If You Judge People...

“If you judge people, then you have no time to love them.” ~ Mother Theresa.

I read this comment this morning and it resonated to me on so many levels.

Very recently, I let go of a many years friendship. Among other reasons, I never felt quite loved by this person because without fail, there was always some criticism of me, who and what I was and how I did things. I should dye my hair; my house wasn’t tidy enough; I was crazy for liking a person; I dressed the wrong way, I liked the wrong things. All of it designed to infer that she knew better than me. For years I had thought I imagined it or that perhaps I was being too sensitive. Yet, every time this person left I had the vague sense that I was missing something.

In some ways letting go was an easy thing to do once I realized it had to be done. Fortunately, some chaotic energy presented itself and I was able to walk away from this person with her believing it was she who was abandoning me. There remained, however, a few lingering doubts for a couple of weeks. It was not until I learned this person said many hurtful things about me, some of which were outright lies, to a mutual friend that I realized I had no cause to feel one iota of remiss because the friendship was over. I was far better off without this person in my energy.

It took me many years to get to this point. Why? Because it was all so small, seemingly innocent and comments here and there that I wrote off as constructive criticism. This person claimed to love me. I couldn’t even consider that the hurtful things about who I was and how I was were said in anything other than love. But, a small trickle of water when combined with other small trickles of water becomes a mighty river. In the end, I realized that the criticisms that were spoken were not about me, but about fear of things different than her. Anything different than her understanding, choice or belief was ultimately labeled negative, even if at first I was assured the liberty to feel the way I felt about things.

It was a respected colleague's comments on a situation she was dealing with and posted the above quote that inspired me to delve into deeper levels of cognitive understanding.

Thank you Goddess for allowing me to have this experience.