Practicing Non-Judgement
Being non-judgemental is a big part of Reiki and mindfulness. I've been focusing on this more intently over the last few days after realising that I can sometimes be pretty judgemental of myself, others and even situations. We spend so much time judging things as good or bad, negative or positive, often with very little evidence to back it up.
When we witness something, it's usually in isolation from any understanding of its background, circumstances or history. Science has proven that our brain automatically fills in the gaps in our experience, including what we hear and see, to create a complete story about what we've witnessed. This leads us to often make assumptions about people based on a small snippet of what we've observed.
HUMAN INSTINCT
Judgement is an innate human behaviour designed to keep us safe. Historically, and even now, we have to quickly assess if something is dangerous. This is also why we gravitate towards people who look like us. We assume that if they look like us, they will think like us and therefore not challenge our belief system in any way - i.e. not be a threat. Combine this natural tendency with our personal, societal, religious and cultural beliefs, and we end up in judgment soup.
JUDGEMENT OF OTHERS
When we create a judgmental story about a person based on something they do or say, we keep ourselves very separate and blocked from the path of compassion. As caring parents, we can even judge our children as not being capable, strong enough or wise enough to do various things for themselves, stunting their emotional resilience and growth.
If we judge an upcoming event or current situation as bad, strange or uninteresting simply because it's different, we can potentially miss out on a life-changing experience.
JUDGEMENT OF SELF
We judge ourselves in so many ways. We might judge ourselves as wrong or unable to do something and in those moments, we keep ourselves small or deny ourselves love or friendship because we judge ourselves as 'not good enough'.
OTHERS WILL JUDGE ME
If we expect to be judged by others because we feel different in some way, or if we are entering a new situation, this energy projects outwards. People can feel a subtle repulsion, like an energetic wall preventing them from approaching us. So this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, but it's not them, it's us.
JUDGEMENT IN GRATITUDE
One of my students interestingly highlighted that we might judge someone with a disability, for example, using them to feel grateful for our body, but in doing so, we are assuming that we are better for having an able body, and of course, this is not always the case. Perhaps we can feel gratitude for their body as well as our own, for both are perfect in their own way.
REDUCING JUDGEMENT
What's helped me tremendously in the last few days is to move to a point of neutrality and remember that nothing in this world has meaning until we give it meaning. I've been noticing when I'm creating a story (or a blockbuster trilogy😅 ) about a person, myself or a situation, and then moving to a neutral point or a place of compassion.
We can never really know that we wouldn't do what we are judging someone else for unless we've lived their life experience. If we had lived their life, we would likely make the same choices and be doing the same things that they are doing. This realisation is in itself compassion and will begin to soften our judgements.
When we find ourselves judging our current situation as bad, unlucky or lackful we instantly move into suffering. If we instead choose to believe that everything serves us, this neutralises our judgment and instantly reduces our suffering.
Like anything we seek to change, being non-judgemental is a practice - some days we'll succeed and others it will be harder, but as we've learnt, the important thing is to practice self-compassion on those difficult days.
With love and light
Gwen x
