”If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”
~Mother Theresa
~Mother Theresa
“Don’t judge me by my address.” I saw this phrase on a young man’s T-shirt while he was walking through an upper middle-class neighborhood many years ago. His image is still etched in my mind; he walked with such confidence and grace. This T-shirt has become one of my all-time favorites.One of the interesting things about judgment is that we give our power away when we judge. Judging yourself or others lowers your frequency. When you are in judgment, you give your energy and your power away. When you are in discernment, you are not judging, and you are in YOUR power. You know you’re in discernment when there is no emotional charge or attachment and your body is calm and easeful. There is no anger, no jealousy, no contraction in your stomach; there is an energy of expansion and curiosity, of finding things and people interesting.
Many of us judge others consciously, and even more of us unconsciously. Judgment is always driven by fear. If you judge someone or something, then there is some fear in you that is driving this. It behooves you to understand from where this fear originated so you may have a better understanding of how to stay in your energy and your power.
To help you move out of the lower vibrational energy of judgment, here’s a tool to try.
Judgment Journaling Exercise
- Write a list of at least ten things you judge (e.g., what you eat, what someone else wears, what someone says, the car someone drives, someone’s political views, if someone is vaccinated or not…).
- For each item you wrote down, ask yourself what it is that you fear (e.g., if someone is not vaccinated, perhaps you fear you might get sick if you’re around them) and write down what comes to mind.
- Now ask yourself where this fear came from. Was it a particular experience you had? Something you learned from your parents or the culture you grew up in or from something you saw on the television? Write these answers in your journal.
- Ask yourself if you want to hold onto this fear or if you’re ready to let it go?
- If you’re ready to release the fear, say “I am ready to release my judgment towards XXXX. I am ready to release my fear around XXXX.”
Everything is energy. It behooves us to be mindful of our thoughts and the words we choose to use, so that we are not inadvertently giving our energy away. You can only be empowered when your energy is in your space. YOUR energy is YOUR power.
