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Why is judging so harmful?

When we judge, we’re going against the reality of our biology.  We’re going against what’s real.  The reason this is the case is that everyone has to be who they are in the moment they’re in.  Who else can we be?   So, since we have to be who we are, what’s the benefit of judging ourselves?  We may feel good or bad because of what we’ve done, but what do we get out of patting ourselves on the back when something good happens, or kicking our butt because we failed?  Might it be better to just enjoy the good feelings about what we’ve done so we have a memory that reinforces what to do next time?  And let our feelings of failure make us take a step back to consider what we need to work on?…

Fun and Learn

If we are motivated to improve it helps to remember:  When we stop learning, we stay the same. Most of us want to keep learning but few of us ponder what’s the best way to learn.   In my search for finding how best to learn I encounter two different methods of learning.  One, I’ll call the ‘Default’, which is the way I’ve been learning most of my life, and the other I’ll call ‘Fun and Learn’, which we all experience from time to time but it certainly isn’t our ‘default’ method.  Here’s a short description of each:

The Default:

We think about what we want and how best to get it based on what we know.  We come up with the specific things we need to do and plan our strategies (times, dates, narratives, specific duties, finances, etc.).  As things play out, we feel good when things are going our way, and not so much when things are bad.  The quality of our lives depends a lot on how successful we are at getting what we want.  As we move forward we adjust our plan to handle the successes and failures.

Fun and Learn:

We follow a disciplined approach to our learning that begins with a deep dive into what is the accurate information we need to get what we want.  We know we’re only as good as the way we know how to do it. We realize we improve by putting new accurate information that makes us respond in more productive ways up in our brain.  Once we have enough basic accurate information we start practicing; doing the consistent repetitions until we can perform the accurate knowledge properly.  We don’t care about results, because our misses teach us we don’t fully understand what’s accurate, and we use our research and repetitions to continue to shed light on what’s accurate.  We’re building our bridge as we walk on it.  We see each practice/competition as an unveiling of what we know and don’t know.  Because we’ve done our repetitions, when any hint of fear or anger shows up (we mess up and judge ourselves), we step back and get in that fun and learn mood quickly.  We realize it’s the joy we put into every learning session that will make us our best the quickest, so whenever we start to get upset or impatient (negative energy), we smile and remind ourselves we’re limiting ourselves and getting back into our fun and learning mode.

Not very difficult to see which approach will bring the best results.  Still, like a lot of what drives us, our approach to learning is not rational.  For most of my life, I learned through ‘The Default’.  It’s taken a real effort to change that, but once I adopted a fun and learn philosophy to my learning, my learning curve became something I enjoyed and felt no pressure about.  Why would I not want to enjoy my efforts?  Why would I still use ‘The “Default’ method even though I know it’s brings inferior results? …

Two methods in experiencing the moment

If you take the time to think about what you experience, you’ll find you’re always experiencing the moment you’re in.  You never can jump back into your past or leap into your future.  What happens when you think about the past or the future you get the thoughts/feelings they give you in the moment.  Your present is never escapable.  I’ve been thinking about the choices I have in terms of how I want to experience my present moments.  When doing so it was easy for me to see I have basically two methods I use to experience my present moments.

Feel wonderful in the moment and let whatever the wonderful energy motivates me to do, to then do it.

Be in the moment thinking about what I should do today to make, or not make, a certain future happen.

What I’ve found is I end up dealing with the same situations and issues no what method I use.  This happens because we all are automatically driven by whatever is going on in our life.  Using either method won’t stop that.  So, whether we’re feeling wonderful about it, or worried and concerned about it, we’ll sure be thinking and doing something about it.  The difference is these two different methods produce two very different outcomes.  In the first method, I don’t need to use any mental energy to think about what to think or do.  I just let whatever enters my mind lead the way.  It’s an effortless process.  The second method makes me use my mental energy to ‘figure out’ what to do.  This is not effortless for me and I am mentally exhausted when I’m done.  No rocket science needed to guess which method produces the best outcome.…

Why the process works

Life’s basic goal is two steps.  The first goal is to survive, and the second is to procreate.  If life dies before it procreates the species goes extinct.  We are all driven strongly by these two basic life instincts and that will never change.  Everything we do is somewhat driven by these two aspects of all life.  For life, right from the beginning of time, and unfortunately for too many humans, it’s still fight or flee in order to survive.  Some of us are fortunate not to be in danger of our survival on a daily basis, but we treat all our problems as if they’re life and death, and therefore carry around tons of stress when there’s really no need to.  By understanding our anger and fear are no longer in our best interest of survival, our brain will automatically shift its belief system to getting back in control when we get worked-up.  Notice, life doesn’t change its desire to survive, it changes the method it uses to accomplish it.  Now, instead of fighting or fleeing, we’re getting back in control before we respond.  That’s why our process works; it increases our mental and physical chances of survival!!…

The danger of self-judgment

The easiest way I know to master this stuff is to just keep checking and reminding yourself you’re trying to make your energy primary.  Our habit of responding to our thoughts and emotions have made us robots to our mix.  You’re learning to use your self-awareness to simply be aware when your emotions are not wonderful and trying to use your breathing and story techniques to get you back in control.  The difficulty is our concerns and frustrations are so ingrained in us we don’t even recognize when we’re bothered because it seems so normal.  And then we can compound our problems when we judge ourselves for not catching ourselves quicker, producing feels of we’re not good enough.  This causes us to retreat from the process—not good.

Once you see all judgment of yourself only interferes with what you want you’ll be able to catch it quicker.  The hard part is trusting just by getting back into a wonderful emotionally state your mix will give you the best thoughts and emotions to move you forward.  Notice, when you evaluate your performance when you feel wonderful you see much more of what’s going on, so the learning is so much clearer than when you’re evaluating yourself all wrapped up in your worries or anger (judgements).  You begin to see your efforts as who you are without judgment, which makes it much easier to change things up.  I’ve gotten to the point where I’m happy and grateful when I see my mistakes because I can see them and fix them quickly so I’m better because of them.  I no longer walk around thinking I wasn’t good enough.  Did that for way too long.…

Feeling wonderful while you take a slow deep breath

The more you practice something the easier it is to do it when the situation calls for it.  This couldn’t be truer than when you’re getting bothered.  Since your automatic response is to fight or flee, being able to quickly get back under control takes many reps.  So, the more often you practice taking that deep breath and feeling as wonderful as you can, the more chance you give yourself when the pressure mounts.  When we’re in our ‘war zones’, when we’re really bothered unless we’ve trained we’re probably not going to be our best.   And since being in control might be the most valuable skill you can have, practicing until it becomes second nature is very productive activity.…

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