Letting Go Of Judgments

In this talk and meditation practice, we examine the importance of letting go of judgments of good and bad, as a means to return to our natural state of wholeness. Judgments are conceptual abstractions of the mind; letting go allows us to experience reality as it is. In so doing, we unlock our unlimited potential to heal, transform, and grow, and thereby step more fully into who we are and who we are meant to be. This is a 20-minute talk followed by a 15-minute guided meditation.

Transcript

So,

Being human,

We live as individuated beings that are simultaneously striving for a sense of unity.

The sense of connection to everything around us is part of what brings meaning to life and helps us understand life on deeper levels.

And so we're stuck in this paradox of being human,

Of being individuated,

Yet simultaneously wishing to be one,

Connected to everything else.

And it's this kind of contrast within us that leads to a lot of the struggles that we have,

But also it's the struggles that lead to growth.

In my experience,

Part of what helps us to come to an understanding of that simultaneous duality and unity is really working with the mind and becoming aware of the mind.

Many of us will have thoughts going continually throughout the day that we aren't even aware of most of the time.

And I've mentioned this before,

A lot of times when we do meditative practices,

It will almost seem like the thoughts become even stronger because of meditation,

But really it's simply that we've calmed the mind enough that we're finally becoming aware of those thoughts that are constantly running in the background.

And most of those thoughts that are running in the background,

A lot of them have to do with fears about the future or thoughts of the past,

As well as judgments of good and bad.

There is a natural tendency to want to judge things as good and bad.

It comes from our history in the sympathetic nervous system,

Traumas that we've experienced,

And how those have impacted the way our mind perceives reality.

But if you look at a baby or a young child,

Especially one that has not had any significant trauma,

Although we all have trauma just from being born and coming into this world at some degree.

But if you look at babies and young children,

They just take everything in and they don't have judgments of good and bad and right and wrong.

They're just experiencing everything and taking it in in delight most of the time.

Even when they're crying,

Even when they're upset,

There's a purity and an underlying sense of connection to their experience that is beyond the realm of good and bad and right and wrong.

But as we get older,

We often start to have these judgments and we start to try to cultivate the good and avoid the bad because we don't want to experience pain.

We don't want to experience suffering.

When I was younger,

My parents listened to a lot of country music.

And there's this one song that always stuck with me quite a bit.

And there's a line from it saying,

Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers.

Because as much as we think we know what is good and bad for ourselves or for the world around us,

And we try to make that happen,

Ironically,

That often prevents us from having something even better.

And so we pray for X,

Y,

Z to happen.

We pray for,

When we were younger,

We might pray for a car or I remember having crushes on different girls in grade school and praying for them to like me.

And the thing is,

Is that we pray for these things or we ask for these things or we try to bring these things about.

And often they aren't what's actually best for us because that's the mind creating this idea of good and bad and then striving after what we believe is good or what will bring us joy and trying to avoid that which is bad.

And so sometimes those unanswered prayers that we have are the greatest blessings that we can receive.

If we were able to have everything that we thought we wanted as we wanted it,

Our lives would be very different.

They'd be much less interesting and we wouldn't grow as individuals.

And therefore we wouldn't get to have the opportunity to get to know ourselves on deeper and deeper levels.

Now as I said,

It's natural to still have that tendency.

I'm by no means trying to suggest that I no longer have judgments that arise about good and bad or what I want or don't want or things that I try to avoid or achieve.

It's natural.

What I do try to do is be aware of that and let go of attachment to the outcome.

It's often our attachment to life being a certain way that actually causes us so much more pain and suffering and angst than how life actually is.

And so when we let go of attachment to outcome,

We can be more present with things as they are,

With ourselves as we are,

With life as it is.

And in that way we can learn from the experiences that we have,

Both pleasant and unpleasant experiences.

But that's part of becoming more grounded within ourselves and becoming patient.

Because as long as we're striving after something else and attached to life being a different way,

We're never being present with how things are.

And we're not being open to the possibility that even though something might be difficult right now,

It might actually be one of the greatest blessings that we can receive in this lifetime.

