To See Beyond the Judge, Acknowledge Our Shared Humanity

Exploring Byron Brown’s Soul Without Shame

Mindset note: As we explore Soul Without Shame this month, we encourage you to show up rooted in a place of curiosity, rather than judgement. It may be natural or easy to begin to evaluate Brown’s ideas but we invite you to be open to them and see what comes up for you. Not everything will resonate and some things may not align with your values or beliefs. But others might, and could lead to a valuable insight. We encourage you to be curious first and look into the ideas Brown is offering.

If we consider these things to be true, then what? Have some fun and play with these ideas! Take what serves you and leave what doesn’t.

We know that the judge gets in the way of us experiencing the present moment, so how can we tell what is real? We may be only seeing our stories and judgements and thinking that is reality. To truly experience the present moment, and see beyond the judge, we bring awareness to reality—what is going on right here, right now (p.28). According to Brown, a key piece of this is remembering our true nature. Connecting to our unchanging center that has always been a part of us (and always will be) can break the control the judge has on our experience of reality (p.37).

True Nature

Soul Without Shame assumes that as a human being “you have implicit qualities or capacities beyond those learned or instilled in you as you grow.” This capacity that humans have is what Brown refers to as “true nature.” This is the foundation of the soul and it exists beneath the intellectual or cognitive reality, where the judge resides (p.31).

As a human, our true nature is “the essence of what we are beneath our individual histories.” It’s what humans share regardless of our family, racial, or religious background. It’s the layer beneath the physical characteristics, psychological development, and education (p.30). Ultimately, it’s who we are at the core, beyond our emotional tendencies or personality type. It’s who we are beyond any conditioning, beliefs, and opinions (p.29). It is a shared capacity we have at our core.

This capacity we share is the ability to experience what Brown calls “essential qualities.” Think of things like truth, joy, compassion, will, strength, and peace (to name a few). They may seem like emotions we mentally categorize, but Brown suggests that they are “substantial forms of presence.” They exist as potentials in the soul, and they manifest in consciousness in response to different situations and experiences. Each is an expression of our true nature, with its own flavor, texture, feeling tone, and effect on the soul (p.31). It is what “makes you unique and gives you kinship with all other human beings” (p.30). We all share the capacity to experience them, but we experience different essential qualities based on what is happening for us in the present moment. This is our unchanging center.

Reality

True nature is purely internal, a part of our inner experience. As we turn to reality, we begin to look at both internal and external. This involves how things are, the facts, and what is occurring at a certain place and time (p.32).

When we orient to reality, we “attend to what feels most true in each moment.” We bring attention to what part of our true nature is being expressed, as well as what is happening physically, mentally, and our environment. All of this information comes from being curious in the present moment.

Here’s a set of questions to experiment with as you find what works best to help you connect to reality (p.32):

• Where is my attention?
• What is going on physically and mentally?
• Where am I? What is in front of me? Around me?
• What is going on in my body? How are my head and brain feeling?
• What ideas or feelings am I experiencing? What am I saying to myself?
• What assumptions or criticisms are coming up? (hello judge!)
• Taking all of this into account, if I were to summarize this experience in one word or feeling what would it be?
• What belief is under this feeling? I believe that ______.
• Is this belief familiar? Where else have you noticed it in your life?
• Notice how your judge might be reinforcing that belief

It is in this process that our judge can emerge. As we try to connect with reality, assumptions or criticisms may come up, followed by shame. At that point, the judge is heavily influencing reality (p.34). We aren’t observing the expression of our true nature at our core—the essential qualities. Instead, we are getting caught up in stories and judgements. We are listening to our judge’s belief that we don’t innately have the essential qualities within us. We believe that we need to “acquire them from the outside through accomplishments and good behavior” (p.37). We need to earn them. This gets in the way of us noticing the essential quality being expressed in the moment.

“Listening to your judge orients you away from reality” because it “believes that reality is not safe, is problematic, and will get you into trouble.” (p.36) In childhood, we experienced situations that were painful or overwhelming and the judge’s job is to protect you from feeling these things again. “It continues to believe that you must be protected from the reality of your life” and this ends up causing the judge to prevent us from having any direct experience of reality (p.37). It has good intentions to protect us, but doesn’t ultimately serve us. Instead, it gets in the way of reality.

Therefore, to confront the judge, we must recognize that “true nature does exist in you and that it is not the result of your accomplishments or effect on others. It is and has always been a part of you” (p.37).