Many of us have a habit of judging others in our relationships. How do we deal with this most common habit and barrier to healthy relationships? First, we need to understand and remember that judgments are just thoughts we have focused on and made real. We judge according to our expectations, losing sight of the fact that we all have separate realities and don’t see things the same. In low moods, whatever we see seems to be at its worst.

When we get caught up in judging someone else, we tend to lose sight of the whole person and see only the problem we have identified as theirs. We judge others for the “big” stuff, from not taking out the trash to misplacing the newspaper to being a loudmouth shrew. In our minds they could do better or be better.

Often we’re even harsher on ourselves with our judgments than we are on others. When we haven’t lived up to our own standards we become the object of our scorn. We think we can’t do anything right, haven’t learned yet, are stupid and shortsighted. When others are judging us, it’s fairly easy to ignore or discount those we don’t know well or care about; however, judgments from those we know and love can cut deep and be long remembered.

Have you ever had a positive result come from making a negative judgment about another or about yourself? All the judgments we’ve identified here are negatives that are classified and held for a long time. This long shelf life of judgments cheats the one making the judgment from really knowing another and prevents the one judged from being known.

Judgments drain our energy. They come from our computer patterns of thinking. When we engage in them, our negative feelings should be our first clue to pay attention and redirect our attention and our energy. Although judgments about nuclear warfare might seem worthy of the negative energy spent, judgments about hairstyles and lifestyles contribute little or nothing. Underneath these judgments we find a lack of respect for ourselves and everyone else.

When we have agreements or shared expectations with others and they aren’t working, we can always renegotiate without judgment in a respectful way. Any time spent in making judgments or being concerned about the judgments others have made is wasted. Imagine what we could be doing from our natural Brilliance instead. Judgments are always negative; instead, we can admire, compliment, and acknowledge the positive traits of others seen from our Brilliance through the eyes of respect. Yes! we can see the best and forget the rest.

Moody

ive phrases, such as All is well. Let go and let God. This is an illusion; just let it be. You also can shift your attention to a favorite funny story; laughter is guaranteed to kill a low mood.

A sense of urgency in any mood may indicate that it’s time to slow down and check your thinking. Most anything can wait 24 hours. Practicing patience gives us the best chance at good decision making. Getting still and being quiet lets inspiration surface. Remember, do not personalize the comments made by others when they are in low moods; their low mood is talking, not their true feelings. We don’t have to join them. We can “get out of Dodge.”

We live in a world that is full of low moods. We have all experienced the discomfort of being around someone who is speaking from a low mood; either their words are hurtful to us or we just don’t know how to respond to their rant about an issue. A wise man suggested that, in either case, we simply find compassion for those who are being mean or difficult. We only have to be around these people or situations for a few minutes or hours; they have to live with their minds all the time. The bigger question may be: How do we remain positive and uplifted in a world that seems to be negative and filled with conflict and hatred? When we are able to access our Brilliance, we create a different world, one that comes from our highest thinking and feelings. From this place we see the best in those around us and, eventually, in the entire world.

Once we understand how mood levels work, we don’t have to repeat the mistakes of the past. We can begin to create more extraordinary relationships. We learn not to make big things out of nothing, not to buy into low moods, and to recognize when it’s time to take a break and do something to give ourselves a boost. Taking a deep breath can be all we need to shift back into our Brilliance. If you are really active or athletic, you might do something physical, such as going for a walk, riding a bike, or playing a round of golf.

Once we’ve removed ourselves from a situation we thought was serious, we sometimes can look back and see the humor in it. The real challenge is when we see the humor in a situation someone else is going through but they can’t see it that way yet. We’ve learned the hard way when not to laugh. Remember to be gentle with yourself. These situations will tend to disappear by themselves if we do not give them too much attention.

We do have the power to shift our moods. With practice we can choose to live from our Brilliance, which always brings forth our highest moods.

Excerpt from Activate Your Brilliance, Back to Brilliance ©2007

Our energy level is directly related to how we manage our moods

Every day we have a fixed amount of energy; this is our life force. Where we choose to put our thoughts and attention is where we spend our life’s energy. When we spend it in a low mood—just spinning—it takes that life force, that energy that we have to live a good day, and it’s like misspending. We’re putting our energy into a place where we aren’t going to get any return on it. Our energy is not going where we want our lives to go. We’re taking ourselves where we don’t want to go.

