06 Feb How to Stop Judging People & Accept Others As They Are

Podcast Transcript: Welcome to the Inspirational Living podcast. Transform your life in 30 days with The Living Hour’s Majesty Program. Get 30% off your purchase of our Autosuggestion Sound Method meditation with the coupon code: inspiration. To learn more, please visit LivingHour.org/majesty.

Today’s podcast has been edited and adapted from “Success Through Thought Habit” by Benjamin Johnson, published in 1908.

When we realize that to attain even a partial control over our own thoughts is a wonderful achievement (while complete self-mastery borders on the miraculous), the absurdity of trying to regulate the behavior of others is made so plain that no one can evade admitting it.

Action is the manifestation of thought. Imagination then may be said to be pictured thought, while personality is the materialization of Imagination. The more active the imagination, the more ingenuity is required to guide it into constructive paths and away from those that lead to criticism and condemnation of others whose conduct does not happen to meet with our approval, or whose example we fear may not be quite what it should be for somebody else.

Nervous people are particularly prone to imagine the wrong things, and the moment their duties are finished and they lie down at night, they commence to magnify and elaborate on the disagreeable events of the day, living over every trying moment, knowing that things will turn out even worse tomorrow, and feeling that they are showing a conscientious regard for their family, their household, or their business by this process which they term “thinking things over.”

Insulted when told they are not even managing their own lives, they keep resolutely at their task of at least mentally managing everyone else, by suggesting to them what horrible things may happen and by magnifying every fault they have ever observed. They fairly think negative conditions into existence and often act as a barrier to the progress of those associated with them, because of the forceful manner with which they insist upon regulating not only the habits but the thoughts of all those with whom they associate.

Not until such people learn that it will take all of the energy and ability they possess to manage their own lives will they learn to stop putting their hands on others and pushing them where they see fit to have them go.

A well-known actress who had by the exercise of her own will cured herself of a drug habit told me that the work of controlling her own thought-world was the hardest work she had ever done, while to learn the lesson of not interfering with other people’s lives was almost as difficult.

Finally one night, she made up her mind to stop fussing about others and try perfecting herself instead, resolving never to give any advice or suggestions unless she was requested to do so, and when sending out thoughts to send only those that were filled with courage and faith and confidence. Each night she imagined herself bathed in the golden light of Love as she floated on the current of Harmony, and this practice she claimed meant more to her than any tonic or drug ever invented.

As a consequence, in one year, she looked ten years younger and was more magnetic, while her success was phenomenal. All who are now brought into contact with her realize that in some way she is possessed of something extraordinary, and so grateful is she for her own uplifting transformation that she graciously uses her time to help anyone who seems to need aid in their manner of thinking.

Those who allow tramp thoughts to come swarming into their brain just because they are too indolent or too weary to resist them, should be awakened to the harm these visitors may do. Every image of disease, poverty, lack, unhappiness, anger, or grief that is allowed to remain for any time at all commences telegraphing its presence to the other atoms in the body. Soon a correspondence is established that will surely manifest itself in some physical or mental disturbance.

That is why it is so imperative that every seeking soul be impressed with the importance of practicing the right thought, just as religiously as one would practice a new piece of music, until it finally becomes an automatic affair to think as one should, no matter what may happen — an inharmonious thought then won’t dare to put in an appearance.

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