Mirroring and Judgement

June 16th, 2009

When I am in judgment about someone it is usually a reaction to an underlying misconception about myself.

I perceive myself as being weak in some fashion. I see a simliar quality in the other person – they mirror this quality back at me. Rather than confront the fact that I am holding myself in judgment, or looking at my weaknesses and working on them – the ego jumps right in and attacks the other person – diverting attention away from the real issue – which is always my own personal transformation.

Using this perspective, I can begin to take any negative view of another person and ask myself β€œto what degree do I share in that negative quality that I am judging the other person for?” “To what degree am I falsely identified with that quality myself?” “How does this false identification disempower me?” Or conversely – “To what extent is this weakness in fact something that I actually need to be looking at? To what extent can I make an effort to change this about myself?”

All this can be done from a grounded and loving perspective.

The idea is to arrive at a deeper understanding of how I perceive myself in the world and my relations with others. To view both myself and others in a kind and loving fashion. To recognize that my judgments about others are really just a distraction from doing the deeper work that I need to do on my own path.