Letting Go of Our Judgment of Others

This is a vintage image of a glamorous women being judged

© Everett Collection/shutterstock

   

 

Nothing creates separation and discord among human beings more than when we judge each other.  While this is true, judge is a word that causes confusion for many of us.

 

 

On one hand, for centuries humanity has received countless messages through spiritual masters from all walks of life instructing us not to judge. Two of the most well-known are the biblical verses citing Jesus as saying,

 

 

Judge not, lest ye be judged,” and, 

Let he who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone.” 

 

 

On the other hand, most of us would agree that we certainly need to use our judgment skills to navigate through this very complicated, polarized physical world of experience.

 

 

No wonder we are confused!  In the strictly literal sense, some of the definitions of judge are:

 

  • a person qualified to decide on the relative worth of anything
  • to criticize or censure
  • a person designated to determine the winner

 

Wow!  When we apply these definitions to how we engage with other people, it brings up a lot of questions.  For example, who among us is the one person who is supremely qualified to decide on the worth of anything?  Who among us appreciates being criticized or censured? And, how about, who among us is the ultimate judge of who is a winner?

 

 

In order to understand what is meant by letting go of judgment of others, we need to adopt a more neutral interpretation of the word judge. Rather than construing the word judge in a polarized way that involves attacking or assessing the value of another person, we can rise to a higher perspective by perceiving judgment as an act of discernment. We need to use our skills of judgment to discern situations, opportunities, agreements, and decisions to determine what is in our greatest good.

 

 

How do we differentiate between the polarized perception of judge versus the more enlightened, neutral interpretation?  

 

 

A good point of reference to determine this is to ask ourselves, “What is the source of my judgment?”  If it is coming from an intuitive space guiding us to make choices that are in our greatest good, we are most likely coming from a space of spiritual integrity.  When we judge from this neutral perspective, we are assessing and evaluating objective things, such as a baseball game, a career opportunity, deciding on a financial investment, or choosing which college to attend.  If we find ourselves subjectively judging another person, then the source of our judgment is coming from ego in that we have determined our superiority over some else.  When we do this, we are, in essence, proclaiming ourselves to be the expert in someone else’s life. The ego perspective implies that we think we have the answers to someone else’s problems.  Judging others is usually a sign that we have decided someone else needs to act the way we want them to.  We are saying we are right, and someone else is wrong, which almost always creates conflict.

 

 

How can we let go of judging others? 

 

 

We begin by reaching into our hearts (not our heads) to remember compassion. Compassion is a deep level of kindness in which we are open to trying to understand where other people are coming from by putting ourselves in their shoes.   We acknowledge that we have not experienced their victories, their losses, their relationships, and their pain.  We draw on our own experiences to understand other people more than we seek for others to understand us.  We practice treating other people the way we want to be treated. We also take responsibility for the fact that when we judge another, we are also judging ourselves. Whatever we find annoying in another person is an aspect that, to a greater or lesser degree, we need to heal within ourselves.

 

 

Being non-judgmental requires that we choose to look beneath the behaviors we are witnessing and focus on the soul level of our fellow humans. There is a principle called the “Pygmalion Effect” (from the popular book of the same name or the movie, “My Fair Lady”) that exemplifies this state of grace.  This principle states that if we expect the best from another and communicate such to them, they will respond by adjusting their behavior to match. The main idea concerning The “Pygmalion Effect” is that if you believe that someone is capable of achieving greatness, then you have created a space of potential for that person to achieve greatness. Stated simply, when we let go of judging others, we focus on the goodness (Godness) within everyone, rather than what is wrong with them.  When we practice being non-judgmental, we offer others the opportunity to find themselves and to meet us partway.

 

 

The famous Sufi poet, Rumi, expressed this truth so eloquently when he said:

 

 

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field.  I’ll meet you there.”

 

 

Love and Light,

 

Sandra

 

I welcome your comments, insights, and experiences on how we can let go of judgment of others.

What is the Difference Between Conditional Love and Unconditional Love?

