500 Words a Week - Judgement
“What I mean by judgement is the act of assigning a negative or positive value to an event.” - W Timothy Gallwey
In “The Inner Game of Tennis”, Gallwey discuss’ this topic of judgement, and about how in most cases when we find ourselves stumbling into judgement we are limiting our own capacities and performance.
Gallwey talks about how judgement extends itself in relation to a tennis swing. “It may begin by complaining, “What a lousy serve”, then extend to, “I’m serving badly today”. After a few more “bad” serves, the judgement may become further extended to “I have a terrible serve”. Then, “I’m a lousy tennis player”, and finally, “I’m no good”.
We see how the judgement cycle can begin with one little off action, and before we know it we are judging our very character. We may not be familiar with the tennis analogy Gallwey uses, but if we reflect, we have probably gone through this same cycle in something we enjoy doing.
“First the mind judges the event, then groups events, then identifies with the combined event and finally judges itself. As a result, what usually happens is that these self-judgements become self-fulfilling prophecies.” This is how we limit ourselves, in that we become what we think of ourselves.
How do we overcome this?
“Letting go of judgements does not mean ignoring errors. It simply means seeing events as they are and not adding anything to them.” It’s creating space between the event and us rushing to judgement. “Judgemental labels usually lead to emotional reactions and then to tightness, trying too hard, self-condemnation, etc.”
We can slow this process by using descriptive but non judgemental words to describe the events we see or experience.
Our first step towards creating space between an event and judgement, as Gallwey says is: “The first step is to see your strokes as they are”. To see your actions as they are. Merely a moment in time for which we can learn and develop from. In rushing to judgement, we trap ourselves in a self-limiting cycle, causing us to tighten up, and limiting our performance.
This judgement goes beyond our hobbies or our work into our very life itself. We can become some wound up around evaluating whether what we are experiencing is good or not, we lost sight of what is going on around is. We lose our ability to be present in the moment, without judging what’s happening or comparing what’s happening now to what could have been had we made a decision.
Similar to how Gallwey recommends us to improve our tennis stroke, in life, we must recognise what’s happening around us for what it is, without rushing to judgement.
The above reminds me of a quote from Mark Twain, “I've had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.”
When we let it, our mind has the uncanny ability to see the negative in every situation, in our every action. It’s only be us becoming more aware of these thoughts we find ourself slipping into are we able to help ourself.
