Something I’ve struggled with for a long time is judging. Judging myself. And judging others.
There is progress, although it’s painfully slow. My current technique is to act ‘as if’, to act my way into who I want to become, to learn by doing. From a macro level, I can definitely feel myself edging closer towards the universe of possibilities, as the Zanders memorably called it, away from the world of measurement that is our dominant narrative. But like most change it’s hardly linear. Some days I’m celebrating a new me… and some days it feels more like 2 steps forward, 2 steps back.
Yesterday was one of those days.
So I reached into my things-that-inspire-me-in-becoming-the-person-I-want-to-be toolbox and dug out this beautiful passage from Ram Dass, who would have turned 89 last Monday:
When you go out into the woods and you look at trees, you see all these different trees. And some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are whatever. And you look at the tree and you allow it. You appreciate it. You see why it is the way it is. You sort of understand that it didn’t get enough light, and so it turned that way. And you don’t get all emotional about it. You just allow it. You appreciate the tree.
The minute you get near humans, you lose all that. And you are constantly saying “You’re too this, or I’m too this.” That judging mind comes in. And so I practice turning people into trees. Which means appreciating them just the way they are.
I’m thankful in the current lockdown to have an unfettered view out across a diverse array of trees, some still bare and shrivelled while others are already blossoming in the northern-hemisphere spring. They’ll be my constant visual reminder.
Whom in your life might you practise turning into trees?