Counting up on the Top 10 List of things YOU can do to create World Peace, we now explore #8 which is . . .

Release Judgement
Even now as you’re reading this article you are making a judgment about it and whether or not it is helpful to you.

Someone pointed out to me the other day that a judgment implies that you’re living either in the past or the present, because in order to even judge something you are either thinking about your response based on experiences in the past, or the effect it will have in the future. This made sense to me. But how do we stop judging?

To judge something or someone is to make the circumstance or person right or wrong. Marshall Rosenberg in his book Nonviolent Communication* talks about the difference between judging and feeling.

Dr. Rosenberg explains that “analyses of others are actually expressions of our own needs and values.” So, for example, if I meet someone who is very vocal, outgoing and assertive, I may judge him/her as obnoxious. Yet if I meet someone who doesn’t talk much and is very shy, I may judge him/her as “stuck-up” or arrogant. Both of these scenarios are based on my beliefs and values.

Rosenberg further makes a correlation between violence and judgment. “…there is considerably less violence in cultures where people think in terms of human needs than in cultures where people label one another as “good” or “bad”…”

I have been trying to work on expressing my needs and feelings instead of making judgments. Rosenberg points out that instead of saying “violence is bad,” which implies a judgment, we could say something like, “I am fearful of the use of violence to resolve conflicts.” The latter statement doesn’t judge whether violence is right or wrong, but states your feelings about it.

For example, instead of saying “you are lazy”, which again implies a judgment, I would say something like, “I feel like I’ve been doing all the housework because you took a nap today.”

To me, it seems important to analyze the needs and feelings behind any blanket statements of judgment. Notice how in the previous statement I didn’t judge you or myself, or say you or I have to behave a certain way? But, I did mention my feelings about the issue. Are you getting the hang of it?

To be without judgment is to deem every experience, situation or circumstance as neither good nor bad, and to just say that it is what it is...

I now start to catch myself thinking judgment thoughts or saying something judgmental. It is a continual practice because so much of how we’ve been programmed involves judgment. I know that working on this principle will be the hardest one for me to work on in my daily life. But wait, even that was a judgment.

*Rosenberg, Marshall B., Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Compassion, PuddleDancer Press, 1999, http://www.nonviolentcommunication.com

© Lisa Hepner
Life Channels Staff Writer
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