Judging VS. Accepting
One of the most powerful lessons that I’ve learnt from meditation, is how to let go of that internal voice - the voice that judges ourselves. We punish ourselves for not being able to do something just right. Or we’re cross at ourselves by how we were not able to perform in a high enough standard. But lucky for us, that voice is nothing. Most people go through life not knowing the difference between a suggested thought, that your brain throws at you (because it’s what it lives off - your attention), and a state of being - and that is absolutely normal. So, we mostly believe that what we are thinking, is what we are. Creating friction as a result of reacting to impulses to judge, creates a mind state that cannot progress. Unfortunately, it can only be in a constant state of fight or flight as a consequence. I know, I’ve lived that way for 34 years, haha.
A TRAINABLE CHOICE
It would be very nice to just have a button, that would help us shift into a different understanding of ourselves and progress into an updated mindset, that would allow us to not be affected by our judgmental voice. But, as that button is yet to be discovered (and it certainly never will be), it first requires an acceptance of the fact: what we believe to be true about ourselves, maybe isn’t a universal truth. For some, that may be simple as pie (I’ve never baked a pie, to be honest). For others, it requires time. In practicing meditation, we teach ourselves to point our attention away from our thinking mind, so as to not be bothered by it, so that, over time, we learn that it actually operates by itself. And it is the actual US, our ATTENTION (focus, spark, whatever you want to call it) that either gives our thoughts power to take over the wheel, or we don’t. It is a trainable choice.Thinking isn’t the natural state.
A PATH TO CHANGE
Being guided by my judgmental voice made me into a frustrated and bitter person, with which, in retrospective, my surroundings didn’t have anything to do with. I kept on handing over the wheel to my thoughts and emotions, because I didn’t know an alternative to that way of being even exists. Meditation helped me get past my inner voices, and realize, that all it takes, is to refocus, and stop giving them attention. In the absence of control lies the ability to accept and move on. It would be more cathartic to write, that although I sometimes still struggle with my judgmental voice, but in all honesty, it is now quiet. Because over-time, our thinking-mind adjusts itself, as it realizes the same mechanisms to get our attention, do not work anymore. So the judgmental voice eventually disappears. And in the end, where judging creates friction, acceptance opens up the space for change.