Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Non-Judging

I discovered an app for my cell phone that has given me some ideas for a series of thoughts on mindfulness. The app is called “7 Elements of the Mindfulness Attitude”. I think it could also be called “The 7 Habits of Highly Mindful People”.

The first element, or habit, is “Non-Judging”.

Taking the role of an impartial observer to whatever your current experience is. This means not making a positive or negative evaluation of what is happening, just simply observing it.

It is so difficult to not judge. I once heard someone say “Don’t believe anything you hear and only half of what you see”. In other words, almost nothing is what it seems. So many of our opinions are based on perceptions and perceptions are usually seen as truth in the eye of the perceiver. How does one be truly objective and non-partial? How can we remove the filters from our own eyes? I haven’t achieved this yet. Certainly the times I have become aware of my own mis-judgments have been learning experiences. I would also say the times I have been mis-judged have also been learning experiences. In my own journey of self-awareness I have become a little better at stepping outside of myself and observing my own behavior. Of course, even when I do this it is still difficult to not judge myself. I am a very feeling type person with strong emotions. It is difficult for me to remove my feelings from most situations. Sometimes it helps to say to myself, “You’re having an emotional response. What is really happening now”? My experience is that it is not easy to be impartial and it is very challenging to simply observe what is going on around me. I guess the only real progress I have made is by being more aware of my own emotions and how they can misrepresent reality.

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