Could we stop tearing people down?
When I started taking singing lessons at age 18, I was devastated. I could not enjoy music anymore like I used to. I couldn’t just feel the emotion, let the singer’s voice take me away. I started hearing the technique, the breathing, the pauses, the placement, the strain, the mistakes. I wasn’t just listening to music anymore; I was dissecting, analyzing, and judging. So much judgement. Oh, so much.
Several years later, as my technique became stronger, I let go of judgement and started enjoying the music again, appreciating it even more because I knew how hard it is to sing effortlessly. As I did that, I also became a better singer. I stopped trying too hard, focusing on the technique, judging myself for my imperfections.
The same thing happened to me when I took a karate lesson for the first time, a few years ago. They put you at the back of the class, and you have to look at the others do the moves. Again, judgement comes in. I started comparing techniques, who looked effortless, who looked sloppy. And yet, as I was sitting there in my pristine white kimono and my impeccable mani-pedi, I noticed that everyone else had a few things in common; their kimonos were grey and worn out, their knuckles swollen and bruised, the soles of their feet hardened and rough.
And here I was, a newbie, judging them, comparing them, observing them, because that’s the only thing I could really do.
When I started studying to become a coach, I had to practice coaching with a fellow student in front of the entire class. It was my first time coaching somebody. The rest of the class had a couple more runs before me. When the session was over, nearly every single one of my fellow students shred me to pieces. “This was not coaching! You did everything wrong! You gave advice, you asked leading questions, you spoke about yourself! It was terrible!” The teacher stood silent and let them finish. Then she asked the class “Do you all remember how bad you were the first time you coached somebody?”
No, we don’t. We have no awareness.
When we start to learn, and we gain a glimpse of insight, that’s when we are at our most judgmental. Maybe it’s because we are judging ourselves for not knowing this sooner, for being naïve and ignorant, and we project that inner judgement to the others around us. Maybe it’s because we have not yet done the work required, we don’t know how hard it is to be a Master. Our ego thinks that seeing is being, but this couldn’t be further from the truth.
Seeing is nothing without doing. And doing takes years before it becomes being. Judgment is easy. Doing and being is hard.
This is how you can really tell the Masters from the Initiates; the Masters do not judge, do not compare, do not diminish your efforts, they do not think themselves superior from those who do not have the knowledge or the skill. They have compassion because they actually know how hard it is to reach that level of Mastery.
Do you have compassion for those who do not know, do not see, do not understand? Or do you judge them, call them names, treat them like they are inferior?
As we are transcending into a new collective consciousness, a kinder, more collaborative human strives to be born.
Wouldn’t it be great if instead of trying to take people down from the sidelines, we join the race and see for ourselves how hard it is?
Wouldn’t it be nice if instead of dismissing others for their ignorance, we take the time to explain to them the things they do not yet know?
