From Judgment to Love
Judgment: She’s so unreliable.
Compassion: How does that feel in your heart?
Judgment: Angry, frustrated. I want to push her away.
Compassion: Where do you feel that in your body?
Judgment: A irritable burning in the solar plexus. Building pressure in the back of the chest.
Compassion: Feel the anger without going into the story about her.
Judgment: I don’t like it.
Compassion: You don’t like what?
Judgment: I don’t like…. her. the situation. I feel a sadness, a hole.
Compassion: Welcome this too. Feel it, just as it is.
Judgment: I don’t like feeling like an empty hole.
Compassion: Who doesn’t like feeling like an empty hole?
Me: I guess judgment doesn’t. The ego who wants to be whole, happy, and vibrant already.
Compassion: Good. Join me as compassion and feel the ego who doesn’t like the present moment. How does it feel?
Me: I notice a lot more space, stillness, and silence now. The breath feels like it’s stretching putty. There seems to be some sharpness or hardness in the heart area.
Compassion: Accepting this experience exactly as it is, open the heart and be.
Me: [Resting in silence.]
Compassion: Holding the intention to soften and release, watch what happens without grasping.
Me: I feel a sad longing.
Compassion: What do you long for?
Me: Love from a woman.
Compassion: How old do you feel?
Child: I’m not sure. I feel helpless, young, looking to someone else for affirmation.
Compassion: What do you want?
Child: I want to be cherished. I want to be looked at with total joy and adoration just for being, no matter much drool or food is smeared across my face.
Compassionate Mother: Come into my arms, sweet child. Let me rock you. [Singly softly as she holds me to her chest.]
Child: Is this real? Can I trust this?
Mother: Love knows no bounds. Unconditional love is not limited by space and time. I am here for you, as I have always been. I love you so intimately and deeply. You have never been alone, and never need to beg for love again.
Child: [The nectar of love nourishes the body. Loving touch invites more soul energy into the physical body. The child begins to feel the boundaries of the body as a container for himself. He begins to feel more welcome and safe in the physical world. The expectation of lack and attack seems like a dream that has lifted.]
Judgment: I am not a child and will not be seen this way.
Wisdom: Yes, you are not a child. But you want to be versatile and flexible. Don’t you want to understand many life experiences? This experience might help you know how to handle children with empathy. It might help you be an effective adult with more natural ease. Why not give up rigid self-images and rules?
Judgment: Very well, I will try. Humility is part of my ideal self-image, so I will not object. Thank you for recognizing our capabilities and adulthood as well.
Wisdom: I know you want to grow, and you are so capable of that. And I also wonder — why is it so important to be seen a certain way?
Judgment: Nobody will love us if we act like a little child. That’s toxic masculinity and you get shunned for that.
Wisdom: Aw, you’re scared of being alone. So while the child is longing for love, you’re scared that you don’t qualify for love the way that you are?
Judgment: Yes, and so I scheme strategies to at least get some connection and love.
Wisdom: My friend, this is dishonest. You don’t need to be any way other than the way that you are. We will love you right now. What is it that you want?
Judgment: I’m skeptical, but I want… not the helpless love of a mother for a child, but the love of peers who admire and respect me.
Wisdom: Very well. Feel the longing for admiration and respect for a moment.
Longing: I want to be well-liked. I want to be known. I want my life to matter.
Love: I like you, friend. I appreciate your humor and honesty. I know you deeply. Life and you matter equally for me, for you are the essence of life.
Longing: There is a deep desire to serve, to touch the hearts who suffer. The people in prisons or corporations or hospitals who don’t know the meaning of life, who don’t know who they are.
Love: You are myself, dear one, longing to extend the good, holy, and beautiful to our brothers and sisters.
Longing: I long to know myself as love. Longing feels incomplete, tinged with grief.
Love: Grief is love too. Sometimes when I see people who are so caught in anger they kill or so caught in fear they give up on their creativity for a stale job, I too feel pain. I feel with them, with compassion.
Longing: Yes, I know these experiences. I see how these outside people are no different than myself. I see how it’s like that poem by Naomi Shihab Nye that says, “it is only kindness that makes sense anymore.”
Love: How would kindness be? What does kindness want to say? How does kindness act?
Longing: Naturally. Without shoulds or ideals. The energy of it flows and feels joyful. There is a trust in life and availability to be amazed by the dancing leaves or the miraculous slide of a slug. I feel present.
Love: Who feels present?
Me: I. The awareness that I am.
Love: I also dwell here.
Me: I figured. I’m glad we are together for this one. A sangha of two is already so helpful. Thank you for your kindness, presence, support, and wisdom.
Love: Thank you for your availability to life, and to this unfolding evolution of the world. It’s really remarkable times, and so much love is flowing into the world right now.
Us: May the love that we are be the ground for our being. May love benefit all beings everywhere. May there be more peace, joy, and harmony because we have lived today. Thank you.
Alex Garver has spent his life cultivating presence and kindness in the presence of suffering. He graduated college with a degree in psychology, survived a kundalini awakening, and ordained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand. He uses Alchemical Hypnotherapy to help people awaken and embody their higher selves.
