The corrosive power of judgement

I don't think it will be easy to understand what I'm about to share with you, but this awareness is acquiring such value in my life that I feel driven to share it with people and help them understand it. And if it's hard for you to make it yours, don't worry. It is absolutely normal that this is so, because a part of you and your personality will absolutely not want to accept it, because it perceives this to be too big an impairment.

Despite the fact that this is a truth that I believe in deeply, its integration into my life still requires a lot of effort from me because it necessitates the rethinking of a habit of thought that is ingrained and instinctive. I'm talking about the need to judge people, yourself and others.

There is no moment in our life when we do not do this, either unconsciously or consciously. Our days are full of opinions about everything and everyone. From the people we love and share our lives with, to perfect strangers who cross our path incidentally. We judge everything. Judgment is a natural discriminatory act that allows us to filter our experiences and catalogue them into good or bad, as well as allowing us to identify the people we want to approach. The problem is that judgment is a purely mental act, automatic and related to our personal interpretation of life. It is not the absolute truth that we claim it to be; it is only a relative and partial perception of the reality that surrounds us and it is imbued with our emotional experience, so much so that in the face of the same objective situations, the judgments of any observer are always different and can even be diametrically opposite.

Recognising this weakness in judgment allows us to be less fundamentalist in our opinions, but the important step I want you to take is to understand that judgment is actually a profound choice that is self-imposed on you.

Every time you make a judgment about something or someone you are entering into an energetic connection with that something or someone. You are spending some of your life energy getting yourself involved with that something or someone. Therefore, every opinion and judgment expressed "chains you" to the object of your judgment, draining a bit of the vital energy that you have available each day. It is as if each day you wake up with a full energy portfolio and during the day you spend money on every positive or negative judgment you express. This unconscious exercise takes away time and life and leaves you caught up in stories that have nothing to do with you. This is a game for the pleasure of affirming your personality and your thinking.

Judgment constantly corrodes your life; it takes away your strength, your incisiveness, personal power and freedom. Above all this happens when you judge yourself.

This is a modern form of slavery that in our culture has even become a profession: the opinionator! How many commentators do we see in TV transmissions? Everyone now fights for this role, to be invited to share their personal judgments on all the topics on the agenda. They are crazy: they are bartering their lives for the possibility of being seated in public to pontificate...

"Do not judge and you will not be judged", Jesus said in the Gospel, admonishing us to keep ourselves free and whole. But like so many things, we did not understand this and we let ourselves be chained by our own desire to have our say, to affirm our personality, to earn our slice of fame, to feel strong in our opinions.

What is the solution to safeguard your true power, your creative energy, the life force you possess? Becoming more selective in addressing your attention, choosing what to focus on, avoiding the loss of your personal power in a thousand opinions on everything. In a nutshell, keep your distance and don't get involved with everything and everyone.

This is not easy, but it is possible. And when you do it, the quality of your life really changes.

(Pic courtesy Jimmy Ofisia - Unsplash)