What if we replaced judgment with observation & curiosity?

Judgement imprisons you to the person or situation that is the object of your judgement. Just like a judgement is pronounced in court and therefore sentences a person to prison, judging another, a situation or yourself sentences you to mental imprisonment. A state of mental imprisonment where you navigate the world with chains/attachments to what you don’t want yet you can’t break free because you’re so attached to your judgement of it.

So how do I let go of these judgements that create a state of mental imprisonment?

1. Become aware of your judgements: who or what are you judging. By judging them you are unconsciously focusing and growing the object of your judgement and therefore creating a reality that you will continue to judge. You’re stuck in a loop that imprisons you and limits your reality. 

2. Decide to release it: Free yourself from judgement of yourself, others or situations that are not in your control or which you don’t want to see in your reality. If you don’t like it or want it, accept it for what it is and let it go. 
We don’t need to keep focusing on whatever doesn’t bring us joy or peace. Be so committed to peace that that becomes the heart of your new reality.

3. Commit to peace: What is peace? Peace is being at ease with what is. No resistance, no judging, no “it shoulda, woulda, coulda”. Full acceptance, honesty and a focus and dedication to peace, bringing it in more, cultivating and growing it by knowing what to focus on. 

4. Replace judgment with observation & curiosity
If something isn’t good or bad, how would you describe it?

“The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence”, said Indian philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti.

We tend to label every experience and I know I do it too. Yet I also ask myself why do I need to judge something as good or bad? Can it just be something I observed without attaching a label to it? 

We are programmed to pigeonhole everything because it gives a false sense of ending yet life is a continuous process of observing, learning, unlearning and evolving. 

5. Master yourself: Mastering yourself is knowing where your strengths and weaknesses lie. Making peace with wherever you are lacking and betting with full force on your strengths. It’s also loving and accepting yourself unconditionally. Not only once you reach some distant big milestone but right here, right now. Without conditions or postponing it. 

Mastering your thoughts:
become aware of your thinking, feed your mind with positive thinking patterns, program yourself for success and release any negative programming by cleaning yourself. Release the attachments to the past, to the story you keep telling yourself, to the people that make you feel less than. Don’t feel guilty for prioritizing your own happiness because you deserve to be fully happy, not half and half. 

6. Where am I avoiding responsibility by judging others?
So many black people have been murdered by the police. So often I would see black people and celebs speak up demanding justice whereas that was never echoed on white accounts. Until the death of George Floyd. 

I felt an ocean of emotions including anger, resentment and distrust. What took you so long to wake up and speak up? Some people I know and whose actions have been the opposite all of a sudden were rallying ‘along the side’ of black people and posting black lives matters. Such hypocrites! 

At some point I stopped myself in my judgmental tracks. I have a lot of work to do! Lots to learn and unlearn and I’m not going to better myself or my life by judging them. I was distracting and not taking full responsibility for myself when I fell for this trap. Not to say that their actions should be obliterated but I have no control over other people and by judging them I am relinquishing my power to create positive change in my life. 

This doesn’t change the fact that there a lot of “bad” things that occur in life or world problems that need to change. But judging it doesn’t create positive outcomes, educating ourselves along the way and taking positive actions does.