A Lesson About Judgement

So, I just returned from a week long retreat and haven’t come down from the clouds yet. I don’t think I ever will come completely down and I sure hope not anyway.  It’s cool up here. And given the profound transformation and connections that took place here, I’m sure to be experiencing shifts and “stuff” for some time.

The lessons are too powerfully valuable to keep all to myself. So I’ll be nice and share what I learned.

I am going to share one lesson every day with you as they unfold daily to me.

So LESSON ONE goes like this:

DON’T JUDGE A PERSON (that person includes the self) BY THEIR BODY. 

I know. We all do it.  What else do we have to go by? We’d have to get to know a person first before we see them at a deeper level. So we judge by the look.

“She’s got no right to wear that dress!”

“Who does she think she is wearing that?”

“She must have issues with a gut like that?”

“Such a show off!”

You’ve said ’em about someone else. You’ve said ’em about yourself. We all have.

But I must admit it was shocking to me that a woman judged my body and made my body dictate the kind of shallow person I must be! I was wowed. 

She came forward and told me how she felt and I am completely grateful and I adore her for her honesty.

She came to me after spending 7 days with me and said, “Rosie, I am so sorry. I judged you. I was thinking how can someone that has your body and dresses the way you do have any substance. There can’t be much under that”.

WOWSA!  Painful to hear. No one knows by looking at me the struggles behind this body.  I don’t wear a sign. I wanted to tell her, “It wasn’t always this way”. “I spend years binging and throwing up. I spent years being so uncomfortable I couldn’t take my coat off.”  Depriving myself, hating myself into thinness. I wanted to tell her all that. But it didn’t matter. What mattered at this point was her beautiful honesty.

She continued to explain that as she got to know me, she realized she was wrong and that I was deep and wise. (WOWSA, I love hearing that compliment) I love that she was wise enough to be honest with me so that she could then be honest about herself. It was really all about how she judged herself , her body and the way she dressed. Her honesty shifted both of us.

When we judge others, we are really judging ourselves.

After this revelation, we went shopping together and got even closer. Nothing fixes a “situation” like 2 women shopping for beautiful things. We picked out hot, flattering clothes for her, to replace her plain, grey garb, so that she could show off her body, and her spirt and release her own self judgment of her own body.  We became hotter, sexier, healthier.… #justsayin

Nice. Powerful. I love it. I love her.