How Much Energy Do You Expend Judging Alzheimer's Disease?

Have you ever thought about how much energy you put into judging whether things in your life are good or bad, or right or wrong? We seem to spend a lot of energy judging both ourselves and others and then beating ourselves up over the conclusion, when either we or others don't measure up to our expectations.

I set out on a project which included observation of the number of times in a day that I judged something, either external to me or within myself. I was amazed at how many of my thoughts included judgement of some sort. When Jessie was alive,  I spent a lot of time judging the nature of Alzheimer's disease and that it was wrong and/or bad. I judged her behavior and I judged my responses to both her and the disease.

What would happen if we removed judgement from our life? What would it be like if we didn't judge anything as good or bad, right or wrong, rather just accepted "what is".  I've been playing around a little bit with this concept and I have to say I'm definitely more content and peaceful when I remove the judgement and live with what is. We spend a lot of time and energy torturing ourselves mentally with judgement and not only does this affect us, but also relationships with other people.

Spend some time today noticing how frequently you judge things and the nature of your judgements. It's quite ironic that as I'm sitting here, I am thinking about how I have hurt my lower back and how bad it is. I'm thinking about the things I had planned to do in the next few days and that I won't be able to do them. I'm spending a lot of time judging and am reminded that I can replace the judgement with "what is".  As soon as I reminded myself of this, I felt more peaceful.

There is a prayer in The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, that would serve us well to reflect upon: "Help us to love others just the way they are with no conditions. Help us to accept them the way they are without judgement, because if we judge them, we find them guilty, we blame them, and we have the need to punish them." I would also add that we could replace the "them" with the 'I" and extend the prayer to ourselves as well as others!