Posts tagged Judgment
How to Be Happy in an Unhappy World
Aug 28th
Many people who have begun to do some form of self-discovery often find that the happier that they become with themselves, the more aware they become of the negativity and gloom that fills the hearts of others. This can often lead to despair as they realize that even though they are gaining happiness for themselves, they cannot directly control the level of happiness in the world around them. Feeling frustrated from this can lead them to either directly engage in the negativity of others, or simply become judgmental of those people who have yet to let go of negativity.
Even though this can be a difficult thing to go through, the one thing that you need to understand is that people only behave in the ways in which they know how to behave. This isn’t meant to justify their behaviors at all, but how can you expect people to do what they haven’t yet figured out how to do?
I recently had a discussion with a friend of mine about some frustration that she was feeling with one of her brothers. She is an aspiring actress and just landed her first commercial. The first thing she did after finding out this news was to call her family and let them know. Her brothers reaction was one of indifference. “That’s not really a big deal,” he said to her. “It’s not like you’re gonna be in a movie or anything.”
This immediately devastated her mood, and the excitement and pride that she’d felt just moments before, turned into pessimism and frustration. The one thing that you need to realize is that the happier you become, the more likely it is that unhappy people will lash out at you. Your happiness for them is nothing more than a painful reminder of what they don’t have. You can’t take this personally. How can you expect someone who hasn’t even begun to find happiness for themselves to be happy for you? You can’t.
Learn to view people for what they are, without holding judgment. The more you judge their state of mind, the more you become sucked into their world. In fact, remove as many of these unhappy, “toxic” people from your life. As soon as possible! While people who are highly enlightened are able to remain happy and “at peace” no matter who’s around them or what situation they’re in, for those who are still on the process of self-discovery, staying positive while around negativity is much more difficult. That’s why it’s so important to get those people out of your life as soon as possible.
Being happy is something that you should never apologize for, nor should you feel badly knowing that others haven’t accomplished what you have. Stay confident in the happiness that you’ve attained, and you’ll be surprised to see that the more positive energy you exert into the world, the more likely people are to rethink their negative ways and find happiness too.
Stop Nursing Negative States
Aug 22nd
We’ve been taught that we have to tolerate negativity. We tiptoe around others when they’re in the throes of a negative state, and we accept our own torments, hoping only to be able to cope. Parents desperately look for ways to deal with the negativity in their children. We coddle these wrong, self-harming states for two reasons. The first involves self-love and self-protection: because we don’t know better, we embrace the negativity as our own and therefore feel it should be defended. The second reason is secret fear: we’re afraid of negativity, which means we resist it, and that resistance gives it our life-force. The solution is to understand the essence of negativity and then to learn how it operates in the dark.
Our new understanding begins by volunteering to get a lot tougher on ourselves — and on what’s been so hard on us. Meekly submitting to any negative emotion in the hopes it will run its course and leave us alone just invites it to subjugate us again… and again. We can learn to do much better than to just automatically become angry or depressed every time events run counter to our expectations, and we can begin by gathering a few freeing facts:
Fact 1: Negativity is opposition.
When we’re negative, we’re opposed to life as it presents itself. We’ve labeled a particular outcome as bad, but in reality, life is not divided up into good and bad any more than the ocean is for or against its own waves.
Fact 2: Life is whole and it’s all good.
The events of life are reflections of broader patterns that are beyond our ability to see. All of them are in the interest of growth and development, and all of them, perceived correctly, serve to help us realize just how much the universe really is on our side. When bad things seem to happen, it is not that the event is bad of itself. It is that we do not see the wholeness, and instead judge the event from our own limited and divided point of view. The negativity produced by our own judgment hurts us and keeps us from experiencing the good.
Fact 3: Every time we accept a negative state we compromise ourselves and increase the level of conflict for ourselves and everyone we meet.
Strangely, we accept the negativity because it gives us a powerful sense of who we are. We feel falsely energized by our sense of a separate self, apart from the wholeness. We even value our negativity because it makes the boundaries of our selves seem so strong and real. “I may be unhappy,” we think, “but at least I know who I am and I know what my life is all about.” But what we “know” is a false self-image, and what we think our lives are about is only an endless battle to protect something that was never real in the first place.
The evidence is all around us! Almost everywhere you see unhappy faces reflecting anger, self-pity, defeat, and other dark states. How much effort do we go to in order to make ourselves look good to others? Do we ever think about what the expression on our face says about us? Or how any negative spirit within us can undo all the good effects of everything we do to make ourselves physically healthy? See negativity for the monster it is, and you’ll want to be free of it forever. And you will be!
– Guy Finley
