Judgement

Is judgement a part of your subconscious? Are you worried about the judgement of others or do you find yourself comparing your capabilities against somebody else's? 

In today’s episode we dive deep into how judgement can have a huge impact on our life. We discuss where it comes from, why it has become a big part of every day life, how it creates separatism in society and how it can have both negative and positive effects on our overall health. 

Transcript

Episode 1 – Judgment

Welcome to the Mindy Movement, the thought-provoking podcast by Soulful Soundwaves. Conversations inspired by real life events, lessons and learnings, gifted to us while traveling across Australia in a tiny home on wheels. Welcome aboard.

We would like to acknowledge the traditional owners, custodians and ancestors of the land and country we walk on, and their connection to the land, waters and community. We pay our deepest respect to the elders, past, present and emerging, and extend that respect to all indigenous people across the world.

Lorenzo:

Today, the topic we discuss is judgment in its positive and negative meaning.

Maeve:

Awesome. Let's jump straight in. So where does judgment come from?

Lorenzo:

Originally judgment is a necessary tool to survive. Animals have judgment. It allows you to make the difference or to understand when you can hunt when there's a dangerous situation, when you can run for cover. So in a primordial kind of world, it makes the difference between life and death. 

Maeve:

Right. Like a survival instinct.

Lorenzo:

Exactly. It's a survival tool. When we don't need to survive anymore, because we are part of what they called a “modern civilization”, we use this tool to do very silly things. Which means that we are using our judgment not to survive, but to judge other people.

Maeve:

Yeah.

Lorenzo:

Other people's behavior, actually.

Maeve:

Yeah. Well, it can be a number of things, right? And you see judgment creep in everywhere. Whether we have an opinion on anything and everything, whether we gift that opinion even if it's not asked for, is a judgment. It's our judgment of a scenario. And actually, so interesting you say that Lorenzo, we would've needed judgment, critically needed it, back in early, early, early civilization days.

Lorenzo:

Absolutely

Maeve:

Because it was a difference between life or death. We had to judge so many different scenarios in order to help our own safety and or our family's safety. And as you say, we have still kept that tool in our everyday life, but it's not quite being used as it should be because we no longer need it as a necessity for survival.

Lorenzo:

The majority of the times it’s used in a negative way. We still have that positive tool. Let's say, if you are a meteorologist you have to understand what kind of weather is coming in order to, for example, save lives. So we can still do it in a positive way. But at the same time, in our day to day life, we use it as a tool to talk about others.

Maeve:

 So let's give some examples of what is judgment. So judgment being, you know, you see somebody walk down the street, they might not be wearing what you would choose to wear and you pass judgment. Internally, it may not be spoken to anybody. “Oh, that's a rather peculiar outfit…” Judgment.

Lorenzo:

Social media, transform people into judgmental people. Well, they don't transform. They extremise this kind of attitude because when you are on social media you become a watcher more than a doer. So automatically you judge what you see and what you see is other people's lives.

Maeve:

Yeah, totally. And you know, it can come in any shapes or forms. It might be somebody needs help, but we are using our judgment to stop being that person to run across the road and put out our hand because of who they may be, what they may have in their pocket. Even though they are in a place of need, our judgment is there. And often, sometimes it's not accurate. 

So let's go forward into how does our judgment and how we use it in everyday life now hinder our health or hinder our growth, so to speak. Takes us away from being that better person in ourselves. When we say “better person”, it doesn't mean in hierarchy. It doesn't mean against anybody else. This is just within yourself, feeling better within yourself.

Lorenzo:

Yes. The thing is that the more we become judgmental, the more we fear the judgment of other people. And when we become watchers, automatically we fear somebody  else's comments about ourselves.

Maeve:

Totally. And I relate to that deeply. Whether it's been culturally, whether it's just my personal journey, for many years I was worried about the judgments of others, it would nearly dictate how I chose to live my life. So I wouldn't attract judgment from others.

Lorenzo:

Yes. But here's the catch 22. Every time you feel like you can tell people what to do, you are not qualified to do it. Why? Because judgment is a separation tool. It provokes separation because you are automatically putting yourself one step above the people you judge. So in doing so you create a wall between yourself that you consider better than someone else, and that someone else.

