Discernment vs Judgment

This is something I’ve been pondering this week, discernment vs judgement. Recently I found myself in a really hurtful situation, in which someone close to me said some terrible things. It was very frustrating and did not at all feel in keeping with my idea of friendship. It goes without saying that friends can disagree, but this was not a healthy, safe space for that. It instantly became this other person attacking my character, making cruel and inaccurate assumptions, saying very nasty things, and immediately putting me into this strange box. It was an awful experience. While friends can certainly disagree, they should not disrespect. I have many friends; none of us speak to each other the way I was spoken to in that conversation. I am blessed to have friends with whom I can be brutally honest, and they with me. This was just brutal. It was the cause of immediate separation, something none of us need help in creating. Isn’t it fascinating and sad that we don’t need any assistance in the departments of judgement, self righteousness, separation, and isolation? Humans are eerily adept at the harmful stuff, myself included. We need much more help when it comes to healing, achieving harmony, and healthy approaches. At any given moment we are responding to any number of circumstantial stimuli. When we don’t pause, we often react foolishly instead of responding wisely. Wisely never means weakly. It’s a delusion we have been taught; that reacting with loud, brute force is strong. Actually, acting on impulse is far weaker than responding from a place of grounding and empowerment. Point being, when someone starts to bite your head off as soon as you don’t agree with them... well, you do the math. Just like how when we let our egos run wild by criticizing others who have the audacity to ruin our versions of reality, that too is us operating from a place of reactive disempowerment. Screaming is weak whereas silence is strong because it is confident, calm, rational, and not seeking to add harm. It can be hard enough to be locked into an uncomfortable disagreement with someone; it makes it hella harder to pile more cruel criticism on top of the already burning heap of discord.

This was a tough one for me, on several levels. It’s always very hurtful when someone you consider a close friend is really mean. To be attacked with bitterness is not something I recognize in my close, healthy friendships. It’s a tough pill to swallow when we are forced to see the other person, as well as our dynamic with them, in harsh lighting. Often times truths are revealed and the connection can’t be fully repaired. Loss is involved, and grief at learning that someone can flip a switch on you simply because your opinion differs. When you feel understood by someone and they suddenly become committed to misunderstanding you, it truly is a loss. Friendships and dynamics have to be re-evaluated.
I have become very practiced in reevaluating relationships in my life. It’s a classic protective mechanism that has overall served me well. It’s a myth that we have to remain in any interpersonal dance, no matter how lousy it feels. Self betrayal, ignoring our feelings and physical reactions to the people in our lives, and needing to “take the high road” is bull crap. Who ever decided that being a doormat who eats shit is equivalent to grace and taking the high road? Weakness is rolling over out of fear of re-evaluation, which may lead to scary changes. Strength can reassess and shift, because it knows that WE are the constant in our own lives. Granting access to ourselves and our lives requires serious emotional boundary setting. We are all precious. Not everyone can just bang down the door and trample into our lives. We can say no at any time. Sometimes the no is momentary, in the case of those who we love and who are in our lives permanently, and sometimes the no means we say a quiet goodbye to the relationship. Friends are a choice. They should enhance your life and make you feel good, period. As soon as a friendship feels unsafe, toxic, and tinged with icky stuff, we can choose to remove ourselves.

So where did the judgement come in for me? Well, my mind started going off the rails immediately, out of self defense. The ego mind is here to protect us. It will do this by mental retaliation. This person is this, is that, at least I’m not like them because they...I would NEVER say that because I’m not...(insert reciprocal criticism here). I had real trouble with any of the tools in my toolkit, things that normally work in the way of helping me let go came up short. This occupied my mind for at least a week and a half. I still think about it. This created conflict in myself, since I really did not want to carry that around. I didn’t want my own critical thoughts and judgements to weigh me down and drag down my vibration. I work way too hard on myself to let the opinion of someone else destroy my inner peace. Again, if someone is determined to be nasty and misunderstand you, then that is their load to carry, only it wasn’t since I was carrying it around too. Only we pick shit up, and only we can decide to put it down.

What I did want to do in this case was reassess this person’s place in my life. It was clear from this interaction that this is not a safe space for me. The things that were said set off rockets in my core center, the place in my body where I feel and hold my emotions. Our bodies are always talking to us. This time my body said, step back and keep distance. The undertones of certain comments made me extremely wary and uncomfortable. The thing is, we can assess and discern without having to go bonkers with judging. Weakness judges, strength assesses. This is hard to do, since our self protective instincts are to build walls made out of bricks of judgement. But the thing is, the thing which I have been working on constantly, is cementing that feeling of safety within myself and my life. In times of distress, when my nervous system is being hijacked, I will literally put my hand on my heart or belly, go to a quiet place, breathe, and tell myself I’m safe. I may have to repeat it many times to start to believe it. If I don’t believe it, which I didn’t for a very long time, I’ll force myself to sit through the discomfort of the affirmation until I physically start to soften and it begins to click. By the way, we can feel terribly upset and uncomfortable and still know that deep down we are safe. Both knowings can exist, only while the feelings of discomfort will eventually dissipate, the safety will remain. Weakness is transient, strength is permanent. Underneath whatever you are feeling, thinking, and experiencing lies a vast well of strength and calm. It’s yours to access at any time. It takes tools, techniques, and the knowledge that it exists in order to tap into it. But it’s there. So if I know this and do believe wholeheartedly that I’m safe, guided, and held, why the need to build that protective brick wall? Maybe I can use discernment to protect myself instead of heavy judgment. It took me many days before this occurred to me, but once it did it felt revelatory. It felt so much lighter and more in keeping with how I want to exist in the world. I’ve done so much work, why derail myself by getting buried under someone else’s lens and stuff? Uncomfortable situations are a part of life. It’s how we relate to them that will determine how we move through them. The more secure I feel in my own life, body, decisions, and the more I reaffirm my connection to the safety of the Unseen, the easier it is for me to release my grip on delusional protective judgement. Judgement doesn’t just separate us from others. It separates us from ourselves, because it goes against the oneness and harmony of the soul. Fighting for our wholeness is an important spiritual discipline. I am committed to fusing myself back together, over and over and over.