Comments on: Judgment vs Opinion - from the daily om

By: Mark Gemmell

Mark Gemmell — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 12:21:42 +0000

The Eliot Spitzer scandal gives the nation another opportunity for a real dialogue about a number of things, but it likely won’t happen. Generally what we do is crucify someone and actually take some mild pleasure in watching him being utterly brought down. We project our own conflicts about sex, marriage, infidelity, power, and class all over whomever was unfortunate enough to get caught–and all of us feel just a bit safer. Temporarily. When the judgementfest is over, we go back to sleep with no further concerns about the career and family that has just been destroyed. Until the next time, when we’re ready to celebrate someone else’s fall from grace. And the response is always right there under the surface, because the conflict is in US. I wish we could have a sort of amnesty, in which men and women could talk openly and honestly–without fear of judgement and in a spirit of truth–about their own struggles and challenges related to sex, marriage, committment, power, and human fraility. In my work as a therapist,
I know that when people are willing to do this, wonderful things can happen.

By: Mark Gemmell

Mark Gemmell — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 15:43:41 +0000

I’ve noticed that I must always be aware of my emotional reactions to people and events because of my talent for projecting my own “stuff” all over everyone! I don’t think I’ve ever had a serious complaint about anyone that didn’t turn out to be more mine than theirs. It’s a useful tool in therapy too, to stay aware of my emotional responses, because sometimes, either I am picking up on the client’s feelings intuitively, or the way I am responding is the way most people respond to them, i.e. part of their problem. Staying open to my feelings and theirs is the map to where we need to go.
Certainly we have intuitions also, defined as “conclusions we come to we don’t know how.” Often in retrospect, we can see all the little things that contributed to the perception–all very real, just outside of awareness at the time.

By: ANGELBABY

ANGELBABY — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 14:17:37 +0000

Judgments are often made against the self, which keeps one in a state of non-doing. To move forward, release that thought. Tell yourself it was a habit learned, and allow yourself the freedom to move, without the burden of restriction.