JUDGEMENT

A friend of mind is a golf pro. Accomplished through high school golf, advancing into pro golf success, and now teaching adults and coaching students. Quite a resume. I know, reading this, you’re wondering what his name is. Well, her name is not the important part of this story. But the fact that she is a she, and not a he, should make you sit back and think about what your pre-judging mind may have assumed when I gave you the characteristics listed above. Don’t feel alone... She feels this prejudging quite frequently. At her golf course, she is often assumed to be a starter, or to hold some lesser position. She actually asked me to write a piece on judgment. So here it is. And, by the way, after you read it – please accept the lesson, as I did. I realized, upon reflection on my own past judgement, that to judge is to confine your own imagination. It is to constrain your own life.

Michael Singer, in his book “The Untethered Soul“ speaks about a no-judgment state- a “divine state.” When we feel united sprit to Spirit, and thus imbued with the inner knowledge that we were created and are seen for all our beauty, we free ourselves to see everything in that same open, loving way. As we do not judge the seemingly indiscriminate colors scattered in a field of wildflowers, but rather are dazzled by them, so too we do not look critically upon disparate backgrounds of our friends, nor characteristics of our family members... we embrace them and we appreciate their diversity.

“Now I can feel more love, more compassion, more understanding, and more admiration for all the different expressions and actions of creation... that is what it looks like through the eyes of love – the eyes that are filled with infinite love and unconditional compassion.”

I’ve gone through an exercise of taking any given circumstance and consciously letting go of any predisposition I might have. What a freeing experience! When I looked again with an open heart and mind, I felt like a child opening a Christmas gift... new and fresh, sparkling with possibilities, my imagination unleashed.

Try it. Give yourself space and be honest. Take a subject at random- you’ll find some preconceived notion. Let it go.

Let me know how it works out for you. And oh, in advance, I congratulate you on your courage. Because you’ll feel better for the exercise, but you’ll also change a little bit of your little corner of the world around you.