Curiosity Over Judgment: The Path to Understanding

In this conversation, Ashley and Nate explore the themes of awakening, duality, and the importance of curiosity and acceptance in understanding ourselves and others. They discuss the role of triggers in personal growth, the dynamics of power and responsibility, and the necessity of community in the healing process. The dialogue emphasizes the significance of emotional regulation and creating safe spaces for growth and connection.

Transcript

Ashley Henderson (00:02.466)
every

back for a new episode and today we're going to be talking about an important byproduct of awakening that's really important for the time that we're in right now.

which is really starting to let go of duality, letting go of judgment, and really starting to see and take in other people's perspectives from a place of deeper understanding. So as we're unpacking our own

our own sort of lens, our own filters, our own beliefs that we've been carrying around unconsciously. And we start to really make room and acceptance and forgiveness and compassion for the ways that we've been operating in the world, maybe unconsciously.

When you move through that enough, you sort of automatically can make room, or maybe with some conscious practice, make room for other people's perspectives. Really understanding that we're all coming to the table from our life experience, our own unique life experience. And we have such a tendency in

Ashley Henderson (01:49.118)
in today's world to go straight for judgment. This person's right, this person's wrong, good and bad and there's a lot of fear.

And so I've noticed this in myself that I have a lot more curiosity on board now for what's happening with other people and less judgment. I'm still teasing those. Judgment is so deep in our culture and so deep inside of us that it's sort of a lifelong journey to sort of move through.

Judgment because we really were conditioned to see things through that lens But when you really start to unpack it, there's just a lot more curiosity. I mean Yes compassion and room and acceptance, but but curiosity to me is that first? It's that first thing what's happening here rather than just going straight for

fitting whatever is happening in the world into a story of good and bad. So, yeah, that's kind of just what we were chewing on before we got on today. What do you think, Nate?

Nate (03:14.676)
Yeah, what a timely topic. It's very up in...

It seems very up and present in the broader world. Whether or not it's showing up in your personal life, I definitely feel it in the public sphere. And I love that idea that curiosity is kind of the gateway to broadening our horizons and opening up to different points of view.

And I think it's okay if judgment shows up first. Because judgment is a part of your lizard brain that's trying to keep you safe. And nobody likes to think that they operate with stereotypes. But we do. I mean, we know this from psychology, that the brain has to use stereotypes to

categorize the vast, vast amounts of information that are coming in from your perceptions. But the reason that we've got a frontal lobe is that we can then override those stereotypes and give ourselves some compassion and space and say, okay, that's the knee jerk. That's kind of what I've been indoctrinated to think, but let's take a moment and actually be curious.

And so we don't have to be perfect at this. guess that's what I'm leading with here is that this is a process that involves compassion and patience for yourself initially, and then curiosity, which may lead to compassion and openness towards other people. Because right now, I think what's happening is that

Nate (05:12.829)
fear is causing a lot of people to fall into tribalism and to fall into camps. And I think that when you fall into those really broad categories, you can very easily lose the sense of the frame that you're in. So it's very easy when you

jump into your camp, whatever camp or tribe that is, whether it's Republican or Democrat or woo woo or materialist, whatever, there's camps for everything. When you get fully in the middle of that space, that energy, it takes a lot of self-awareness and grace and presence to look at

the walls you have just put yourself in to realize you are in a construct or in a container. It has rules. Democrats have rules. Republicans have rules. Right. This is part of the problem. And when we when we look at it in this way, that's very polarized. We sometimes forget to question what container am I in right now? And is this container actually helpful? And is it is it opening me up or is it closing me down?

And just like very real example is if I'm at the grocery store in self-check and I'm next to a dude wearing a MAGA hat, my knee-jerk reaction is like, this guy's a bigot or whatever, I don't agree with him. But then take a moment and just look at that guy, look at that gentleman. And then I notice he's a veteran and he's got a whole host of life experiences.

that have led him down this path and he's probably not thinking about his frame and I just very easily fell into my judgmental frame of liberal and that it completely misses the wholeness of a person. And really I think what we're trying to talk about today is that when we lose the curiosity, when we don't see people as whole, as multifaceted, as complex,

Nate (07:35.022)
individuals, we really just like we paint with a very broad brush and we lose a bit of our humanity in that process. So yeah, I'll throw it back to you. I don't know that's

Ashley Henderson (07:47.086)
Yeah, yeah. mean, what it made me think about is that really looking first inside of yourself and asking yourself if you really want to know thyself, really want to know the truth of who you are. Because if you really want to know the truth of who you are, you have to look at who you're not.

what's not true. And as you begin to sort of pull out the threads of what's not true, maybe it's aspects of your belief systems or operating systems or patterns or dynamics that were just passed down to you that were reflected or taught to you by the culture, you can start to really discern between what's you.

