Comparing, criticising and judging...
The full moon is approaching bringing with it some pretty high and low tides with the equinox only a few weeks away, all of this supporting change for those who want to make the most of the opportunity.
When we think of change, we often think about changing the outside, moving jobs, changing career entirely, moving house, starting a new sport, something that is seen in the external, but actually the change really needs to happen on the inside, and it is a change that helps to make us whole, more of who we are beyond the various masks we put out to the world.
It is this change that is in the air, one of inner change and transformation, seeing more of our shadows and working with them to bring them increasingly into the light so there can be greater harmony between body, mind and soul.
I have noticed a few themes coming up, the three limitations of judgment, criticism and comparison. The moment we notice ourselves doing this, we might catch ourselves (we have to be quick) and remember that we have no idea what it is like to live in that other person’s shoes. We are trained from a young age to judge, criticise and compare and it is a game that we get caught up in with others, judging, complaining and criticising about someone else, it makes us feel safe, or validated, or superior. All of it, of curse, is just a mind game courtesy of the ego, a conditioning that keeps us limited.
Our thoughts create our reality. The more we are comparing, criticising and judging others the more we are likely doing all this to ourselves - again another training of the mind, to give ourselves a hard time and keep us disempowered and well, limited. The other side of this of course is to big ourselves up, we can be very good at doing this when working on ourselves, with a spiritual practice to boot, feeling ourselves superior to others because we see the mind game, but still we get caught up in it, regardless. The mind and the spiritual ego especially is ever so tricky!
The funny thing is, those we judge, criticise and compare ourselves against are the very people who are our greatest teachers, for they bring us the gift of the opportunity of seeing our shadow and bringing it to the light and learning from it. This will not only free us up mentally, reducing ours limitations, but it will free us up energetically, it will also help to change our external reality simply because we have stopped judging, criticising and comparing ourselves to others and holding ourself up to our own judgements, criticism and comparison. It’s an ongoing process, but one that can really change things the more we become aware of it.
So my advice is to notice who is currently triggering you and to reframe them into your teacher rather than your irritant and /or persecutor. Then use it as an opportunity to dig deeper into yourself and see what old and limited story you have been telling yourself. Remind yourself of your humanness and of their humanness too, and how we can never truly know what another is thinking or feeling and that we all have our stuff that we carry around with us. We might even cultivate some compassion here too.
if nothing else, it’s worth remembering that it’s always about us. As written on the temple of Delphi, “know thyself”. This the thyself without all the stories, narrative, falsehoods, limitations and faces that we hide behind. The moment we stop caring about what others think about us, is the moment we know we’ve brought a whole heap more light into our life and can drop a lot of the crap.
I’m looking forward to dropping deeper with some of you this week at Yoni Yoga and the Hatha Yoga class on Friday and also those of you coming to see me privately, ideally timed to optimise this moon’s energy of shifting things on and letting go and letting go and letting go again….
Oh and did I mention my book is almost ready for release…it’s in holding on Amazon…but will soon be let go of into the world…
Happy waxing moon!
Love Emma x