The Judge and The Victim
Sunday evenings at 6pm were a very special time for me when I was younger. The Muppet Show was on and it was time with my Dad. My Mom worked late which meant my Dad cooked dinner for my sister and I. Usually, that meant frozen Van de Kamps enchiladas and cold Del Monte green beans out of the can. Not because he didn't know how to cook, but because these were my favorites. My Dad (Joe) and I had a very close relationship his entire life. He taught me unconditional love and was one of those people that everyone loved. He taught me a lot about the world and how to watch out for myself.
The Muppet Show, All in the Family, and Sanford & Sons are some of the things he introduced me to as a kid. I actually understood the humor and the message even though I was very young. I remember Statler and Waldorf (in the picture above) sitting in the balcony on The Muppet Show always commenting on everything happening. They were usually judging someone or criticizing what people were doing. They were not my favorite characters because they were so negative and mean towards everyone. I remember wanting them to be removed from the show.
When I started studying the Toltec Masteries with a group five years ago, on the first day of class my teacher (Troy) gave us an exercise to do. It was called "The Judge and The Victim". Basically, it was a piece of paper with two columns. One was titled "judge" and the other was titled "victim". He told us for the next week before class we were to carry the list with us and write down all the times we judged or felt judged and all the times we felt victimized or saw someone as a victim. I thought this exercise was very trivial, but after a week of writing down EVERY time I felt one or the other my list was quite long. I realized I was judging a lot more than feeling the victim, but what I realized even more was where my thoughts were the majority of the day. The thoughts in my head were in a totally unloving place and distracted from the feeling in my heart when I chose to be in this negative space. My heart was asking me to be accepting and allowing, but the stream of subconscious thoughts were not in alignment with that at all.
Everyone is operating on a conscious level throughout the day, but there is a subconscious stream of thoughts that are flowing regularly through the mind. This underlying stream of consciousness is the energy that the world is picking up on. People feel the vibrations of our thoughts and feelings. People who choose to feel victimized are projecting this belief out and are attracting others that resonate with this vibration. They might attract another victim searching for connection or it could be a predator looking for their next victim. Our thoughts become things. We create our physical world with them. We have an idea, we share it with others, we create and build it here. However, when the thoughts in our head don't match the hearts desire we limit ourselves from creating what we really want and what is most beneficial.
When we create a list like this we are checking in with the ego. We are seeing how our energy is affecting our world. We become aware of how much we are living in our heads instead of checking in with how we feel. It doesn't matter if you're working in corporate world or if you are a stay-at-home parent. We are dealing with other human beings and all these beings (no matter what age) are all looking to be approved of, loved, and accepted. If we are able to see the experiences without judgment we are releasing the belief that we need to change something or that we might be lacking in some way. When you take away all the labels all that's left is the experience and if there's no label of "good" or "bad" there is nothing to judge. We simply allow ourselves and others to have their experiences and keep our awareness to our own energy/attitude.
When it's all said and done it really just boils down to where your attention is. If we choose to focus on all the negativity in the world, then we continue to perpetuate that energy because our thoughts are there. I am not saying to be oblivious to what is going on in the world, but there is no need to keep the focus there. If we are able to bring our attention the majority of our waking hours to compassionate and loving thoughts and feelings then we live in these energies. Then, we project these vibrations out from the subconscious level as well because we are intending to be in a more loving space.
I challenge you to carry around this list for the next week and see where your thoughts are during the day. I welcome your feedback and any questions as well :)