While searching for inspiration recently for one of my yoga classes, I came upon a long quotation by Swami Kripalu.  The essence was to remind us that we are divine and that we are loved.  The lines that spoke to me were, “My beloved child, break your heart no longer/Each time you judge yourself, you break your own heart.”

How many times and how many ways do we judge ourselves?  How can we break ourselves of this insidious habit?  This habit of judgment could be the most harmful thing we do to ourselves.  Even when we’ve been “on the path” for a long time, judgment creeps in.  It comes in four forms.

The first form is self judgment.  When we decide an action, thought or emotion we experience is good or bad, we are engaging in self judgment.  Almost everyone does this almost all the time.  Self judgment is what creates the tapes that run limiting beliefs through our brain incessantly.  It makes us believe we are even more limited than we really are.  We believe all of the horrible things our inner critic says about us, and we get trapped in a cage of our own creation.  The antidote to this is, “Don’t believe everything you think.”  You can use Byron Katie’s famous questions:  Is it true?  Can I absolutely know it’s true?  How do I react, what happens, when I believe that thought? And lastly, Who would I be without that thought/belief?  (for more on the Work, go to www.thework.com)

The second form is judgment of others/others judging self.  I lump these together because they’re two sides of the same coin.  This type of judgment is about looking into the mirror of your soul.  When we judge others, we are reacting to a shadow, or hidden, aspect of our personality.  When others judge us, they are engaging in the same process for themselves.  And when we react to someone’s judgment of us, we are reacting to that shadow part of ourselves.  To disengage from this process, try asking yourself the following questions.  What traits do you judge in others?  Can you acknowledge that trait somewhere in yourself?  When you react to someone judging you, what is it in yourself you don’t want to own?  Can you have compassion for these traits?  Can you imagine any situation in which these traits would be helpful?  These questions will help you own all the different aspects of yourself, even if they’re aspects you would prefer not to express.

The third form of judgment is impatience.  Impatience is a sneaky version of judgment.  It tells us we’re not doing enough, or we’re not moving quickly enough toward our goals.  When we’re impatient, we focus on what we’re doing rather than how we’re being.  I have struggled mightily with impatience, and I’ve learned to focus on how I’m being to create a little more compassion for myself.  Am I trying to be kind to myself and others?  Am I being the best version of myself I can be?  Am I coming from Love?  If so, then it is enough.

The forth form of judgment happens when we judge a situation as bad or wrong.  We may see a loved one in an emotionally painful situation, and our instinct is to rush in and rescue them. There’s nothing more difficult than witnessing a loved one’s pain and not being able to fix it.  But therein lays the crux of the matter.  Is it really true that their pain is a bad thing?  How can you be absolutely sure?  And how can you be sure that you could really fix it, even if it were true?  Some experiences (like abuse or addiction) really do look like deep, raw pain, and are experienced as such.  But when a person moves through an experience that’s deeply painful, it’s like a forest after a cleansing fire:  before you know it, new growth appears.  What survives is stronger, what’s new adds value, and the fire takes care of all the debris.  When we try to rescue someone, we prevent them from reaching the depths they need to plumb to access the beauty and magnificence of their soul’s gift.  We truly can not judge what another soul has come to Earth School to learn and do, because we do not know.

The best antidote to judgment is lovingkindness; love and compassion for others and for your own self.

“My beloved child, break your heart no longer.  Each time you judge yourself, you break your own heart.   You stop feeding on the love, which is the wellspring of your vitality. The time has come. Your time. To live. To celebrate, and to see the goodness that you are…
Do not fight the dark. Just turn on the light.
Let go, and breathe into the goodness that you are.” ~Swami Kripalu