When we visited the beautiful people over at Youth Nation yesterday to see where we’re at with YogaHub and HappyFood‘s social media and stuff they told us that our ‘marketing’, along with everyone elses’, should be all about storytelling. Why? Because we all love stories. We love movies, books, comedians, blogs, catching up with friends over coffee and ‘having the chats’. It’s all stories!
What’s so valuable to realise here is that most of what’s going on inside our heads is just the same. It’s how we frame things. With Stories. We have a story about ourself which we can equate to our identity. We have a story about each and every one of our relationships. We have stories that the news, the internet and social media tell us. You don’t believe everything you see on TV though do you?
So could a lot of the stories that you’re telling yourself about other people, situations or yourself be something other than the truth? Our point of reference or how we see the world is seen with the coloured glasses of our past stories. We make sense of our own existence through our own stories. We compare and contrast stories of ourselves but much more so of others. Did you ever judge somebody for doing something that you thought not cool and then realised some time later that you’ve done or do the same or similar yourself?
Or further to this did you ever judge a thief, a drug addict on the street or someone else that has broken the law and later found out that they came from a broken and abusive home and never really had a chance in life. I heard a phenomenal quote recently that has really stuck with me. It goes ‘It’s easy to be moral when you’ve been lucky in life’. Stop. Go back. And Read it again. I’ll help you ‘It’s easy to be moral when you’ve been lucky in life.’ I don’t have a clue who said it and I don’t care. The energy passed to me and I’m passing it to you.
I often think why the f&*k can’t we all just get along? It seems so hard. Immediate families who should have the strongest connection of all seem to find it often times the hardest. The emotional charge of stories that we tell ourselves can be so strong. I wonder how we would meet each other if we just left our stories at home for a change? Man a lot of stories are heavy. Do we need to be carrying around so many of them all of the time?
My many practices of mindfulness over the last couple of months are all in the pursuit of one simple goal. Quiet. I want the thoughts to quieten. I want to say hey I notice you thought for what you are and I choose to let you go. I want the thoughts to slow and release so I can sit and feel the moment for what it is. So I can appreciate each moment for what it is before I have not so many moments left.
Each and every day we get a blank canvas to try to paint a masterpiece once again. What would your masterpiece look like? How would it feel? Would it feel like a mind filled with judgement of yourself being not good enough, not rich enough, not having enough friends, not having a good enough face, body, job or life?? Would it feel like a mind filled with judgement towards others being assholes, dicks, selfish, narcissistic, mean?
Lenka and myself have been on a journey over the last couple of months. We are life partners and we naively decided to go into business with each other. Google it. All roads point to disaster! We’ve had to work on our communication with each other. Our relationship in general and very much so on ourselves. It has not been an easy road for either of us. I am sure you have challenges in your life and as sure as I am of those we have ours trying to survive and grow business and maintain our relationship.
It has been a journey that neither of us could have ever imagined. We have consciously changed a number of things in our personal and professional life (it’s so intertwined anyway). So one of the more recent things we have tried to practice is. You guessed it! Stop f&8!ing Judging. Stop the incessant storytelling! It has been a really cool thing to practice together I have to say. Such a positive thing. It’s not about making your self feel worse when you do notice yourself judging because if you’re like us you’ll notice it a lot. I shouldn’t speak for Lenka. If you’re like me anyway!
One thing that I have noticed about this practice is when you do catch yourself judging and see it for exactly as it is. Just another story. You release it and then what happens? It frees up so much headspace to just be and enjoy just being it! How cool is that? So much of this mindfulness stuff is like an unbelievable spring clean on your apartment. You know that feeling when your place is clean and tidy? Well that’s kind of how it feels but on the inside. It’ll get messed up again but sure that’s what life’s all about. It just needs another clean!
So if you do set the intention to stop judging you might notice yourself judging a lot. This is no reason to get frustrated and give up. The difference and massive win is that you are noticing yourself doing it rather than just doing it. You can’t stop something that you don’t see. So the initial practice will be noticing just how and when you are judging.
I ask myself the question more and more exactly how effective we would be as a species if we actually used our brains collectively for anything near what they are capable of? We fill our brains with so much useless and often harmful thoughts. What could we be filling them with if we simply released all that we didn’t need? How much room would there be? Food for thought huh?
So I’ll head off again on my journey of practicing non-judgement. I can’t say that I’ll manage it but that’s the point just like Yoga. It’s a practice. Every day a new day. Thank you so much for reading and hopefully it helps you a little bit within your current story 😉 Until next time x
