Episode 48: The Power of Meekness

As humans, we think that there is a "right way" to feel. We think there is a right way for us to feel and there is a right way for other people to feel. We even look to the experts around us to figure out how we should be feeling and how other people should be feeling. And then we have lots of judgment of our own feelings and other people's feelings, if they don’t line up with those.

But judging your experience and judging other people’s experiences is a painful way to live. Because the judgement you have for yourself and others is heavy. It is adding to your stress and discomfort right now. And as an option, you can set it all down.

In this podcast, I offer that the alternative to judgment is meekness. When we view ourselves, and others, and God from a place of meekness we can drop our need to control everything around us and access peace. And this is an awesome way to get power over your own emotional life.

Right now, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, there is a lot of judgment going around about feelings.  We are judgmental of ourselves and our own feelings.  And we are also very judgmental of others and their feelings.  And we think for sure that we know how other people should feel.

As humans, we kind of think that there is a "right way" to feel. We think there is a right way for us to feel and that there is a right way for other people to feel.

What I want to offer you is that judging your experience and judging other people’s experiences is a painful way to live. Because the judgement you have for yourself and others is heavy. It is adding to your stress and discomfort right now. And as an option, you can set it all down.

The alternative to judgment is meekness.

What is Meekness?

Meekness is a way of viewing God and way of viewing others. So, as humans, we think things should be a certain way. We think our life should go in a certain way and we think that others should think and feel and behave in a certain way. We think we know what’s right.

When we see our life from a place of meekness, we understand that it's possible that we are wrong about all of those ideas.  It’s possible that we don’t know how life should go and it’s possible that we don’t know how others should be.

We can apply meekness in three ways:

1.  We can see others with meekness -  When it comes to other people, being meek means that we don’t know how they should be doing it. It means we are tolerant of their thoughts and feelings. It means we are humble enough to know that we don’t know what other people should think, we don’t know what they should feel and we don’t know how they should act.

Choosing to step out of their business and instead step into our own is really the most powerful you can be because you are suddenly dealing with the things you actually have control over.  

Here are some questions that can help you access meekness:

• If I didn’t think I was right, then what would I do?
• If I knew they were right, what would change for me?

2.  We can see ourselves with meekness - I want to invite you to drop your judgments about your own feelings. You are always feeling what you are feeling because of your thoughts. And all the thoughts are allowed. So many of our thoughts are just response to stimulus and motivated simply by survival. They aren’t an indictment of your character or lack of faith or deficiencies.

One of the best ways we can do this is through prayer.  When you pray you can imagine it as your own personal coaching session with the best coach in the unverse.

• Tell Him how you feel
• Tell Him why you feel this way.  This will reveal your thoughts to you.  Don't judge yourself for these thoughts, instead invite yourself to see yourself with meekness—and understand that you don't know what you "should be" thinking and feeling.
• Then get quiet and ask him another way to think about it.  This will give you access to divine wisdom and a divine perspective and give you a new way to think about your life.

When I am meek with myself, I don’t tell myself that I am doing it wrong. Because judging myself never allows me to access the divine wisdom. It never allows me to see another way of thinking about it because I’m so mad about the way I am currently thinking about it. When I can drop my judgment of me and instead be meek, and just honestly say out loud what I am feeling and what I am thinking, then I can access a different way of thinking about it.

3.  We can view God with meekness - As humans, really at any time when things don’t go the way we think they should, we have can have a tendency to judge God and to wonder if this really is the best plan.

There is no power in thinking it has all gone wrong. There is no solace in thinking that all of this could have or should have been prevented.

The power of meekness is to acknowledge that we don’t know and we never know how it's supposed to go. But someone else does. And can you put down your judgment even in subtle ways (even in wishing it was different ways) and accept that all of it is God’s business and he knows what he’s doing.

When we want to control everything—ourselves, others, even God’s plan—we are at our most powerless.  Because we have trapped ourselves into feeling judgment for others, for ourselves, and for God.  And we are the ones that have to feel that judgment.  We can’t access peace when we are in a fight with what is not ours to control in the first place.

What is available to each of us to set down all the heaviness that comes with all that judgement and access meekness by not wanting to change how other people think and feel, using the power of prayer to reveal your own thinking and change your thoughts to feel better, and by believing that the right person is in charge of all of it now and always.

Mentioned on the podcast:

• Sign up for a free coaching call

• J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?"

• Ulisses Soares, "Be Meek and Lowly of Heart" 

To read or download a written transcript of the entire episode, simply click the link below.