Flight Chronicles of the Hummingbird - Day 41 – 5-17-2021 - Judgement vs Awareness

Judgement vs Awareness

Well, the awareness that came to me this morning from the book I was listening to on my walk, was astonishing to me.

I will start off with just how harshly I judge myself. It is staggering to realize, full out, how true this is. I have been told and taught so many things since I was a child about how terrible I am that I became my biggest hater and judger. Why is it that when I used to look at pictures of myself when I was little and see what a sweet little girl I was, it turned my stomach?

I mean, deep down, I do know that I am exactly that. Other people, the ones who did not hurt me when I was younger, tell me all the time how kind, sweet, compassionate and non-judgmental I am. How is it that it took me years upon years to recognize that in myself?

Well, that judgement I held about myself kept me in this vicious loop for a very long time. I couldn’t get myself out of it until I was so tired of feeling like crap all the time and sabotaging my life. I was so concerned about making others happy and taking care of them, that I put my foot down and said enough is enough.

Even with that, though, it took me a really long time to walk through all of that pain and judgment I had felt throughout my life. That’s pretty much why I am here; to have a show and tell about the way to get through this without it taking a lifetime to do it.

I am aware. I am so aware now that when I begin to judge myself or others I am able to catch myself doing it and treat myself kindly and lovingly to stop doing it.

But what exactly is the difference between judgment and awareness. There is nothing between them, but they seem to show up in reference to one another. Judgement, to me, is something of the ego. It’s a decision we make about ourselves and/or others that we feel we have the right to demean, degrade, demoralize. I believe that we learn to judge because we do not learn how to be conscious of the truth of who we are or what life really is about. We judge because somehow we feel like we are bad, and someone has to punish us for that; whether we attract someone into our lives to do that or we do it ourselves.

Now, awareness is a whole other ballgame. Having awareness is like opening the shades in a dark room and letting the sunlight shine in. When we begin to see ourselves differently through the decision to stop sabotaging ourselves, we see something that we really never thought existed. But there is a knowing involved here too in that when we finally see the truth about ourselves, it’s like we find out we are our best friend. This is something I had never experienced in my life.

Now instead of sabotaging myself and my life, I witness the truth of the beautiful, kind, compassionate, loving soul I am more and more.

Sure, there are days when I certainly don’t feel that way, but I have allowed myself to grieve during those days to walk through the remnants of my self-judgment.

I can say the hardest thing for me to work through is to not judge the people in my life who really hurt me.  I can look at it differently because now that I have more of an awareness, I can see that they did it from their own pain. In that space I can forgive them; I am not doing that for them, I am doing that for me because I want to be happy, and it really is as simple as that.

Looking in from the outside of awareness can make it look like the hardest thing one could do, but take it from me if you can, it is not. I have personally walked through a lot of pain and being on the other side of the pain is the most amazing part of this. Hurt people hurt people. When we love ourselves, the world shifts.

Be the change you wish to see in the world. It all begins in your own backyard.