I wanted to share a few follow up thoughts about the yesterday's blog on the inner critic and the judging mind. These thoughts were inspired by Eckhart Tolle's, Practicing The Power Of Now, which I was sharing with my clients today in group. The lights went on for all of us as we questioned and wondered out loud about these ideas.

Ideas we explored:

The ego is the judging mind. The ego judges in hopes of taking control over us. If we feel poorly about ourselves then we are more easily run by our ego's desire to be in charge. We do not want to judge the ego simply recognize it and choose to not let it run us.

The Higher Self is the watcher that sees beyond our inner dialogue. There is an aspect of us that is capable of observing beyond the mind; that can see beyond our thoughts. The watcher is the part of us beyond our mind.

A break in the stream of endless thought is what allows the light of awareness in. If we are always caught up in our thoughts we have little or no self-awareness. If we have breaks in our endless stream of thinking, the light of awareness can open us to our higher knowing.

The goal is to disidentify from the mind and instead to smile at its antics. We are not our thoughts and if we see that we are free to be much more. If we can just watch our thinking and see it without judging then we have the opportunity to be humored by the craziness of our thoughts.

Being in the now is the best way to create freedom from the judging mind. There is no judging in the present moment, there is instead just being. A compassion for self is naturally occurring in the now.

The inner critic is the ego focused on the past. There is no criticism in the now because there is just watching without labeling.

There is a vast amount of knowing beyond the thinking mind. The thinking mind is limited by memory of the past and thoughts about the future. When the thoughts fall away the infinite and intuitive wisdom of self, humanity, and the divine become available.

All judging and negativity arise in us when we loose touch with the now. When we are in the past or future, we fell fear, we reject others, we feel disconnected from ourselves and our fellow humans, we live contracted lives with only glimpses of our potential and the possibilities around us.

Peace, love joy, creativity, beauty, are all naturally occurrences of being in the now. When in the now we don't think peace; we are peace. We don't think joy; we are filled with joy. We don't think love; we experience love. We don't think creativity; creativity flows through us. We don't think beauty; we open to it.
What ideas open you to a higher level of consciousness?