Publishing Guidelines: This article may be freely published so long as author's resource box, bylines, and copyright are included.TITLE: Is Court in Session? AUTHOR: Jerry Lopper CONTACT: jlopper@att.net
COPYRIGHT: ©2002 by Jerry Lopper. All rights reserved
WORD COUNT: 533 FORMAT: This article is formatted to 61 cpl.
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Is Court in Session?
Is your courtroom in session? That is, are you acting as prosecutor, judge, and jury for your fellow humans? Do you evaluate actions and behaviors of your loved ones, reminding them even silently that they’re doing things "wrong" way? I thought my courtroom was closed, but I was fooled by my mind.
I thought I had ceased judging behaviors of others as right or wrong, but found that I had simply masked judgments; I covered them up with self-righteous thinking. Avoiding judgment is difficult, a big shift of behavior for many of us. I succeeded, for most part, in avoiding verbalizing my judgments, but internal judging continued, and that self-righteous energy transmits to others just as strongly as words.
So now I’ve renewed my commitment to myself to avoid judging others for what they say, how they say it, and their resulting actions. Why? Judging others is hard work. Judging others is not only hard in terms of effort, it adversely affects one’s state of being. The next time you find yourself judging some behavior as right or wrong, stop and take an inventory of your feelings. I think you’ll find feelings of tension, defensiveness, superiority, and separation. I think you’ll observe your mind at work prosecuting offense and handing out punishments. Focus on your body. I think you’ll notice taut muscles, grim features, and aggressive positioning. Is this what you want for yourself? I don’t, yet that’s result of judging.