That’s why a lot of people just don’t get very far: They’re misspending their daily energy quotas. They feel exhausted because they’re trying to do their lifework at the same time their low moods are draining their energy and also creating messy situations that require even more energy to clean up.

We only get so much energy each day. That is a major responsibility, but it’s also a gift to spend our energy accomplishing our life’s work and dreams. Knowing that low moods bleed our energy gives us even more incentive to learn how to stay out of them as much as possible. Because, wow, when we’re in a good mood and having a great day, don’t we just feel like we have tons of energy?

A great example of misspending one’s energy comes from a friend of ours who is a public speaker. She had a speaking engagement coming up and needed to confirm arrangements with the group but had only succeeded in playing phone tag. With each day that passed, her thinking slipped. She started saying to herself, Oh man, I’m such a slacker. I can’t speak! I don’t have anything to say that’s of value. She went further down that path, thinking, These people must be crazy to want me to speak, to spend all this money to bring me to this event. Then she admitted she knew she’d been in a low mood lately; at the same time she had an inner sense that everything was going to turn out OK. She told us that she had tortured herself unnecessarily with her low-mood thinking: By the time she finally connected with the event sponsors, a new plan had emerged to make the experience much richer and more valuable for everyone concerned. Had our friend recognized her low-mood thinking earlier, she could have maximized her energy and avoided a lot of stress.

Years ago when we were learning how to be graceful in our low moods, we were at a retreat, talking about the mood-levels principle. One of the women in our group told us about her system for making the most of her moods. She used the idea of a thermometer, with freezing at the bottom and the highest temperatures at the top. She had marked off the thermometer from 1 to 10, with 10 representing a really high mood and zero standing for “in the pits.” When her mood dropped below 5, she would stop making decisions because she knew she would only be making them out of low-mood thinking. If her mood got down close to zero, she would stay at home, sleep, watch movies, and avoid being around other people altogether. But when her mood started going above 5, she would make decisions, knowing they would be positive and healthy for her. When her mood was close to 10, she would write notes to herself to read when she was in a low mood.

Excerpt from Activate Your Brilliance, Back to Brilliance ©2007

(Next week we will continue this conversation with more strategies for lifting low moods.)

Here is a bonus – a link to a short video to celebrate Peace Day, Sept 21:

http://www.heartmath.org/templates/ihm/articles/landing/peace-day/2010/index.php

Get OFF The Stress Train

It’s time to get out the word. In this crazy, upside-down world where everything is changing at the speed of sound, are you ready to get off the stress train and free yourself to travel to a new destination called stress relief?

• If you feel like you are running in circles most of the time, like a dog chasing its tail, your body is stressed.
• If you feel tired, maybe exhausted, and possibly irritable a lot of the time, your emotions are stressed.
• If you have problems sleeping and you can’t relax because your thoughts are running a mile a minute, your mind is stressed.

As a quick example, when you get caught in a traffic slow-down, do you immediately get angry and curse under your breath, or do you take a time-out and turn up the radio to your favorite station until the cars begin to move again?

Whichever way you reacted depends on what you were thinking at the time. “I hate this freeway, and I’ll never get to my meeting tonight” leads to frustration and other feelings related to stress. “I think I’ll flip to LOVE 101 or WCCO 850 and catch the latest song or news and breathe easy for a minute” will lead you to relaxation and enjoyment.

It’s pretty simple: our thinking is at the center of all of our responses to stress. An exception is environmental stressors to our bodies. Defensive responses experienced when we are physically or emotionally threatened is another. But in reality, most of our stress is linked to our thinking, to our mindset.

With this in mind, we can begin to get off those train tracks of stress. Although a real train ride can be relaxing, the tracks lead in one direction and you can’t get off until you can get off. In real life a ride on the stress train only leads to more of the same scenery—we begin to see stress everywhere. It’s time to learn the secrets to getting off the train and get moving toward a new mode of transportation—one that is truly stress free.