and what's not you. Eventually that leads you probably to the heart, probably to a pretty humble and vulnerable place. As we go through this process, we keep having podcasts about humility and vulnerability and all these things. So it's not about judging the judgmental mind. I'm really glad. You always, you always.

bring that piece in. think it's so important. It's not about judging your judgmental mind or being perfect at any of this. It's actually what I started out by saying, which is it's a natural byproduct. I think it's a natural byproduct of actually unpacking who you really are. Because once you get there and you see, my gosh, I operate this way. I'm this or that. And really, I'm sure we've done a podcast about

about how everything is really a mirror. So whatever's triggering you is really probably about you. So the people that trigger you the most are just unaccepted aspects of yourself, places where you're still rejecting aspects of yourself. Because even if you don't agree with somebody, you can sort of accept who they are. You can accept that they

Ashley Henderson (09:58.906)
came like the example you were giving, that they came to their reality, honestly, through their life experience. There is a level of acceptance. And once you hit acceptance, then the story changes. Because if I'm just sitting in judgment of somebody else, I'm probably not going to listen. I'm probably not going to be open. I'm probably not going to learn or be able to

you know.

Ashley Henderson (10:32.031)
maybe accept the reason why this person is in my life or something like that. You know what mean? There's so much going on all the time that we don't know. We might, through judgment, might ignore. And so once I get to acceptance, then I can be in curiosity, now I'm open. Now I'm like, what's here? What can this person teach me?

You know, maybe there's just something about landing in the heart and opening up your compassion for another person. And man, can you even imagine if we could somehow, you know, magically open people's hearts and just get to a place of curiosity about each other, how different things would be. So we can, we can, we can keep.

really connecting our own personal spiritual awakening journeys to the shift in the collective. I think that's just so important. I don't think that those two things could possibly be separated. And I think if they get separated, it might be bypassing or something because it's just so, and it's so obvious, it's more and more and more obvious how

those two things are intertwined, right? My personal spiritual awakening process, healing, feeling more and more free, maybe more in alignment, maybe more as I say, is going to absolutely change my world, but it's going to change the world. Those two things are not, they can't be separated. So I think we need to start really folding it all in together. Not just,

as a nice byproduct, but as an active part of our practice.

Nate (12:35.42)
Yeah, I totally agree. I love what you said to around the accepting piece and I think this is big so I'm going to come back to it which is

There is a difference between acceptance and acknowledgement and agreement. So you can accept people as they are and acknowledge their position. And that doesn't mean that you necessarily agree with their position or their beliefs. And that, you know, this works on multiple levels. This on a very 3D level, that's democracy.

That's actually what this country was founded on, which was you and I can have different beliefs and there's space for both of them. And if 70 people think one thing and one person thinks another, that one person's voice isn't discounted. So that's like just 3D, good logic sound that's good for your brain to just wrap your head around that. And then on a metaphysical or spiritual level, which you and I are always interested in.

It is understanding and discerning the difference between acknowledging someone's position and not necessarily meaning that you are in agreeance with the kind of energetics behind that, which is can happen, particularly right now with a lot of the stuff going on with immigration or with war. There's a lot of, really

dark and harsh energy that is coming up for people to process. And I think one of the ways that it's getting processed is a disavowing or just outright. This is awful. This is horrible. There's nothing good or redeeming or anything in this for us to look at. We just need to stop doing it.

Nate (14:41.624)
I understand that impetus, but that stuff, as you said, you were going there, is part of our shadow. This is coming up, it's like a boil that needs to be lanced. It's coming up in order for us to process it and just shoving it down or forcing people to stop doing it when it hasn't actually been fully explored, what the origins of this stuff are.

is just means that we're kicking the can down the road till another day and it's gonna happen again. And I just, feel the power and the potency in this moment for us to get really honest and really curious about these aspects of us that are still in separation. And I think ultimately a lot of this comes from separation. And

Even the disavowing of these harsh realities that are happening in our world right now, whether it's the Epstein files or the wars of the immigration or any of these power dynamics, these are inherent aspects of where we are as humanity right now. They're just parts of us. And we don't want to pretend like parts of us don't exist. Because when you do that, you fracture yourself and you're not

in integration, you're not in wholeness. And again, this doesn't mean that we're in agreement with those darker parts, do, but acceptance is an important aspect of this in getting curious is such a good gateway into there and just say, why are we still fascinated by war? Why are some people in power struggles where people are

giving power away and other people are willfully taking it. Why is this stuff still happening? And I think it's up for us right now because it's an invitation to really go into honesty with compassion, with grace, and for us to transmute some of these really dark, heavy energies that have just been saddled on us by, you know.

