CRITICISM of any sort stymies our capacity to love. How can we truly love someone when, if they do something we don’t like or ‘against our better judgment’ we automatically withhold our undivided love? Our love is then tempered, depending on the severity of their purported crime against us?

Their penance is only ended when they make good their crime, then we judge them as worthy of our love once again, though they are kept on continual parole in case they re-offend. This same scenario is played out every day in families and relationships all over the world. If we are not being judged – we are the judge!

There is an old Spanish proverb which reads: “He who does not laugh at the faults of his loved ones does not love at all.” The prevailing tendency of a judgmental person is to express caution, fearfulness, complaints and condemnation, which always reacts upon the one who is doing the fault finding. It shows a lack of trust in life.

As an example of how detrimental judgment of others can be, take this scenario of a nagging wife for instance, (and there are many in the world to choose from I think you will agree) whose favorite pastime is finding fault with and criticizing her husband. Surprisingly, this gives her a certain type of neurotic pleasure and power that she becomes addicted to and so, does not wish to give up.

Her intentions appear on the surface to be admirable. She may honestly believe that by molding her husband into the type of person she believes would be better somehow than the way he is now- it would result in a happier marriage. Instead, she drowns any love that may have been in the past or may be possible in the future under a negative cloud of judgmental criticism.

She is her own worst enemy as unconsciously, she painfully enjoys every minute of it. Her suffering is far worse than that of her husband, as he can get away from her and go to the pub for instance. She though, is stuck with her own negative, complaining self 24 hours a day.

Being completely unconscious, she is not aware that all her pain is self inflicted and pointless. All criticism of her husband is really unconscious self criticism and the lack of her own self worth.

All she needs to do is open her eyes and see that her judgmental criticisms are not making for a happier more positive life for herself or her husband at all. Instead she is making life utterly miserable for the both of them.

If she was conscious of the way she was trying to manipulate the circumstances of her life, she would stop the rot. Not only that, she would become aware of a lot of other negativities that form part and parcel of her approach to the everyday humdrum of life that is depriving her and her husband of experiencing a joyful existence.

This story about the nagging wife was written for a purpose. It plainly illustrates to all of us just how debilitating negative emotions and attitudes of any sort are to our lives. Negativity is a preventable disease of the ego that stuffs up our lives!

When reading this story you might immediately think, ‘What a silly dumb woman!’ And yet if you turned around and looked honestly at yourself and the way you react to your own life circumstances, you would most likely see that you too are just as silly.

To judge and criticize life is to not accept what is! Surprisingly, it is just as detrimental to our happiness to judge a person or an event as being good as well as bad, for it is still a critical appraisal of what we believe to be so, instead of unconditional acceptance what is.

Happiness is the realization and unconditional acceptance that life just is and that is all it needs to be. We are incapable – as the little ego me – to do anything constructive about it.

The only power by which we are judged or condemned is within us and it neither judges nor condemns. Our inner self is kind, compassionate and understanding and knows that life is unfolding exactly the way it should.

Our lesson in life is to learn that truth – if we can do that then… Der go da judge!

Dan’s Quote: “All things don’t ‘just happen’… all things ‘happen justly.”- Catherine Ponder

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