Judgement

A very long time ago, in the first year of my recovery, someone told me about the Course in Miracles. I studied it for about a year and attended a class. I'm not going to tell you that the Course was totally wonderful because I didn't understand the bulk of it, and I had a healthy scepticism about the whole thing. But one thing stuck with me, and I relearn it over and over again.

Basically, the course says that the source of most of our emotional pain comes from our judgements of ourselves, circumstances, and other people. It says that our judgmentalness comes from our egos. We think we know what other people really mean, what their motivations are, etc. And since we are not Gods, we actually have no idea what is really true, but we act on our judgments and cause havoc for ourselves and other people.

I'm usually reminded of this concept when I'm being judged by someone else and I'm sure I'm innocent. I've had this happen several times in my life and it caused me no end of grief. As time has passed, I've begun to realize that I've spent a good deal of time in my life assuming I knew all kinds of things I didn't know and acting on those assumptions. The Course in Miracles says that we should assume that everyone is innocent; including ourselves and that any bad behavior be interpreted as the person acting out fear and needing love. That new assumption will certainly take the rest of my life to integrate, but I would be willing to bet would pay off in a lot of peace as well as a lot of extra time saved when I can do something else besides judge!