January 23, 2017 Carole Levy

Suspending our judgments

Suspending our judgments is an important practice to undertake, but often a very dissonant one: when we genuinely don’t want to be judgmental anymore, we may still continue to believe in our judgments.

To suspend our judgments, we need a strong intention in order to endure  awkward periods of cognitive dissonance -and its possible backlash- as well as a supportive practice to find the crack in our cemented opinions. It is hard work, but it is worth the effort.

Because for us, Western people, there is no braver act of peace than to disrupt the cycle of our judgments toward others. At least toward the ones we love.

Have a great week!

Carole

PS: The challenge these days, is to suspend our judgments while holding on our values.

 

Reflective questions: Who do you judge? Do you have best practices about suspending your judgments? 

 

 

 

 

 

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Comments (8)

  1. parker

    Thank you. I must consider and practice more. Can’t walk around triggered so much by politics of the day.

    • I know – I struggle too – but I’m starting to think that in the “emotion” of the judgment (or the emotion connected to the judgment = the hot button), we lose our clarity and our ground to reality… I’m exploring!

  2. Tamara

    Carole – so glad you added that last sentence….”The challenge these days, is to suspend our judgments while holding on our values.” I think the dissonance comes when every fiber in my body is in reaction to things outside of me that conflict so heavily with my values. At which point, the judgments pile up to build a wall….and, we both know walls don’t work! Conversations must be started between people on all sides in a safe space — we may find we have more in common than what is portrayed through our sources of information. I can hope at any rate. TT

    • Thanks for your thoughts Tamara. On the one hand, conversations on all sides must start in a safe space, on the other hand, propaganda must stop…

  3. This is a very fertile area of conversation, right now especially where things can very easily get hyper emotional and polarized. I so appreciate you shining a humorous light on this serious matter.

    • Thanks Susan – there is definitively a growth opportunity for our society right now! Hopefully we can keep our humor in the process…

  4. Jean-Pierre Guilhaume

    Dear Carole, Your owls are hilarious! And the content pretty serious.
    For our conversation here, I would define Judgement as a strong opinion formed based on perceptions. Too often I forget to verify my perceptions, I forget that I tend to hear and see what I want to hear and see. I hear and see what makes sens to me, which is based on a set of preexisting beliefs.
    The rest of the experience? My brain just dismisses it, it doesn’t exist.
    I do agree with you, it take a strong intention to disrupt this loop

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