Hi, welcome back to

your Daily Mindfulness.

In today's session, we're going

to talk about the judgmental mind.

A lot of times within the mindfulness

and meditation spaces, we, well,

we could give the judgmental

mind a bit of a bad reputation.

You hear in a lot of different definitions

of mindfulness that it's paying attention

in the present moment, non-judgmentally.

And this can make us think that

having judgments is a bad thing, or

if we are being judgmental, it must

mean that we're not being mindful,

but that's not necessarily the case.

Having a judgmental mind is not bad.

It's actually essential.

And mindfulness is not

about eliminating judgment.

It's about becoming more aware of your

judgments and understanding how they

might be subconsciously coloring your

perception of things, people and events.

With this awareness and this

understanding, you can now choose

to accept your judgements, challenge

them or let go of them entirely.

And this is essentially what it

means to work skillfully with your

thoughts, which aren't going away.

As long as you're going to be human,

in this body, with this brain,

you're going to have thoughts.

And with that comes discernment,

judgments, critical thinking.

So we're not trying to get rid of it.

We need to be making decisions in

each moment and the capacity to make

decisions rests on our capacity to have

some sort of discernment and judgment.

So we're not trying to eliminate it,

but rather become more aware of those

judgements so that we don't have to be

subconsciously tossed around by them.

That is the practice of mindfulness.

So when you're engaging in your

meditation practice, notice your

relationship to the judgmental mind.

And instead of beating yourself up

when you do notice judgments arise, see

if you can smile for a moment and go,

Oh yeah, there's the judgmental mind.

Thank you mind.

Thanks for trying to assess.

Is this situation good?

Is it bad?

Am I doing it right?

Am I doing it wrong?

And if the judgment is not

necessary in that moment, maybe

just allow yourself to let it go.

Just watch it, like again, a cloud passing

through the sky and see if you could

drop into this moment exactly as it is.

But if the judgment is important, such as

like, Ooh, I actually shouldn't be here.

I need to make a call right now.

Well, that might be important and

something that you need to respond to.

So we meet the judgment in the moment

with mindful awareness, with curiosity,

assess its merit, and then choose how

we want to relate to it from there.

You could do that in your meditation

practice and do that in your life.

Thank you for your practice.

Let's settle in for today's meditation.