"Without Judgment"

Its an interesting phrase.  This morning, after a really awful nights sleep full of nightmares and random thoughts of people climbing through the window of a third story apartment in Austin, I decided to go to Yoga.  At some point this week I need to get in a long run for my half marathon training.  Today was supposed to be that morning.  I ate well last night and hydrated myself.  Then...I slept 3 hours.  Needless to say I was exhausted but I didn't exactly feel like a 6mi run through the Austin hill country was in order.  On the other hand I wasn't going to be a lazy bum either.  So I found a yoga studio and went to a class this morning instead of running.

At the end of the session we were seated and focused on breathing and the instructor told everyone, "without judgment, to be aware of their body, mind and heart."  And its got me thinking... how do you not judge yourself in some way by being aware of yourself?  I know that the point was to tell everyone "don't hate your body and just appreciate your soul" or whatever, but, being me, I have to take it to the next level.

Judgment is a difficult thing to comprehend.  It can be extremely useful and also extremely damaging.  Judging yourself at critical points in life I think is a good thing if you use it to make sure you're doing what you want with your life.  You know, really evaluating what it is your doing and where you want to go.  Judgment in its most negative sense is a put down.  Its a constant berating of your body or your self worth and never letting yourself be happy with what you have.

Its a fine line to balance.  Many times the judgment that you are using for good turns negative when you let it take control.  My most recent experience with this is during my half marathon training.  I knew that I wanted to complete one before I turned 30 and I found a running buddy through the hash up in Lubbock and talked him into running one with me.  Now though, I'm letting that good judgment take over into a more negative tone.  On Tuesday I had a really awful run.  I felt sick, lethargic and running was just really difficult that day.  I haven't run since Tuesday and I kept thinking to myself that maybe I can't do this and maybe I'm not in good enough shape.  Instead, maybe I should think:  yes, its difficult and yea I'm not 21 anymore so running is harder for me; its ok if I don't run as fast and to just do what I need to do to accomplish my goal.

I guess I just need to cut myself a little slack.  I'm nearly 27 years old...I'm not going to be able to recover as fast as I used to, I'll probably have to start out at a slower pace and I won't get into shape as fast.  Maybe, in that sense, not passing judgment on those aspects will be a good thing.  Just stay focused on completing one thing at a time and hopefully it'll work out for me.