Heaven and earth are impartial;
they see the 10,000 things as straw dogs.
The sage is not sentimental;
he treats all his people as straw dogs.The sage is like heaven and earth;
To him none are especially dear,
nor is there anyone he disfavors.
He gives and gives, without condition,
offering his treasures to everyone.Between heaven and earth
is a space like a bellows;
empty and inexhaustible,
the more it is used, the more it produces.Hold on to the center.
Man was made to sit quietly and find
the truth within.~ Wayne Dyer version
These last 4 days have been full of breakdowns for me – both literally, with regard to my car – and metaphorically, with regard to my physical and emotional health.
But by continuously reviewing this 5th verse of the Tao Te Ching during the moments of emotional distress and general stress, it opened up some interesting realisations for me.
When We Judge Ourselves We’re Also Judging Others
I’m going to share with you an excerpt out of my journal that was initially just me trying to make sense of the way I was responding to the circumstance of my car breaking down while I was in Melbourne for an appointment. And unless I wanted to pay twice the price to get it fixed – and there was the potential at one stage that it may be unfixable! – I had to rely on the generosity of my brother-in-law, sister and mechanic (who eventually came to pick my car up – all the way from Ballarat – but at the stage of writing the following excerpt I was steeped in fear and uncertainty.)
(I’m breaking this excerpt up into a more easy-to-read format for a blog post. Paragraphs don’t feature too often in my journalling!)
“I’ve just read the 5th verse of the Tao again. It’s my 2nd day living this verse in My Tao Year. I realise I’ve been very busy judging myself and my circumstances today, comparing myself to others in an unfavourable way.
It is myself I have not been impartial with.
I know that I would, and do, go out of my way to help others when I can. It’s largely what I live for. Yet I continually resist allowing other people to help and support me because of pride and a sense of shame for needing help and support.
But that’s how we all become cut off from the rest of the world.
Individuality and independence have become such dominant values in my world (and that of society) that I feel ashamed to accept the gifts of generosity, guidance, love and support offered by others.
I have become so laser-focussed on becoming independent financially and with my health that when I find I need support in these areas it induces a strong feeling of shame.
I’ve lost sight of the fact that for a community to truly work, we have to be willing to ask for and accept the help and support of others.
If we keep trying to go it alone and not risk feeling vulnerable, we don’t give others the opportunity to step up and get the fulfillment of helping someone out.
I believe people innately want to make a difference. But if we keep holding tightly to our independence, we deny people the chance to make a difference in our world.
We deny them the opportunity to feel good, to feel their purpose fulfilled.
How ironic that I, someone who wants so badly to empower others in their lives, resist so strongly allowing others to empower me.
I think, for me, it’s that I have a story that I don’t want to have to be rescued. I don’t want to be seen as a victim.
But inherent in that attitude is a judgement that being a victim and having to be rescued is bad and shameful.
Yet who is the first to jump in to try to help or “rescue” someone in need? Me! Why? It feels good to be of service and to be needed.
I used to get so frustrated with a friend of mine who happily took on the role of the damsel in distress when it served her purposes. It went against all my feminist beliefs to play the role of the “weak” female, who, ironically in the example I think of, knows nothing about cars and needs a man to rescue her.
But I see now that my friend had a beautiful balance – and yet I was judging her according to my own values and beliefs!
She definitely played up her helplessness to make her ‘savior’ feel more important, but she had no issue with this because she didn’t place value on remaining independent in these circumstances.
She worked out that it was quicker sometimes to just ask for help. Her tactics sometimes involved acting as if she was a ‘simple, dumb female’ and that her helper was a knight in shining armour, but it worked out fine for everyone.
She knew she was smart and capable in many other areas and so she didn’t feel as if she was diminished in any way by asking for help, even if she could have eventually worked out how to fix the problem herself.
She just simply had no attachment to being proud and independent in certain areas of her life.
Yet I would still say she is one of the proudest, strongest, most independent women I know. Just like her feisty Mum who she learned all her “helpless woman” tactics from! 🙂
Where did I get this fierce desire to be independent to the detriment of my health, mental health, finances etc? Why does being low in income cause me such shame? Why does asking for and accepting help feel so bad and wrong?