There's a whole theory or perspective called pronoia.

So pronoia is a sneaking suspicion that the universe is in a conspiracy to do you well.

And so when we look at things from this perspective,

Even though it can be difficult,

We open up to the possibility that whatever we're experiencing in this moment is exactly what we need and that we have all of the tools available right here,

Right now,

For our experience in this moment,

For what we need to move forward and to grow.

It can be difficult to let go of judgments,

To let go of attachment to what we want.

But when we really sink into it,

When we move our consciousness interiorly and find that space of peace that we can attain through meditative practices,

Through being in nature,

We realize that we are all on this journey.

And when we look back on our journey,

Oftentimes it's some of the most difficult,

Painful things that we've experienced that we never would have want to have experienced that bring us the greatest learning and growth and sometimes joy.

When I moved to Boston to go to Harvard Divinity School,

I had left a thriving practice.

I had left financial stability that I'd had for the first time in my entire adult life,

Even financial freedom.

I was seeing 50 to 60 patients a week and was doing really well on that front,

But I knew that I wanted to do more and I wanted to be able to write and teach on a different level.

And I knew that that would require more education.

And I didn't want to do it at some level,

But I knew it was what would be most necessary.

It was uncomfortable.

I could have stayed where I was and been quite comfortable.

So I make this move and starting a new clinical practice in a new place while being in grad school full time at Harvard and feeling completely overwhelmed.

And halfway through the first semester,

I'm riding my bike and I got hit by a car.

I was riding this way and the car came and t-boad me from the side going about probably 30,

35 miles an hour.

And I went flying and the ambulance showed up and I had such an adrenaline rush.

They asked me how I was doing.

I was like,

Oh,

I feel fine.

You know,

I'm good.

You know,

A little sore,

But I'm doing all right.

And they tried to convince me to go with them to the hospital to get an MRI and get checked out.

And I was like,

No,

I'm good.

So I went home and over the next two to three hours,

My body slowly became completely stiff and contracted and painful and stayed that way for the next two to three days.

And for the next two to three days,

I basically laid in bed and only got up to go to the bathroom.

And it was a half hour journey to go to the bathroom because every single movement hurt so intensely.

Eventually,

After three months,

I finally went in to get an MRI to confirm that I had a bulging disc because I had presumed that that's what the case at that point,

Because most everything had subsided except for I had an excruciating pain in my lower back and sciatic pain rating down my left leg.

It was so bad that for the rest of that first semester,

I had to stand through all of my classes because if I sat for more than 30 seconds,

I would feel this excruciating pain.

I couldn't practice yoga.

I couldn't run.

I could barely do any kind of physical exercise,

Which had been a big part of my life.

And I still had to go to classes,

Make my way there.

I still had to work on building a practice and seeing patients while being in excruciating pain.

Now,

Obviously,

If anyone had asked me before that moment,

Would you like to get hit by a car and have excruciating pain for months on end?

I would have said no,

Of course not.

And yet there were so many blessings that came from that,

That at this moment,

If I had the choice to take it back,

I wouldn't because it so fundamentally changed who I am,

My relationship to myself,

My relationship to physical pain and suffering,

And my relationship to patients and to other human beings.

You know,

I had always considered myself a caring person,

And I worked with a lot of patients that had debilitating chronic pain.

After having that experience myself,

It changed my relationship to it.

It also helped me to learn so much more about how to treat those kinds of issues because after going through it myself,

I tried everything and I learned so much through that process.

My meditation practice changed drastically because that was one of the few things that I could do.

And it was meditation that helped me to work with being present,

Even though I was in extreme pain.

Because a lot of times when we have a lot of pain,

The tendency is to want to get away from it.

And again,

That's natural.

There's no judgment in that.

But often when we try to get away from it,

We actually concretize the pain.

I don't know what my life would have been had I not had that experience.

There were moments months after when the pain had mostly subsided when I actually missed having that pain.

Because I don't know that there's ever been a time in my life that I've been so utterly completely present.

There were times when the pain was so overwhelming that there was no way for me to get away from it.