This is an image of a heart shaped cloud in the sky

© LilKar/shutterstock

 

 

Love – This is a word that is very frequently used in every language to describe our emotions ranging from something as relatively trite, such as, “I love your shoes,” to something as deeply significant as a mother saying, “I love you” to a child in the most vulnerable moment.

 

 

Is there really a difference between conditional love and unconditional love? 

 

 

The answer is, yes.

 

 

What is conditional love?

 

 

Conditional love is a polarized emotion, meaning that it has an opposite emotion.  The opposite extreme of love is hatred.  Conditional love comes from ego and  generally focuses on someone (like a romantic partner, child, parent, friend)  or some thing (like a house, a car, or a job).  When we love someone conditionally, we tend to want them to look, act, and think in ways that fit our own paradigms and expectations.  We hold others accountable to our expectations in order to qualify for our affection.  If they act the way we want them to, we express our approval; if they act contrary to our wishes, we withhold our expression of acceptance of them, usually in some form of anger.  Conditional love polarizes our internal thought process to believe, “I am right, and you are wrong, so I think you should see things my way.”  As soon as begin to judge someone as being right or wrong, it is our cue that we are not in a space of unconditional love because we are perceiving that we are the authority for someone else’s life.  This ultimately results in a power play for everyone involved because it focuses on control, which typically elicits a defensive reaction from the people whom we are trying to change.

 

 

Another version of conditional love is passion, a term we use for the sexual feelings we have when we meet someone with whom we have “chemistry.”  The term “falling in love” is a revealing expression indicating that we sometimes lose ourselves when we are involved in a passionate romantic relationship based on conditional love. Possibly, this is because we are looking for another person to complete us rather than looking to share our whole self with another. “Looking for our other half” is a statement that strongly indicates we are seeking to make ourselves whole through someone else, rather than working on ourselves to become more of who we truly are.

 

 

When someone acts in a way that vastly deviates from our expectations or does something to hurt us or someone we care about, we can transform the emotion of conditional love to the complete opposite end of the spectrum – hatred.  Hatred is a very strong emotion that is rooted in fear.  Hatred is extremely destructive and wreaks havoc on our mental, emotional, and physical well being.

 

 

What is Unconditional Love?

 

 

Unconditional love is neutral and has no opposite polarity.  The source of unconditional love is Spirit; therefore it is available to everyone without discernment, and there is absolutely nothing we need to do to qualify for it.  Unconditional love comes through to us at a soul level, beginning at the level of self-acceptance and self-forgiveness, and radiates divine light to everyone and everything.  When we make a conscious decision to choose thoughts based on unconditional love, it does not mean that we agree with everyone and everything.  It means that we consciously commit ourselves to expressing respect, kindness, and cooperation to everyone and everything in our environment.

 

 

Unconditional love is not something that happens to us or outside of us.  It is the life force of energy within our very being and is ingrained in every cell of our bodies.  We don’t have to search for love–we ARE, each one of us, the physical embodiment of unconditional love.  Because unconditional love is life energy, it is formless, infinite, constantly in motion, and unconditionally available to us 24/7!

 

 

Unconditional love has a positive effect on our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual state of being, creating truth, joy, beauty, health, harmony, and everything in the world that is in our greatest good.  The benevolent, compassionate nature of universal love flows through us and blesses everyone and everything it touches.

 

 

When we open our hearts to receiving and expressing the love of the universe, we feel expansive and radiant.  We automatically rise above the limitations of fear because unconditional love is infinitely more powerful than fear; in fact, unconditional love is the most powerful force in existence.  There is no amount of darkness that can blot out light; yet the tiniest amount of light can overcome darkness. This means that no matter how dark and chaotic our lives may seem at times, we can find comfort in knowing that our earthly world is always held within an infinitely larger context of universal love and light.

 

 

Remembering that we are each created in the energy of divine love gives us great inspiration and renewed hope that we each have the power to bring our own unique expression of unconditional love to the world, which brings healing to everyone and everything we touch.

 

 

Love and Light,

 

Sandra