Maeve:

So explain this in terms of teaching. So teachers would say that they teach others what to do.

Lorenzo:

Teaching is exactly the opposite because in order to be an effective teacher, instead of creating a separation between you and the students, you have to bridge that gap. And you have to bring them closer, entice them with something that fascinates them. And at that point, you can pass the knowledge. But if they don't trust you, if they don't come closer and accept you as a teacher, you're never going to be able to teach anything. So it's literally the opposite process. A real teacher leads by example, and teaches by example, while a judgmental person is actually creating a separation between him or herself and the outside world.

Maeve:

And actually this leads into a beautiful quote by Carolyn Myss. If you haven't read any of books, we highly recommend you do. There's a couple of quotes I'll read. And she says “Anything you judge that keeps you separate from another person, you're supporting a lie - and by choice.” “Anything that is not one is no longer truth”. And “Anything you perceive, anything you believe, anything that you see or respond to that creates separatism in you is toxic.”

Lorenzo:

It is. I really like the second quote because it is true. Every time we have created separation, we are getting further and further away from becoming one.

Maeve:

Absolutely. And that's what she talks about. So just to go a bit deeper into that, how can we be supporting a lie? How's it a lie? Well, a lie is something that's not truth. And in term of truth, it is that oneness, that connection and actually love in its truest, essence of love, is amongst us all within us all. And if we choose to judge, we're not sitting in that seat of truth, we've taken ourselves out of it. We think ourselves better than that person that we are judging or a situation we are, we've elevated ourselves out of the oneness. Out of the connection to the person that it is, that may be passed by, or the scenario. And in some ways, picture yourself sitting on the throne thinking, oh, I wouldn't do it like that. And you've separated yourself from the scenario.

Lorenzo:

Absolutely. It is difficult though, because judgment is one of the favorite tools of our ego.

Maeve:

Absolutely.

Lorenzo:

And so being that we are never free from our ego, we are constantly riddled by judgment. Even paying attention to what you do in terms of being conscious of what you're doing. It's difficult. Sometimes find myself staring at somebody's shoes like, “Oh dude…really? Are you wearing those shoes?” 

Maeve:

That has been said to you.

Lorenzo:

Yeah, exactly.

Maeve:

Especially about shoes too. Let's go further into the judgment thing. It doesn't have to be external. One of the huge lessons of judgment, especially on a personal path is I was judging myself.

Lorenzo:

Yeah.

Maeve:

I was judging myself negatively of certain things that I was doing, which actually was separating myself from myself. That was the ego. I was sitting in the ego, which likes to take you further and further away from that oneness within you. And I remember, this was many years ago. We dove into the judgment lesson.  I think it was Eckhart Tolle, from memory, brought this all up when we first read…

Lorenzo:

The power of now

Maeve:

The power of now. And when he mentions about the ego and that lesson into the ego of sitting, just watching and listening to the ego and how that ego literally has the reins of judgment.

Lorenzo:

Yeah.

Maeve:

It is that little voice that just loves to judge all day, every day, if we allow it to do so.

Lorenzo:

Yeah. The little ourselves that it is tempting us is always there, like saying, “What can we do now in order to make your life a living hell?” 

Maeve:

“What trouble can we get up to now?” Exactly. And I think many years ago that was it. That's where it all started to recognize the judgment. And it's an ongoing lesson, depending on what life throws your way. But ultimately,  even if we do judge, catch yourself . And say “What? Whoopsies! I just handed over $5 to my ego there. I'm sorry”. And cut and go “Actually, you know what? It's not my place to judge cause it's not, it's not any of our places to judge”.

Lorenzo:

Yeah. I know. But you know that, you know it, cause you've done it yourself and we do it every day. We still judge. The point is not becoming an enlightened being and stop judging at all. The point is realizing what we are doing because… 

Maeve:

Awareness is the key.

Lorenzo:

Exactly. A very wise woman once said, “if you're not part of the solution, it means you're part of the problem”. So every time we catch ourselves doing that, we should remember that we are part of the problem, but I'm not pointing the finger to someone in particular. I am the first one to catch myself in that kind of attitude, you know?