And all I could do was be completely present with every single excruciating moment.

And again,

While I wouldn't necessarily wish that on anyone,

I've never been that present in my entire life because I was forced to be.

And that's the thing is that a lot of times it's the difficult moments in our lives,

The painful excruciating moments that make us more present that forces to grow.

While it's nice to have things be nice and comfortable,

To be pleasant,

And it's important to have times of that for rest and for healing.

When we are comfortable,

We don't necessarily grow a lot.

And that's okay.

But part of our path here,

I truly believe,

Is to grow,

To become more fully who we are meant to be.

And oftentimes it's the pain and the difficulty that pushes us in those directions.

And so letting go of judgments of good and bad allows us to be a little bit more present with what we're experiencing.

Even if we don't want it,

Even if we don't like it,

If we can at least make a small cognitive switch to be open to the fact that we might not want this,

But this is what our experience is,

And maybe there's blessings within this,

It opens our ability to grow and to learn from them and possibly even to cherish those difficult moments of good and bad.

Another aspect that can help is to realize that we don't know the future.

And so we don't know what alternate realities would occur if we had our wishes or if we don't have our wishes.

There's another story,

A parable that I like a lot that illustrates this,

That I often use with patience.

The story goes that there was this old farmer and he had a son and they lived outside of this little village and all they had was this one kind of older,

A little bit mangy horse and their land that they would work and plow and produce food from.

And it wasn't a glamorous lifestyle,

They weren't wealthy by any means,

But they made enough to survive.

They had each other and their horse.

And one day their horse escaped,

Escaped from the corral and was gone.

And all the people from the village came out and they said,

Oh,

You're so poor and now you've lost your only horse.

How are you going to be able to plow your field?

How are you going to be able to produce food?

This is so bad.

And the old man just looked at them and said,

How do you know that it's bad?

And the people were kind of consternated and put off and they went back to their homes.

And a couple of days later,

The horse returned and following it were three wild horses that were young and healthy and vibrant.

And they followed the old horse right into the corral and they closed them in.

And now they had four horses.

The people came out from the town and said,

Oh my gosh,

Your horse returned and now you have three more horses.

You're so much better off.

This is so good.

And he just looked at them and said,

How do you know that this is good?

And they were again,

Oh,

Whatever,

You're a crazy old man.

And they went back to their village.

A few days later,

The son was trying to break in one of the new horses and he got bucked off and he fell and broke his leg.

And with a broken leg,

He wasn't going to be able to help with the farm and the farm was really old and wouldn't be able to do much.

And so the people came out again.

They said,

Oh,

Your only son has broken his leg and now you won't be able to cultivate the field and you're going to starve.

This is so bad.

And the old man just said,

How do you know that this is bad?

A couple of weeks later,

A massive war broke out throughout the country and the army came through and conscripted all able-bodied young men.

And all of the men from the town were conscripted and went to war and it was a very bloody war and most of them were killed and never came back to the village.

But the old man's son couldn't go because he had a broken leg.

Good,

Bad?

It's hard to say.

And it's only with time and patience and broadening our perspective to see more than what is happening right in front of us that sometimes if we're very fortunate,

We can start to receive glimpses into how all of these different pieces,

All of the experiences of our life,

All of the experiences in the world fit together to make one cohesive whole unfolding over time with difficult moments and moments of joy.

But we couldn't have life without all of those different moments weaving in and out together.

As we let go of judgments of good and bad,

It becomes easier to calm the nervous system,

To move from the sympathetic,

The fight,

Flight,

And freeze to the parasympathetic response.

And that gives us the ability to be grounded within ourselves as we take in all that is occurring that might seem like it's good or bad that we may not want to be happening.

And just be patient to see what gifts it might bring.

One last little thing before we go into the practice.

One of my favorite etymological definitions.

For those of you who might not know,

The etymology of the word patience is the calm enduring of suffering.

And as we are patient,

We receive those gifts that the suffering might bring us.

So today,

The practice that we're going to do is designed to help bring us more internally and to ground us and to bring us more into the parasympathetic nervous system.

