Saturday, December 15, 2018

JUDGMENT AND UNCONDITIONAL LOVE


WHAT JUDGMENT REALLY DOES


by Mary Elizabeth (Leach) Raines
©M. E. Raines, 2018

Judging another, regardless of the reasons or circumstances, is toxic both to us and to those we judge.

We judge out of annoyance, out of fear, out of anger, or sometimes—and this one
is the most sneaky and thus dangerous forms of judgment—out of our presumably loving “concern” for another person. When we judge someone or some aspect of their life, we are gathering up an immense mass of negativity, with all its lack of understanding and lack of compassion, and casting it upon someone else. Energetically, judgment is a hard shell that compresses another.

Why do we do it? It feels good! Our judgment temporarily seems to lighten our own load. What it does is to steal a bit of power away from the person we're judging, and hand it to us. This gives us a temporary fix, a brief elation, but it is a false one, for when we rob another of their power in order to boost ourselves, we will wind up paying the price, and often it is with our emotions, experiences, or even our own cell tissue.

Worse, the moment we judge, we become blind to truth. Because it gives us a false little lift, we talk ourselves into believing that our judgment is wise when, in fact, judgment narrows our viewpoint and severely restricts any opportunities we might otherwise have been given to understand the other person or their situation.

The hardness of heart that arises when we judge someone else strangles compassion. Mercy dissolves.

Judgment, no matter how justified we think it may be, does not take into account what another may be on Earth to learn or to do. While we may believe that we know what their lessons are, we are never privy to all the specifics of someone else's life journey, even those who are closest to us.

Movement and flow are necessary for our growth and well-being. Judgment creates the reverse of this. It is stagnant, inflexible, and immobile.

The meanness of judgment refuses to honor or accept the struggles and the growth that the other may be undergoing. Those we condemn could indeed be upon a wonderful path of which we are unaware, but our judgment, which is always uninformed and imperfect, sadly makes it much more difficult, rather than easy, for them to continue on that path.

When we thrust judgment upon another, it can have an actual effect on them, but it is never a positive one. They pick up the restrictive energy of our judgment on some level, often an unconscious one. It feels likeand is!an attack, and they instinctively turn their life force to defensiveness, clenching against the assault. The condemned person can become mired in negative energy. Because they are trapped in self-defense, they cease moving forward, and the opportunities for enlightenment and expansion that they are meant to flow into become less available, not more.

The harsh judgment we extend to our political leaders, for example, has the opposite effect from that which we may desire. Our hardness of heart simply creates more of the same in the other;
the defensiveness that gets stirred in them by the energy of our condemnation can prevent them from becoming the leaders we would wish them to be.

Even with our own friends and family, it is never our job to decide how another should behave, what experiences they ought to invite into their lives, or who they should be, no matter how much we purport to care for them.

What is our job, then? The answer is simple, but it is one of the most difficult things for us to offer: the answer is to hold the other in unconditional love. This does not mean we are supporting unacceptable behavior. Rather, we look beyond behavior without judging it, and extend love to the light within them.

By radiating pure love, with no conditions or exceptions, to our friends, our family, our entertainers, our politicians, and the many others whose paths cross ours, energetically we are allowing them to receive the highest nourishment possible. It is like taking a dark drape off a plant and allow it light to reach it. Unconditional love holds people in a space where they can heal, if healing is needed, find answers—their answers, not ours,—and flourish.


by Mary Elizabeth (Leach) Raines
(c) 2022
All rights reserved

To Our Readers:
You might enjoy reading Mary Elizabeth Raines' nonfiction books, including
The Laughing Cherub Guide to Past-Life Regression: A Handbook for Real People
and
How to Help and Heal with Hypnosis: An Advanced Guide to Hypnotism


About Me

My photo
Mary Elizabeth (Leach) Raines is the author of a collection of quirky short stories ("The Man in the GPS and Other Stories"), novels ("UNA" and "The Secret of Eating Raspberries"), and nonfiction ("How to Help and Heal with Hypnosis: An Advanced Guide to Hypnotism" and "The Laughing Cherub Guide to Past-Life Regression: A Handbook for Real People.") In addition to writing, Mary Elizabeth teaches hypnosis as the director of the Academy for Professional Hypnosis Training, speaking at conferences and leading workshops across the USA. She is a columnist for "The Journal of Hypnotism," and in the past she was a newspaper reporter and features writer. She has won a number of awards for her writing. Mary Elizabeth attended New England Conservatory of Music in Boston in the 1960s as a piano performance major. Later she pursued independent film studies at UW-Oshkosh. In her free time, Mary Elizabeth plays the piano, creates fractal art, cooks, paints, dabbles with computers, acts, gardens organically, and keeps bees.