MY WEEKLY BLOG<\/p>\n
HERE COMES THE JUDGE<\/p>\n
Some years ago, I was hiking in Ojai, California, when I came\u00a0upon a crashing waterfall. It pounded against a scattering of boulders that had\u00a0been polished over time into smooth surfaces. Bright green moss grew between the\u00a0rocks and long arced branches of white oak trees shaded the area. I gazed at\u00a0the flowing water as my mind and body became still and quiet . . . until I stepped\u00a0forward and my feet sunk into a muddy patch of earth. I stepped back quickly. My\u00a0feet were drenched up to my socks in mud and I brushed my shoes against a rock,\u00a0trying to get the clumps of dirt off. How would I continue the rest of the hike\u00a0like this? Why hadn’t I brought a towel with me? That was stupid. I wished I\u00a0hadn’t stopped to look at the waterfall, it felt like a bad omen, when I had a\u00a0vision \u2013 a judge in long black robes, sitting at his bench with a gavel in his\u00a0hand.<\/p>\n
He banged the gavel on his desk over and over and said, \u201cThat\u2019s
bad. That\u2019s good.\u201d He was passing judgment on everything I was thinking. My mind\u00a0replayed scenes from my life while the judge kept judging. \u201cThat\u2019s bad. That\u2019s good.\u201d\u00a0It made my head hurt. I felt anxious and \u00a0I sat down on a large flat rock, stuck in a state of mental judgment. A bad place to be. Author Anne Lamott wrote, \u201cMy mind is a neighborhood I try not to go into alone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Judging never ends well and I knew what I had to do. I\u00a0addressed the judge out loud, grateful that no one else was there. They would
have thought I was nuts. \u201cThank you,\u201d I said respectfully. \u201cI know you think\u00a0it’s your job to decide if something is right or wrong, but I really don’t need\u00a0you. Why don’t you go to your chambers, have a brandy, and I\u2019ll call you if I need\u00a0your help.\u201d He looked crestfallen but he stood obediently, walked out the door\u00a0of the courtroom and he was gone. So was my anxiety. I sat for a while,\u00a0enjoying the beauty and the inner peace until I started thinking about an\u00a0argument I\u2019d had with a friend. Was she right and was I wrong? Or was it the\u00a0other way around? The courtroom door in my mind flew open and the judge came\u00a0rushing in. \u201cHow about now?\u201d he said. He was on purpose as he stepped behind\u00a0his desk and grabbed his gavel, but I caught him before he swung it. \u201cNot now,\u201d\u00a0I said. \u201cI still don’t need you.\u201d He left again.<\/p>\n
We all judge, even if we say we don\u2019t, but I don’t think it\u2019s
human nature. In my opinion, judging is a learned behavior that hurts and makes\u00a0us feel small and wrong. However we were judged in our lives, we carry on the\u00a0tradition by directing it inward, continuing the cycle, and the robed archetype\u00a0with the gavel takes over and turns us against ourselves. But we can use our missteps
and regretful behavior to grow and learn about what works in our lives and what\u00a0doesn\u2019t. What makes us feel peaceful and what doesn\u2019t. If we can investigate\u00a0our choices and our disappointments without blame, shame and judgmental thoughts,\u00a0we can be in the moment without hurting. When we stop judging, we become more transparent\u00a0and mindful. More kind and compassionate.<\/p>\n
We have the same choices in how we view other people. When
we judge them for what they say or do or how they live, we are really judging\u00a0ourselves. It\u2019s always about us. Not anyone else. Spiritual guide, Pema Chodron,\u00a0says that when we judge other people, we are trying to justify our own\u00a0behavior. We are trying to prove ourselves right when there is no right or\u00a0wrong. There is only what is happening now. If we could develop a curiosity\u00a0about how we function and how we think, we might find a sense of humor about\u00a0it. We can punish ourselves endlessly for everything we do and feel anxious and\u00a0fearful or we can forgive instead, and find some peace and understanding in\u00a0what feels like an upside down world.<\/p>\n
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MY WEEKLY BLOG HERE COMES THE JUDGE Some years ago, I was hiking in Ojai, California, when I came\u00a0upon a crashing waterfall. It pounded against a scattering of boulders that had\u00a0been polished over time into smooth surfaces. Bright green moss grew between the\u00a0rocks and long arced branches of white oak trees shaded the area. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1988,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}