after the snark...

Alaska 2008

...may we all be at peace.

I am working on judgement. 

After yesterday's post, you might not believe it.  Sometimes you just have to get it out so that it doesn't cause you more pain.

It is not realistic to hope for a life without judgement.  We judge, assess, measure, attach meaning all the time, about everything.  Honestly, we couldn't make calculated moves if we didn't -- or move at all, in some cases.  Is that car too close, is it far enough away for me to change lanes?

You get the picture.

But there are other judgements -- you know the ones.

They are assessments but they signal more about how we feel about ourselves than they do about what move to make next.

Since I moved home, the judgement voice has been getting louder, and more shrill.  She is defensive beyond belief.  And I know it is because I feel judged, all the time.  So, I am trying to hear the judgement and recognize the plea with in it.  I try to apply compassion to that crying soul inside myself ... sometimes I succeed and sometimes I just hear more judgements -- this time of myself.

I bring this up now, the day after the snark, not because I had some wonderful, life changing revelation -- no, but I did feel guilty the whole time the snarkiness was oozing out of my fingertips.

I opened this piece on sympathetic joy by Andrea, aka one of my favorite people, and I wanted to share it because it did touch a nerve in me.

I want to release my judgement because I want to feel better about me ... reveling in others' success and happiness might be one way to do it.

I am going to resolve, here and now, to do my special metta mantras every morning as a way to start the day in compassion and love rather than in judgement.

Here they are in "I" form -- always start with myself as I widen my circle out to the world:

May I acknowledge abundance
May I allow love to flow to and from me
May I embrace my gifts and talents
May I feel beautiful and strong

May I see myself with love and compassion
May I love myself in failure and triumph
May I express my tender, whimsical self
May I open to all the love around me