The rest,

Digest,

And heal.

Because for most of us,

We're continually in the sympathetic.

There's so much going on in the world.

So much stress in our own individual lives.

And it's easy to end up reacting from a place of fear of what might happen,

Of the bad that might happen.

So moving into the parasympathetic helps ground us so that we can make decisions from our heart and from a place of love rather than fear.

From a place of connectedness and unity to the world around us and to other people rather than divisiveness and judgment.

So the first part of the practice will involve alternate nostril breathing.

So if you have Kleenex handy,

You may want to blow your nose if your nose has any clogging in it.

And I'll just demonstrate it really quickly.

You'll use your fingers.

There's different traditions that say to use specific fingers for now,

Whatever is comfortable and accessible for you.

I tend to use my thumb on the,

I'll use my left hand and I'll use my thumb on the left side of my nostril,

On the nose and my middle finger on the right side.

And what we're going to do is we'll take a couple of breaths with both nostrils open and then you'll use your thumb to close your left nostril and open the right.

And then you will breathe in through the right,

Close the right nostril with your middle finger and then exhale through the left and then inhale through the left nostril,

Close the left nostril with your thumb and open the right and then exhale out the right.

And we'll do several rounds of this and then we'll move into abdominal breathing as we settle into the body and calm the nervous system.

This helps to balance the left and right hemispheres of the brain as well as to balance the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems.

If you have trouble breathing in or out through one of your nostrils,

You can use whichever digit is on that side to press the opposite way on your cheek to open it more.

So like if I'm closing my left and I'm wanting to breathe more through my right,

I take my middle finger and I push at the base of the nostril out to the side towards the ear to help stretch open the nostril a little bit more.

And if you really have trouble breathing through the nostril at all,

Then you can just imagine visualizing breathing air in through the one and then out through the other.

Okay,

So find a comfortable seat,

Making sure that your knees are below your hips,

Your spine rising up towards heaven.

As always,

If you need to lay down,

You're welcome to do so,

But I generally recommend doing this sitting up if you're able.

Make sure that your head is centered over your spine and shoulders.

Shoulders relax back and down.

Gently close your eyes,

Becoming aware of your breath.

Gently breathing in and out through your nostrils.

Gently scan the body and release any unnecessary tension,

Relaxing the muscles of the face,

The eyes,

The jaw,

The neck and shoulders,

The torso,

The hips,

Feeling the stability of the floor or ground or chair beneath you.

Just gently breathing in and out through both nostrils,

Feeling the flow of air moving in and out through each nostril.

Okay,

Now bringing your hand up to your nose.

Gently close your left nostril,

Inhale through the right.

As you reach the top of the breath,

Gently close the right nostril and open the left,

Exhaling out the left nostril.

When you reach the bottom of the exhale,

Gently inhale through the left nostril,

Reaching the top of the inhale,

Close the left nostril and exhale out the right.

Continue on at your own pace,

Inhaling through the right nostril,

Closing the right,

Exhaling through the left.

Inhaling through the left,

Closing the left and exhaling through the right.

Inhale through the right,

Exhaling through the left and exhaling through the right.

Exhale through the right,

Exhaling through the left and exhaling through the right.

When you finish the round that you're on,

Finishing with an exhalation through the right nostril.

Gently release your hand and gently breathe in and out through both nostrils.

As you continue to gently breathe in and out through both nostrils,

Allow your consciousness,

Your awareness to move towards the back of your body,

Back of your head,

Your spine,

The muscles of your back,

And then down towards your lower back.

Letting consciousness move towards the back of the body and down until it comes to rest in the space of your lower abdomen.

As you feel the awareness concentrating in the lower abdomen,

Begin gently abdominal breathing,

Allowing your chest and shoulders to remain relaxed and still,

With every in-breath through the nostrils allowing the abdomen to gently expand,

With every exhale allowing them to gently contract.

It doesn't have to be a super deep breath.

Whatever is comfortable and accessible in this moment.

Below we first have the feet.

Letting the breath flow in and out through the nostrils.