There may be deeper answers, but first it’s because at some point I have made a judgement that independence is good, having a low income (or “being poor”) is bad and shameful, and asking for help means you are weak.
It’s not that I live from this in every area of my life.
Asking my mechanic to fix a water pump holds no shame. I don’t know how to do it and he does [edit: Accepting his incredibly generous offer to drive 1 1/2 hours from Ballarat to pick my car up was a different story!]
It’s when I either know how to do something but can’t due to my health or financial reasons OR I don’t know how to do something but think it’s something I should know or should be able to do on my own.
Like, at 43, I “should” be financially independent and not need to ask for favours that save me money [or because I just simply do not have the money].
“Man is not an island” but we often try to live as such, not wanting to be a bother, an inconvenience or to depend on anyone.
If we don’t depend on anyone else we don’t risk being let down or betrayed.
But just like when we choose not to fully love for fear of getting hurt (again!), we lose the opportunity to build deeper connections with others when we hold back our love or don’t allow others to contribute to us.”
So I learned a lot in those few days when I was “stranded” down in Melbourne. There were many judgements going on both of myself, the circumstances, and the other people around me. But I DID work on dropping those judgements as soon as I noticed them.
This made for a much more peaceful experience for me in the end.
Another note re my recovering perfectionism
One other experience I had in those 4 days was that, after driving to Melbourne on Sunday and feeling quite exhausted before and after, I forgot to meditate.
77 consecutive days and I broke the chain!!
I was soooo tempted to go into my little app and add a session, which you can do. I wracked my brain trying to think if there was a few minutes in the day where I consciously stilled my mind in meditation. But alas, I couldn’t find any.
It’s amazing how I can make numbers mean so much. For me, missing a day and breaking my consecutive run of days meditating was judged as a failure on my part.
At least initially.
But I then saw the ridiculousness of me trying to pretend I’d meditated on that day just to keep my record intact on an app that only I see. A bit like eating icecream in the middle of the night and saying that doesn’t count when you’re dieting (my late, large, lovely grandfather was a king at this bit of mind-trickery).
And so I sucked it up. Acknowledged myself for my awesome 77 day run (prior to this I think 7 days was probably my best effort!), and started my days again. I’ve still meditated 80 out of 81 days. Most people would be happy with that. And I’m learning to be.
I see that my days in school when I would get 99/100 and turn around and question the teacher as to where I’d lost that 1 point were …. ah, kinda embarrassing now I think about it. But it was so important to me to get the highest marks possible that it never occurred as unusual to me. I just thought it was normal to want to be the best I could be.
I now see though that being the best version of yourself you can be has nothing to do with the score you get on a test or how many consecutive days you meditate for.
All of that is just weighted in judgement and loaded with stress. Living impartially and without judgement certainly seems a much better, more peaceful option!
I also see that I was trying to be “better” than other people in trying to get my high marks. It was often just a competition with myself, but I can’t deny I liked feeling a little bit special when I got the top marks in the class.
This verse is telling us that nobody is special.
As Wayne Dyer explains: “The varied forms of life are illusory as far as the Tao is concerned, so no one is special or better than anyone else”
He goes on to say:
“When you have a thought that excludes others, you’ve elected to see yourself as “special” and therefore deserving of exceptional favor from your Source of being. The moment you’ve promoted yourself to this category, you’ve elevated your self-importance above those whom you’ve decided are less deserving … in other words, if a thought or behavior divides us, it is not of God; If it unites us, it is of God”.
I’ve got a bit of work to go on this stuff, but the more I bring it into my life, the more peaceful and harmonious my life flows.
May it be the same for you
Till next time my friends
Louise
Related Posts
My Tao Year 2016: A Journey You Can Join Me On
My Tao Year: 1st Verse – Living The Mystery
My Tao Year: 2nd Verse – Living Paradoxical Unity
My Tao Year: 3rd Verse – Living ContentmentMy Tao Year: 4th Verse – Living Infinitely