Inviting, Embracing, Accepting, Transforming

Come and Play by Robert Barber

Each new understanding I gain through my process of mindfulness, reflection, purposeful journeying and happenstance feels like a gift, a Divine offering in service of further self-actualization. As I weave my way through the uncharted aspects of my mind, my heart, my body, and my soul, I am learning to love and embrace the broken places, to invite and accept the shameful pieces, and to witness and integrate the hidden parts. Lately my experiences with judgment are front and center, and my relationship with judgment is becoming clearer, more pronounced, and more dynamically alive. I see this synchronicity of realizations as a sign that I am ready to examine and better understand how judgment has impacted me, and to integrate my memories and feelings about these experiences. Through this process, I am transforming my relationship to judgment - the self-judgment of shame, the other-judgment of criticism, and the universal judgment of misanthropy that I have carried around for so long.

We live in a judgment saturated culture - from reality TV and tabloids to standardized tests and zero tolerance policies, we all witness and experience harsh judgments on a daily basis. Yesterday, for instance, I witnessed students berated by a substitute teacher for "not having self-control" and put down for "not knowing how to think", I overheard someone call themselves "a lazy fat-ass," and saw a parent mock their child for "being too emotional". These experiences are just the tiniest slice of the judgmental states I absorb every day, and they affect me deeply. Judgment has been used against me viciously by my family, my culture, and my society throughout my life. These experiences caused me to shrink down into myself for protection and to repress the "unacceptable" pieces of myself.  I am only just starting to meet many hidden bits of myself that I squirreled away when it was unsafe to be seen, to be imperfectly me.

While it is hard to look at the vastness of the problem and the incredibly severe impact it's had on my own development, it has been equally painful to acknowledge how I took in this poison and made it my own - in the form of self-criticism and in my judgment of others. I took the weapon being used to injure me and used it on myself, then became the perpetrator, attacking others with the tool I knew so well, and which has hurt me so badly. This is nothing new - it is the classic cycle of violence we all experience in one way or another - and yet seeing it and naming it and acknowledging its impact feels significant. It is hard to admit that I have hurt others as I have been hurt, that I have participated in creating a lack of safety and a need for hiding, when I know just how painful these experiences are. I understand how these cycles happen, and I see this understanding of my own positionality as a gift, as an invitation to forgive myself for my transgressions - and to forgive those who have transgressed against me. And so I declare myself to be right where I am - seeped in judgment, poisoned by criticism, and on a slow and loving journey toward shedding these layers that keep me from myself and from those I love. I want to be a safe person for my self and for everyone I care about. I want to accept the imperfections of each of us - including accepting my judgmental tendencies and the repercussions these actions have caused. I am writing this here to be seen - to witness myself and to be witnessed by you. Thank you for being a part of my process, for listening and for reflecting on my words, for seeing my humanity and for believing in the process of growth and change.