New life motto: don’t be a dick 🙅🏼♀️
Judgment is a buzzkill to connection. Here's how we can integrate awareness and not let it take over, with some personal anecdotes and realizations.
I’m convinced that we all have one unifying purpose: deep connection.
And while connecting with someone can come in various levels (spiritual, energetic, physical, etc.), I’m calling attention to communication today.
Language is a defining human characteristic. Our ability to think, learn and communicate is what makes us uniquely different from all other animals.
And, it’s what I feel most of us are doing a mediocre job at, at best.
Go spend a few minutes swiping through social media or a dating app and tell me you disagree.
As a kid, I used to dream of a world where everyone said exactly what their heart was telling them.
I remember overhearing conversations around me: at restaurants, on planes, amongst teachers at school, and thinking I wonder why they just said “I’m fine” when clearly they’re not. Or hearing someone brag about the weekend they had when it seemed obvious it wasn’t great, or offering up some self-deprecating comment to get people to laugh at their own cost. In these moments, I’d think to myself, why are they saying that? That’s not true.
I didn’t realize it then, but I had this ability to peel away the layers of protection that had built up over time and could easily feel who someone was, at their most authentic level.
This got me in a bit of trouble as a kid, not knowing I shouldn’t speak up and announce what I thought they actually meant. It got me in even more trouble as an adult. Because understanding who someone is at their core, their most authentic layer, doesn’t mean that person is going to show up and be that in this lifetime. And, it’s not my job to help them either.
Oh, but how I always want to. (This is me admitting to one of my patterns).
The truth is, only some of us will learn the secret to life, our unifying purpose to deeply connect. And of those people, only a percent will actually do the work to go beyond the awareness and integrate it into their day to day reality.
So, here’s my theory: the people you end up loving in this lifetime, and the ones who stay in your life for many, many years, are the the ones who are on the same level of integration (which means going beyond awareness and living it through language and actions).
When a relationship with a close friend or lover ends, ask yourself:
Did you graduate from them, or the other way around?
Was there work you ignored?
A pattern you kept repeating?
I've found that relationships end when there was an opportunity present for you both to grow, and you either took it or you didn’t.
My proof?
Have you noticed that when a relationship ends, the same problems present themselves up in other relationships? You get past the honeymoon stage and wham! There’s those red flags again. This moment tells you more about you, and where you didn’t grow, than about them. But, we always make it about them, don’t we? The ego is devious like that.
Like the saying goes: no matter where you go, there you are. I think that was Confucius. So wise.
On a walk earlier this year with a dear friend, he said something that stuck with me. He said “people tell you exactly who they are, you just have to listen.” I’ve thought about how this truth shows up in my life. I agree with him. And, I realized I’m still learning to listen (because we listen with so many different parts of ourselves).
Until recently, I’ve listened with the part of me that deeply feels others and is helplessly hopeful. When I listen from that place, I don’t listen to how I feel around them. I don’t take the words they say at face value, I paint a grander story than what is actually true. This is where my work lies in improving my capacity to communicate. Because communication is equal parts what we say and what we hear.
It’s taken me a long time to realize that the gift I have to feel others’ truth is beautiful, but it also means in some ways that I don’t accept them as they are. Years ago, I heard a friend say “don’t date someone for their potential.” If you don’t accept them exactly as they are today, let them go. Damn, I’m grateful to have so many wise friends.
I’ve noticed in my new listening practice that when there’s a high concentration of acceptance, I feel a much deeper sense of connection. And when I don’t, I now have a map of where my pain still lives and opportunity for growth lies.
I went back and forth over text yesterday with a bestie exploring the dangers of the ego in early stages of spiritual exploration… yes, this is what me and my friends text about. I love where we landed.
I told her, in my opinion, that judgment (ego) comes from the deep knowing in a person that they haven’t integrated the very thing they are judging in another person, and they unconsciously hate themselves for it.
It’s a very painful reality for a human to have awareness, but not actually allow the internal shifts to take place to live more authentically. And when it hasn’t happened yet, they become kind of a dick. In this theory, the people with the highest levels of awareness, but the least amount of integration are the biggest dicks.
And thus the title of this entry finally makes sense.
We all know these people.
They’re hard to miss. Wandering around with pain on their sleeves. Consciously unaware that their judgment is a complete buzzkill robbing themselves of authentic connection.
There’s a likelihood that some of you reading this are these people. 👀
My recommendation to you: do the work, and on your road to self-actualization, don’t be a dick.
It’s no fun for you, and definitely not fun for the graveyard of humans you leave behind along the way. I went through this stage when I was a vegan a hundred years ago. Man, I was hard to be around. To the friends who made it through that phase with me, I love you and thank you for your patience.
So, how do we move past our judgements? Otherwise put, how do we integrate our awareness so we can be open, loving, accepting and present?
The thing that’s helped me the most is my curiosity. My coach says that curiosity is the emergency break for judgment. That stuck with me. Because it’s impossible to be curious and judgmental at the same time.
Here are some tips to move past your judgements:
Get really good at asking open-ended questions
Learn to truly listen to what someone is saying, versus building stories or making meaning of what you heard
Check in on how you feel around that person after you leave
Notice when you get defensive, insecure or when you’re exaggerating your communication. That’s usually where the work lies.
^ integrate this and you are GOLDEN. ⭐
Not a dick,
Ashley