Letting the awareness focused in the lower abdomen.

Start to become aware of the inner stillness.

The stillness that lies beneath all movement,

Beneath all sensation in the body.

As you attune to that stillness,

Become aware of how in that stillness there is space to be present with your experience,

Just as it is in this moment.

Any discomforts or pain that you might have in the body.

Bring the stillness of awareness to that area.

Realize how you can experience that sensation without attaching to it,

Without judging it as good or bad.

Just experiencing it with an open curiosity.

In this stillness.

We realize that we have all that we need to manage our experience in this present moment.

We have the strength,

The fortitude,

The patience,

The curiosity,

The compassion,

The wisdom,

And the love.

To be present with ourselves as we are,

And to be present with the world as it is.

Becoming aware of the felt sense of the body as a whole.

The stability of the ground beneath you.

The openness and freedom of the air around you.

Try to maintain a connection to this inner stillness as you gently,

Kindly,

With curiosity,

Begin to open your eyes and take in the world around you.

We do not know what the future will bring.

We can be sure that pretty much all of us will face difficulty at some point in the future,

Whether that's sooner or later.

We can be pretty sure that the world will not conform to what our mind wants it to be.

But what we can do is cultivate a grounding in this inner stillness and a curiosity towards what may come and the beauty and the gifts that may arise even out of the darkest moments.

So just for today,

Try to be aware of your mind.

And when it starts going into a place of wanting things to be different than they are,

Just gently say to yourself,

Just for today,

I'll let that go.

Be present with what is right now.

Most of us are fortunate in that our lives are not in immediate danger in this very moment.

Most of the fear is about what might come in the future,

The unknown.

Just for today,

If you are in a place that is safe,

Then just be present with that and allow tomorrow to take care of itself and trust that when tomorrow comes,

You will have the resources within you to face whatever it might bring.

Thank you all for taking the time out of your day to join me,

To join all of us.

I'm grateful for your presence.

If anyone has any questions,

I'm here.

You can also contact me via email.

And I'm just honored to be here with you.

Thank you.

Reviews

i love this talk and meditation . you made some really good points and i’ll go back and listen again 🙏namaste

Thank you for the lovely journey to stillness and okednes.
Loved the breathing practices 🙏

I love love love your approach. Your talk and sharing of your experience gives me a feeling of connection. Reminding me that we all have struggles and how sometimes they end up being a blessing. Thank you, Namaste.

Just for today. Let it go.
☁️ Comforting words to go into the night. 🐦‍⬛

Resonates! Thank you Thomas. Grace made perfect through weakness, suffering a pathway to peace.

Softening, allowing presence. Letting go of desired outcomes in the reilization that I already have all that is needed. 🙏🏻🐢🕯️❤️‍🔥🦋

Thank you, Thomas! I'm so grateful to have found your talks and meditations, they really resonate with me. I am healing through ME/CFS for 4.5 years now, and like you say, we grow from our challenges. I enjoy the structure of talk + meditation that you present. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and compassion 🙏

This is such a powerful lesson! I love the parable. Thank you.

Never ceases to amaze me with a lesson that is so profound. Thank you!

Thank you 🙏🏽
Very good energy in your voice, feeling Calm in my belly and lower back.

It feels Divine in my Life to discover you now. I am in a place to truly open to your message…and evolve. I am so very grateful for you and your beautiful gentle energy and powerful wisdom…🙏🏻♥️

This meditation was full of gem! Thank you so much 🙏🏿

Thank you Thomas for this morning’s teaching and practice. A good reminder to accept what life brings without the judgement of it being good or bad.

Thank you

Excellent practice for the present Reality.
🙏🏼

Magical!!!! 🧘🏻‍♀️

Profoundly perfect message for today (and every day.) So grateful, dear Thomas.🙏💚

Marvelous
Thx for your wisdom

Wonderful talk. As a practitioner myself, I share these concepts with my patients. Thank you for your insight. 🌟

Astounding insights here again Thomas. I plan to hold these words in mind and be with what is today. Namaste 🙏

Perfect!..✨🙏✨👌👌