In these articles, I often write about the challenges that we face as we create our legacy. I want to talk about another such roadblock today. It's something that we all encounter – something that is, in certain contexts, naturally important, but in others can be extremely harmful. Much of the time, people just aren't aware of when they're being harmed by this menace. But each of you will discover its place in your life as soon as you do the foundational personal work that is necessary to reach your ultimate goals. I'm talking about judgment.

That's right. There is no Special Forces unit in the known world with better tactics for:

• Getting in quietly
• Living off the host
• Killing incredibly quickly or torturously slowly
• Leaving with as much or as little a mess as YOU allow it to!

Your own judgment allows you to see if you've been honest with yourself and your creations. Your ability to remain non-judgmental and to stick to your own ethical code of conduct is essentially your ability to test-drive your own living philosophy.

At some point, each of us comes to a moment of self-judgment over some given issue in our lives. You can see yourself as a failure, or a martyr of sorts if you prefer. You can get a virtual reality experience by imagining how long you are going to suffer as the martyr. But suffer for what?

• Eating gluten when you're intolerant to it?
• Stealing a little money?
• Sex with a friend's partner or someone that is married?
• Not paying your taxes honestly?
• Lying to someone you love?
• Falling behind on car payments?

Most of the people I've seen in my practice choose to suffer – to punish themselves for their perceived failure. That's the most common choice. If that's the choice you find yourself making, ask yourself how long you will suffer for it. How much unhappiness will you shoulder? The way I see it, you could stretch time out as long as you like. In a split second, you could allow yourself to experience a seeming infinity of pain, or you can choose a more helpful, healthy option. This other option is to have compassion for yourself. You can experience a radical transformation in fractions of a second! You can allow compassion to teach you non-judgment. With compassion and without judgment, each step of the way your vision, your clarity, your existence begins to brighten.

Each choice you learn to experience without judgment, to any developmental level above your own becomes a streaming in of life force – of levity. Each such experience is your enlightening!

Does this mean that you should blatantly justify any disempowering behavior as irrelevant or impotent? NO. The evolution of any human being includes learning to use your “heart-felt” sense or what is True, Good and Beautiful.

In any situation in life, ask yourself:

• What would love do now? Or,
• What if everyone made the choice I'm about to make now or have made…would the world be a better place?

As we evolve, we naturally consider that needs of others, of those that we share relationships with. And finally, we consider the All, the whole of humanity. We grow to consider all living beings and the planet. We realize that we are part of the Universe and that each individual human being is a decision making force to be reckoned with. Are your creations supporting evolution, or devolution?

There is always room for healthy compassion in our lives. There are also times when we know we are fooling ourselves too! We literally have the power to burn ourselves down, and to burn our relationships down, or we can embrace the flames of transformation – BURNING DOWN THE OLD TO CREATE THE NEW!

The challenge presented by judgment is often compounded by the way we express or suppress the judgments and their emotional/psychological effects. Are you a camel? Do you work like hell without complaint? Is that your style? Just keep your anger and resentment inside where they corrode your confidence and compassion?

Or, do you want to joint the hunt for the dreaded “thou shalts”? The hunt for the dreaded thou shalts of life is one in which, upon killing the rules and judgments passed onto you by parents, family and society, you become a LION. In the philosophy of the Persian profit Zarathustra, the lion, metaphorically, is the one who learns that their “Yes” has NO value until they learn to say “No!”

Here, as a lion, one learns to become progressively more clear about exactly what they want and refuses to allow judgment to deter him. The lion spends little time wondering what he should kill for dinner. The lion is:

• Very capable
• Very sure footed in life
• Quick to learn
• A lover of competition
• Only hunted by time, for there is little else that limits it

As a lion, free of most of the fetters that judgment imposes, you'll find you can accomplish a great deal. But the lion isn't the end of the journey. Eventually the lion looks at his goal list and sees that he has checked off almost every goal he set for himself since he began setting goals. The lion will see that he's enthusiastically made himself an important part of several committees, groups, and associations and is somehow managing to keep everybody happy. At this point, the lion asks, “HOW DO I MAKE MYSELF HAPPY NOW? How about time for me? I'm loving everyone else…but what about me?”

We've now returned to judgment - judgment over the gift to self vs. the gift of self to others. The battle between the two possibilities can be so tormenting. Can you make your decisions based on your OWN living philosophy, or are you suffering from the weeds (the memes) of family, friends, church or society once again?

The heavier a judgment, the slower and more powerfully it burns in you, creating your dominant thoughts. The less judgment of a pathological nature you embody in any experience, the more control you will have over the creations in your life. For each step you take in releasing any judgment that does not empower you:

• You become more and more of who your Higher-Self represents
• You have clearer and clearer vision and insight
• You are more likely to find yourself in relationships with people who have equally vast, but unique insights and experience to share with you

So the next time you find you've made a mistake, you're feeling challenged by some situation or relationship, or you've hit a snag while working on a project, take a time out before you judge yourself. Breathe and create the space to find compassion for yourself. Not only will you feel better, but you'll be more capable of proceeding happily and successfully!