Tag: view

You are a lair

Posted on by philipdodson

If we label someone, we are branding them, we are damning them to a role or story that gives them not just shame but little room for change. It’s easy though as the mind needs to box everyone up, so it can instantly compare and judge them with ourselves and others.

If we say ‘you are a liar’ it is very different to saying ‘you made a wrong choice to tell a lie’. The second option does not judge them or label them as a liar, it is just us voicing our view of their choice.

Our society is driven by our mind and the collective mind’s need to label and blame others. It is a way of us being superior.

We may choose to offer a view of another person’s decision or choice but to label and judge is not for us to decide. No one is a liar, or unkind or hateful or whatever the label…they just make choices at that moment some we may see as good and some as bad, but that is subjective and depends on perspective.

If we accept others as they are and choose not to judge, that still leaves us a place to comment on their choice of behaviour towards us, without us suffering within from their behaviour, and it comes from a place of not judging them as a person. This allows the other person to be free from shame and labelling.

Evaluation

Posted on by philipdodson

‘There are no good or bad people that come to our lives. There are only teachers’, I think it was the Buddha that said that.

It’s a very interesting perspective, as many people cross our paths in our life, sometimes for just a moment, sometimes a few weeks, a few months, some years or maybe a lifetime. It is the mind that judges and labels people ‘good’ or ‘bad’ based on our lenses that we view the world through. What if we accepted that each person has something to teach us and looked for that instead?

If we step away from the judgement and choose to look out to the exterior world without evaluation, then we see people for the soul that they are, we hear the words they actually say, we appreciate what they teach us. We truly see them and become willing to appreciate what they can offer to guide us or be an example to us.

Everything in life is an experience, and an opportunity to learn something or to just appreciate the beauty of each new experience. When we stop the ‘good’ or ‘bad’ label we appreciate this amazing moment of life for what it is, and each and every moment. We appreciate others instead of judging them.

It’s our evaluations that stop us growing not good or bad people, they only teach if we allow ourselves to see it.