Do You Believe?

In college I prayed that I could see people how God sees them. I wanted to show and feel more love for the people I encountered each day. The simple act of praying for that blessing helped open my eyes and feel more love, compassion and unity with friends and strangers alike.

Recently I've noticed myself making snap judgments about people I don't even know. 

In therapy I learned that when we have a thought -- even a negative thought -- it doesn't mean we actually believe those thoughts. We don't have to worry about it. It doesn't say anything about us or make us a bad person. The thought came into our head and we can let it go or reframe it to better represent who we are.

However, I don't like that these snap judgments about people who are different from me, and who I don't even know are coming so often and are not what I believe or really think. I don't want negative thoughts to be my first impression about someone.

So, I knelt in prayer today, remembering my college years, and asked that I could see people as God sees them. See them as His children and see their beauty as my brothers and sisters.

I closed my prayer and then sat on the floor to fold the laundry. I remembered an app that was recommended to me for meditation, "Insight Timer," and clicked on the app thinking I'd listen while folding laundry. The option "Start A Habit: The 10 Foundations of Meditation" jumped out at me. I clicked and started listening.

Would you believe if I told you the topic for Day 1 was: "Non-Judgment & The Basics of Mindfulness?" 

I pressed play and Melli O'Brien discussed the focus of the 10 minute mediation for the day:

"Today we will be learning the first foundation of meditation: Non-judgment. One of the most important qualities we want to cultivate in meditation is a non-judging mind. Most of the time we're mentally judging things in life. We label them as good as bad, right and wrong, attractive and ugly, and so on. And we also constantly make stories in our heads about what's going on around us."

"Now although these judgments can be useful to help us understand things and make decisions, its also a double-edged sword. The act of constantly critiquing and judging others, ourselves and our circumstances can cause a lot of stress and suffering.  ...When we impose our judgments on other people, it can strain relationships. And our opinions, viewpoints, and stories can truly obscure our perception of the way things are."

"Today we are going to begin to train ourselves in noticing the stories and labels in the mind and unhooking from them. In this way, mindfulness frees us from being pulled around by our minds and restores inner calm and peace."

Immediate answer to prayer. Immediate. Incredible.