{"id":741,"date":"2019-06-01T21:57:09","date_gmt":"2019-06-01T19:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.menteyemociones.com\/en\/?p=741"},"modified":"2020-01-14T15:11:40","modified_gmt":"2020-01-14T14:11:40","slug":"mindfulness-no-judgment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.menteyemociones.com\/en\/mindfulness-no-judgment\/","title":{"rendered":"Could we live life without judging it?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"We live our lives from the interpretation of our minds. <\/span>It follows us wherever we go, giving us every second a report of what we live, including a continuous evaluation of whether it,s good or bad, better or worse than something else, and what should or should we change.<\/span><\/span>
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According to scientists we have around 60,000 thoughts a day, and 90% of those are .. the same as the day before! <\/span>That is, we rarely have a fresh, new, spontaneous thought, according to the present moment!<\/span>Instead of living reality, we interpret it and, based on what we tell ourselves, we experience it one way or another .. According to what we think, we feel, and according to that, we act .. In addition, we live with a tendency to negativity, <\/span>which means that our brain is always fixing and memorizing the negative experiences (to protect us from danger).<\/span><\/p>\n

So, if one day you get up tired or depressed, the one responsible for feeling this way may be some thought that has been evaluating things for you.. something that you,re telling yourself about what you lived the previous day or last week or in the <\/span>last 6 months.. <\/span><\/p>\n

In the worst case scenario, that interpretation may end up telling you how terrible your life is and how flawed you are for not knowing how to handle it better (or you end up criticizing others and blaming them for what happens to you<\/span>..)<\/span><\/p>\n

If you wake up happy and at ease, surely your mind will assign to external causes that state of happiness and try to control things so that everything stays as it is: clinging to situations, things or people that supposedly have generated that state, and creating strategies <\/span>to perpetuate it, not allowing it to come and go lightly.
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The negativity bias
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\n<\/span><\/strong>But what affects us the most is when our mind becomes negative. <\/span>Left to its automatic functioning, the part of the mind responsible for our survival (the most primitive part of the brain) continually creates thoughts of concern that try to figure out things or avoid the pain that things cause us as they are (not as we would like).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That,s<\/span> what scientists call ‘the negativity bias’. <\/span>Not being able to find creative solutions to ‘fix’ what is supposed to be ‘wrong’ in the present moment, the mind limits itself to create judgments, which generate a cascade of emotions and reactions that can make the situation much worse.<\/span><\/p>\n

These judgments tend to be critical and devalue reality and us, which generates us guilt, shame, anxiety, stress, nervousness … that in turn creates painful feelings of separation, loneliness, frustration, disability.. This<\/span> creates a vicious circle that is very difficult to break, because of how identified we are with the whole story.
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And all this, why? And how mindfulness can help<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

There are parts of our brain that, by evolution, are not designed to accept things as they are, but only to solve problems, real or imagined. This areas are there to make sure that our genes survive and a next generation can exist. <\/span>Those parts dominate us most of the time.<\/span><\/p>\n

When it perceives a danger (physical or emotional) that part of the brain starts to create stories about what happens to us based on the past: according to painful emotional experiences, ideas learned about reality, prejudices, traumas … stories, erroneous and unproductive interpretations <\/span>, and they gain strength every time we believe them. <\/span><\/p>\n

We usually follow them for years, sometimes even our whole lives. <\/span>That,s quite the opposite of acceptance, the basis of a mindful attitude, which invites us to look and accept reality as it is, without judging, and thus we will be free of suffering.<\/span><\/p>\n

Instead of A BEING THAT IS EXISTING MOMENT BY MOMENT<\/strong>, and that always has the freedom to choose to respond to the present moment in a creative way, counting on all its resources and wisdom, a part of the mind always judges reality and says that it,s not right<\/span>, and it also can tell you that YOU ARE DEFECTIVE AND YOU HAVE TO CHANGE!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n


\n<\/span>Stopping our minds with radical acceptance<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

But, what would it mean to live life without judging it? What would happen if, instead of choosing our mind,s judgments, we would limit ourselves to embrace everything as it is? <\/span>Exactly as it is? <\/span>Uncomplainingly?. <\/span>What would happen if we could look at everything we are, everything we feel, everything we do and everything that we live with a clean, fresh, new look, without judgments, with an open heart, without comments? <\/span>Accepting what is moment to moment?<\/span><\/p>\n

What would happen is that we could choose to do or think something new every moment. <\/span>This seems impossible to achieve, but we can train our minds to do that moment by moment, which is the basis of mindfulness.<\/span><\/p>\n

To better understand what it means not to judge, here are the words of #Jon Kabat Zinn :
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