Maeve:

Absolutely. And this coming back to that truthful, coming back to that oneness, it's connecting us all. There is no change without us all. There is no way some can progress and some can fall behind because the ones that progress will only get so far because some have been left behind. It's that oneness of recognizing (that) in our days, how many times we are likely to pull ourselves out to be separate from others? Because that will illustrate to us that we are actually not in the solution we're living in the cycle of separatism.

Lorenzo:

Also this kind of cycle creates effects on our health as well.

Maeve:

Absolutely

Lorenzo:

Because the more we leave into a world that is made of…I hate to repeat that word, but it's very difficult to do it without. So when we live in a world of judgment, a world that is made of division and of people that are basically looking outside of their windows and pointing the finger to others, it’s a world that is riddled with paranoia, anxiety, depression, you name it. If we could live in a place where there was less judgment, automatically we could cut the head to many of these problems. So I think that is where we might want to go.

Maeve:

Absolutely. And it starts with us.

Lorenzo:

Yeah.

Maeve:

You know, it's starting with yourself to be that person that wants to change that story. And I totally hear you with the anxiety of what other people think of you. That used to cripple me years ago of. You know, walking into corporate world or a new client in advertising days.  And the anxiety coming up of how these people would judge me. Who I am. What's my status. How long have I worked in advertising? Who have I worked for? And that used to get in the way of me being able to create the goodness actually for them, because the judgment was so high that I felt like I couldn't be myself, but actually they only ever wanted me to be myself. But that's where that anxiety spiral starts. 

Maeve:

It's quite ironic. So I hear you on that. If we can have less judgment in our lives, the people around us will feel less anxious of how we feel about them. We will learn to love openly and compassionately and understand that everybody has ups and downs and, you know, different reactions to things. Gosh, it would be a boring world if we all reacted the same to things. It's how we are learning. It's how we're meant to, to learn. You know, our mothers and fathers, siblings, cousins, uncles, partners, children, we all deal with things differently, but we can also learn from all of that, but it starts with us.

Lorenzo:

Absolutely. And I'll tell you one more thing. What's the opposite of judgment?

Maeve:

Compassion.

Lorenzo:

Very well. Well done.

Maeve:

Did I spoil your answer?

Lorenzo:

Absolutely. But it's true because compassion…literally, the meaning of the word is “feeling with”. So when you are compassionate, you feel how people…you are able to put yourself into their shoes. When you are judging, you don't care about how people feel and you are stigmatizing them. Maybe you don't know anything about them at all. But you just judge what you can see. And that brings separation, which is exactly the opposite of compassion.

Maeve:

And that's where the healing kicks in too, because compassion comes from the heart, the center of the heart, the center of you, the center of me, the center of us all. And when we can live in our heart, and I know this sounds very cliché, but when we learn to live in our heart with an open heart, we heal ourselves.

Lorenzo:

And others.

Maeve:

And others. It's infectious. You can see, and you can feel when the heart of somebody next to you or opposite you is open. They are loving, they don't judge. They are there presently in your company.

Lorenzo:

In a certain kind of way you notice that people start looking for you.

Maeve:

Absolutely. But it's important. It's important to stay in our compassion. Cause compassion can teach us so much.

Lorenzo:

Yeah.

Maeve:

Compassion puts us in the shoes of whoever it is we're judging. And going, “You know what? We don't know their story. They don't know our story” .

Lorenzo:

Even when we are looking at somebody judging, instead of saying, “Oh, you are judging”. It's like, “Oh dude, I just did it as well”. You know? 

Maeve:

Yeah. “Did you just judge me judging?” That has been known to be said in our house when we were…when we often find new lessons to really dive deep into, it's on repeat for a little while to reflect back. It's not a bad thing. We don't say it in a negative way. But I think that has been known. “Are you judging me judging?” And then you move through it.

Lorenzo:

So I think this is the end of this episode. Thank you so much for listening.

Maeve:

Yes. Thank you for coming on the journey through judgment with us. It's just a yarn and a thought provoking conversation. Any questions of course reach out, and from us both…

Lorenzo:

…a huge…

Maeve and Lorenzo:

Namaste.

Thanks for listening to the Mindy Movement Podcast. You can find more content, free meditations, brain entraining music and much much more our website, at www.soulfulsoundwaves.com

You can also be a part of our journey on Instagram and Facebook, and we look forward to our next time together. Thank you for flying Soulful Soundwaves.

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