Judgment is a tool for separation, for denial of the wholeness of what we are. In intimate relationship judgment hinders our ability to connect openly and lovingly. We often judge ourselves for being inadequate across various expressions of life, our beloved for not being present and not meeting our perceived standards so much more.

Whenever we feel the act of separating from the world or from another, we suffer deeply and the world suffers with us. Our hearts disconnect, we lose ourselves in our pain and we begin to project judgment and pain on to others as the pain of gazing inwardly is too intense and overwhelming.

We Are All One – We Are All Heart

At this level of being, we are all connected – we are all one per se. At this authentic level of being we all yearn for connection, intimacy, knowing, familiarity, love, bonding, harmony within, awareness and insight. There is no difference between a celebrity you despise and you. There is no difference between he or she who has emotionally scarred you and your own being.

A challenging proposition to grasp. Underneath all of the pain, the cultural clutter, the disconnection and the fear we are all connected. We yearn to be known, seen, heard and loved as we also wish to be this for others. We are relational beings who have a tremendous capacity to love openly and beautifully.

Our Fears Limit Our Expression Of Love

Our insecurities, cultural oppression, socially systemic conditioning and limiting self-beliefs hinder our ability to open our hearts. Our fears allows us to retract and push our pains on to others – doing so forces distinction, divide and disparity amongst us.

In this segregation we judge and project harshly and this is where fear reigns supremely in our outwardly directed behaviours. Those you abhor are reflections of you. To pull away from someone, to feel completely different at a heart level is to enact a lie of separation.

Closing your heart to those you dislike, despise or cannot tolerate (your sister-in-law, brother-in-law, foreign dictator, ex partner or boss means you are moving away from your authentic nature – you are retracting from truth. All of these feelings are a part of you and what make you, well you…

Why Judge So Harshly? Owning The Polarity

This act of retraction creates a sense of inner stress, which leads to suffering. When you act in this way, you will feel distress in your heart. We are all disgusting at times, this is part of the contrast that makes us whole.

If people could view you as a whole in real time, they would observe a repugnant nature, alongside radiant beauty and openness –ugliness and attractiveness residing in one being. You may not express extremely as others, but there are elements of ugliness in all of us. Perhaps there are moments where you even disgust yourself? Can you be fully open to these moments?

Disgust, nausea, illness, loathing – such aspects of who we all are may deserve abhorrent gut responses. But disgust does not create suffering, the recoil does. Separation is the act of un-love. When we separate we polarise our nature and ignore key aspects of who and what we are.

Spiritual Growth Through Unification

To deepen ourselves spiritually, to open our hearts we must feel disgust, but we must do so from a place of non-separation – in other words, to feel and not pull away. To feel or be disgusted and not pull away. When we pull away, we judge harshly.

Pulling back is the source of separation. It demonstrates a harsh judgment and polarised view of reality. If you can remain open and feel everyone and everything fully, even those who disgust you with out retraction (judgment) then love and an open heart will endure.

You may try not to judge others, but even that is based on a judgment and on separation – ‘people who are non-judgmental are better than people who are’. The reality is feeling negative or positive in response to other people is natural and normal – in fact, it is unavoidable and necessary for our survival.

Where We Become Unstuck

We lose ourselves when we allow our mental judgments and emotional reactions or responses to close down our hearts, distance ourselves (separation) from what is occurring and moving in to divided polarity. You can still be open in love when another is acting in the foulest of manners.

This does not mean not being discerning with respect to what you allow in to your sphere of reality. Nor does it mean not setting healthy boundaries to protect yourself emotionally and physically. However, it does mean not retracting in to fear, un-love, suffering and separation and therefore closing your heart to being open to the present (authentic organic state of being).

Please know you can move against an adversary with great force and still maintain an open heart as if it were your own. When we pull back in closure, we deny ourselves of truth and openness. We literally create the distress of moving in to separation.

The Nature Of Judgment & Disgust

Having these responses to life are natural and healthy. They are necessary for us – in order to discern what experiences we wish to perpetuate and those we do not. What experiences align with our values and those, which do not?

When you gaze deeply in to the eyes, souls, being and hearts of those who disgust you, do not judge, but rather transfigure. Can you feel openness here? Can you connect to the fullness of the moment? Can you feel the heart of the other and can you feel yours? Can you feel the openness behind the fear? The pain behind the mask? And can you eliminate the separation and divide?

Feel in to the heart with out intertwining your mechanisms of self-preservation and judgments. When someone may disgust you, practice relaxing in to that and feel the fullness of that with out harsh judgment. This is your practice, this is your power.

Allow openness the opportunity to flourish and move through you fully. Everyone yearns for this connection, create it in yourself first and observe the world around you transform profoundly.

One is always glad to be of service.

STEFANOS SIFANDOS

Relational Alchemist, Speaker & Author