves. And because I understand, I can challenge that belief and work consistently on changing it. Sadly, it doesn’t seem to happen overnight.
I don’t seem to have been able to just ditch that operating system and create a new one.
But I have been able to reinstall an upgrade to my current operating system and I am working my way through the ‘glitches’ that keep throwing me back to my old habits and patterns. At least, I recognize them more quickly now and can make different, more mature choices and say more truthful things to myself.
Who is Actually Controlling!
The other realization I had this year was that all the complaints from my husband about my ‘controlling ‘ behavior, which of course before the retreat was obviously all HIS problem and a reflection of HIS controlling behavior, actually had some truth in them!
BUT…here is the important part…I realized that I was actually trying to control his behavior, because it would make me feel safe. So that I obviously had feeling unsafe as a deep fear from the inner toddler who never quite knew what mood Daddy would be in, or what the situation would be like. So as a toddler, I learned to watch VERY carefully and try to do what I could to control my environment. Keeping everyone happy and monitoring what alcohol they drank and what they said etc.
Until recently, I didn’t realize that I was still doing it as an adult! And indeed, I was trying to control my husband’s behavior!
Hopefully this makes sense to most of you, I dont want to bore you with my family history but seeing these principles outlined as examples may make it easier to relate!
My mission from now on is to continue to upgrade my “toddler operating system”, to catch myself when I default to the old one and consciously choose my adult selfs view of life, as well as seeking to understand more of what made me just do “that behavior” so I can choose differently the next time.
That way, I may never have a fight again, because I won’t have to prove I am safe or worth loving! I will know that I am!
Next newsletter will give you more ways to help you understand others, but we have to start with ourselves first!
Zooties!
