I like this quote by Gita Bellin:
‘Every issue, belief, attitude or assumption is precisely the issue that stands between you and your relationship to another human being; and between you and yourself.’
We make judgements all the time in our lives. Sometimes these judgements are pragmatic and necessary; often they are a product of our upbringing and what society imposes upon us. We can’t stop ourselves from making these judgements for they are usually instantaneous and appear to be instinctive. However, any judgements we make about others or about ourselves – most poignantly about ourselves – come from our conditioning and the views and attitudes imposed upon us by our culture or our family context. These kinds of judgements result in separation – a distancing of ourselves from the perceived other; or from ourselves and our authentic Self. We are constantly in the business of othering others and we judge ourselves accordingly as either inferior or superior to the object of our judgement. Unless it is ourselves that we are judging, in which case, we hold up an image of unattainable perfection and in the process constantly belittle and reduce ourselves.
Charles Eisenstein in his profound and beautiful book, ‘The more beautiful world our hearts know is possible’ writes about this world of separation created through this ingrained habit of distancing ourselves from other people through the process of ‘othering’ them. If someone is of a different class, race, creed, gender, political party, age etc etc – we see them as removed from our own experience and therefore harbour within us, albeit unconsciously some grain of mistrust. Whilst we cannot ever truly know another’s experience, we can always perceive their humanity, and through recognising this perhaps we can begin to connect with other people from the heart, instead of jumping immediately into our mind’s intellectual reasoning.
If we cannot stop ourselves from judging others, what can we do? We can begin to become aware of these judgements. The more aware we become of our inner processes, the more we can begin to reclaim our rightful sovereignty over our state of being. And the thing is to be very gentle with ourselves. Often, we are our own harshest critics. The best thing we can do when a judgement pops up, is to acknowledge it is there. Don’t judge the judgement! When we are able to see our mind’s process at work and then FORGIVE ourselves for holding on to negative views about others, most especially, about OURSELVES, then we may discover that our inner state then becomes more fluid and mutable. What appeared to have been written in stone, we may discover, also has the ability to shift like sand. Perhaps this sounds scary but it is only a letting go of old stuff that may be only serving to confine and constrain us. The key here is just to cultivate awareness without judgement – when we can manage to do this, we are in the business of establishing a modicum of self-compassion. And it is this, which will ultimately lead to our own liberation from SMOG – the should’s, the must’s, the ought to’s and the got to’s. Instead we can begin to live from our own centre of Truth and re-discover ourselves as human beings.
I am very fond of the ‘Cosmic handshake’ which was given to me to share during my South African adventures. I can’t show the wonderful gesture but I can reiterate the words of greeting – ‘In La Kesh’ which means in Tibetan – I see myself in you. In other words, in this greeting we recognise our common humanity and establish the mutual ground of recognition and respect as a starting point! I like this very much and do my best to introduce it when a good moment arises!
P.S. I am not a linguist. I have taken the words ‘In La Kesh’ on faith, enjoying the intent too much to let any element of correctitude stop me from using this greeting when the appropriate occasion arises. If those more learned than I, point out that the words are incorrect or the meaning not entirely accurate, I shan’t mind at all. (I’m not sure I’ll stop using it though, as I’m a great believer in creative expression and would merely reclassify the greeting and the handshake as a great example of this!)
Emotional Therapeutic Counselling - Stroud 