Have you ever come across a judgemental cat before? I did! 4 years ago on my way to work; this furry friend felt way too cross with me, howe dare I capture an image of it, right in the middle of grooming.
Well, actually this is just a picture of a cat (I did photograph it) but the story is something I imagined when I saw the final image.
Have you ever found yourself making judgements of people, as they pass you? The classic one I hear often enough from my clients “he was looking at me funny” or “she gave me that look”. How often do you find yourself mindreading another person or a situation without having the facts?
What is mind reading you say? Well according to NLP mind reading is when you are trying to assign meaning to something you see on the exterior of a person. You are trying to figure out what they are saying only though their behaviour or body language. Well, that my friends is called making a judgement without facts.
You may be passing another person and all they are doing is having a conversation with themselves and yet their face is contorted in funny shapes or they may gaze towards you but they have not actually seen you, and then you react to the face or those eyes coming your way. In that moment you may think it is all about you, but in fact they have no idea what you are talking about. Mind reading is something that causes the most conflict in the world, we are trying to assign a meaning to another’s behaviour without even knowing the facts.
In the same way we make judgements about our own thoughts, about our own feelings, we attribute meaning to everything about ourselves; when in fact we often have no idea what is happening. We think it is because of X we feel in a certain way, but actually is about Z. We believe the world expects us to behave like A when actually the world has no expectations of you. The only people who have expectations are yourself, and your imagined scenarios outside yourself.
Have you passed one day this week, without judgement? Have you spent an hour without judgement? Better yet, have you tried to not pass judgement on that which you have read in this entry so far?
I guess we are all trying to make sense of the world around, but this whole world is just the creation of our own imagination. Not even the person looking back at you in the mirror is the person you imagine him or her to be, it is an imagined version of yourself.
Welcome to life, welcome to the world of judgement. And now I invite you to try something out as you travel in the world for the next week. One: try and not judge, that means be open minded to anything that comes your way. Two: for the next day try to act as if you are 100% responsible for everything in your world. Take note of what you notice.
Will you still be sitting in judgement?
As always join in the conversation in a comment, or journal your thoughts. We are ready to evolve, join us on the journey of discovery.
