Observing judgments without Judgment (guest post).

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meditation2

Please to welcome Heather and her musings on judgement, bodies and learning our ourselves.

I’m only about one-quarter of the way through my 200-hour yoga teacher training, but almost done with our first one-month “Living Yoga Sadhana” (LYS).

Say what?

It’s a living meditation of observation without judgment.

What are we observing? Well, the way we tend to judge, ourselves and others.

The most important lesson I’ve learned: we often judge others because we judge ourselves first.

I’ve been fortunate enough to learn and absorb this lesson through the guidance of prompts from a brilliant teacher. We’ve cycled through a few key concepts and how they affect us throughout each and every day.

The ones I cozied up to the most had to do with our energy, which often dresses itself up in stress.

And this couldn’t have come at a better time (as the universe would have it), as I’m about to get married, my job situation shifts and I grab a shovel, or whatever tool you need, to start carving out a new path.

What drains me?

What energizes me?

WHY?

These lists weren’t just made up of the obvious: exercise & coffee! No, they were filled with things that surprise me.

Judging yourself? That’s exhausting.

Judging others? You guessed it; it drains you.

It takes the “good” energy right out of you. Because what good comes of that? Nothing at all. Rather, it makes you feel like a different version of yourself – further from the person I strive to be.

This means I’ll need more energy to get those two steps back, and I just threw it away from myself.

To observe this and watch it happen without judging yourself isn’t easy, but it comes eventually.

Notice; let be; change.
—–
Anyone can do a LYS. Or you could leave the fancy term behind and just flat-out start observing your mind.

Set a time-frame that works for you, and think about any or all of the following:
– What judgments do you make about yourself throughout the day?
o How do you feel afterward?
– What judgments do you make about other people?
o How do you feel afterward?
Next:
– What energizes you? Why? Why not do more if it?
– What drains you? Why? Why not do less of it?

You may learn some things about yourself that don’t feel jazzy.

That’s okay!

You may not come out of the day, week, month entirely changed, and that’s okay, too.

Don’t judge.

Just observe the good and bad, and then work to balance your days more towards the former than the latter.

 

Heather Calcote is a sports dietitian, running coach and yoga teacher in training. You can also find her on twitter @heatherdcRD.

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Comments

  2. I have really loved all your perspectives on judgement.
    I judge people a lot and it isn’t good for me, but now I am seeing how it can be positive.

  3. That is what I think I always fear.
    The fact I’ll learn things about myself which aren’t “jazzy” and I don’t like.

  5. I think there’s a heck of a lot of truth in here, Heather! No one wants to face “not jazzy” but there’s value in it. Great post!

  6. The older I get, the more I look inward and try to only observe outward.
    I love the “grab a shovel” and start carving a new path – YES!

  7. How interesting! Over the years I have worked on being more tolerant but I don’t think that is quite the same thing as being less ‘judgy’. Love the exercise of NOTICING… gonna start that today… first day of Spring… new enlightenment!

  11. So interesting. I’m trying to do a similar thing for Lent — watching for how/when I judge others. I hadn’t thought about watching out for myself too ….

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