Nate (17:03.342)
power structures, society, culture at large. And the amazing thing is that we don't need to fix it overnight. We don't even need to quote fix it. But just bringing curiosity, just bringing a little more neutrality to any of these charged topics opens up the space for the energy to shift. And most of this is like stuck energy that just

It needs to move. It's like, you know, if you've got a grudge with a friend or a family member and then you don't talk and you don't talk and you don't talk, guess what? It just builds up. It builds momentum. And then if you've ever had that hard conversation, it's like the dam breaks and the energy just flows. It doesn't mean you're a hundred percent with that person, but you're back in relation, right? There's an aspect of yourself that you're not denying. There's an aspect of that person that you're not denying and you get to move a little bit.

back into harmony. And I think that that's the moment we're in right now. And it's not easy. I just want to caveat that it's not easy.

Ashley Henderson (18:09.329)
It's not easy. mean, I think that's that's it makes me think about why it's called awakening. Like we're waking up, right? We're moving out of a sleep state, a denial state, an avoidance state, and we're willing to see who we really are. What's real? What's real? What's true? And that's not easy. It sounds great.

Because there's a lot of words we can throw out like freedom and clarity and all these things. And that is great. It is, it's worth it, right? And the process is painful because we've been avoiding things for a reason. There are lots of things.

you know, aspects of ourselves that are reflective in the culture. if the cultures are reflective of ourselves, we're actually seeing what hasn't been seen. Things are getting revealed that have been in the shadow. you know, on some level, as I've been sort of waking up to a level of darkness in the world, there's a part of me that's shocked by it. And then there's a part of me that's not shocked at all. Of course, I knew that that darkness exists.

I've experienced it, you know, I've experienced a level of it. Like I feel it. It's part of our collective experience, right? But it's been in the shadows. So it's similar, like the shadow work that, so, and I was thinking about, you know, this idea of,

being triggered as a bad thing. We say we're triggered and we hold that as like, we wouldn't want to be triggered. But the thing about being triggered is that it wakes you up. And if you can bring enough, if you can develop a practice to holding curiosity around your triggers, you're going to know thyself. So it comes back to that like.

Ashley Henderson (20:12.497)
Do you really want to wake up? Do you really want to know the truth? And you don't have to figure it all at once. I think that's what you're saying. It's not about being achievement. It's not an achievement to know thyself. You're not going to get an A. Nobody's going to care if you do it or not. So it's really a deep call, actually. I need to know the truth, because the path is challenging and lonely.

you know, and, and ultimately empowering. but I think right now, I mean, even if, you know, I hesitate to go into this because it's so triggering for people, but I actually had this thought lately that, you know, without Donald Trump, we might not be seeing all these things.

You know, and I won't go into any more details than that, but like, you know, there's an aspect of his particular personality and his particular way that he's been operating in this power position that's really unlocking a lot of things for people. People are incredibly triggered both directions.

And we can look at it through a negative lens or we can look at it with curiosity and be like, whoa, this is, you know, there's a massive awakening happening. It's really hard to ignore. You'd really have to have your head in the sand to not see what's getting revealed.

Nate (21:53.158)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think we should go there. I'm ready. Well, truth. Well, yeah, one of the things that came up when you were talking about triggered being triggered and I just I I feel like I want to just dig in a little bit there because it is it's an important process that's that is going on for a lot of people right now and me included and

Ashley Henderson (21:57.341)
you're ready to go there? Okay.

Nate (22:23.205)
I think it's important to understand what we mean by triggered and what is actually happening. So when you see something that gives you a strong emotional feeling and then you immediately try to control the way that feeling is moving through your body, you've been triggered. Because if you can see the thing that is shocking or

upsetting or deeply disturbing and then you allow yourself to be shocked, upset, angry, deeply disturbed and then let it move through you. You move to what we were talking about, curiosity, neutrality, even a little bit of acceptance in a very

a much easier path because you're not denying those things. You're triggered for a reason. It's you're having an emotional response. That is actually your internal guidance system saying there's something in this world that I don't that I'm not in agreeance with and I'm having a visceral kind of response to it. But it is here. So I need to accept it. But it's important to let that feeling move through your body in that

that word trigger is, you know, we use it a lot right now in the culture, but what I think it's missing is that kind of unpacking, which is like, it's a denial of a feeling or it's like an overwhelming of the system because your emotional response or your visceral response is so strong. that, it's like, you're shutting down half of the process.

you need to let the feeling move through you and it doesn't need to stay for a long time. It can move through you in 15 or 30 seconds. It's like it comes out, you're like, God damn, I'm so pissed off at this. I cannot believe this injustice, right? And then it becomes something that is a little more neutral and then you can look at it and say, wow, there is stuff going on here that is hard to look at. And I had this similar

Nate (24:44.159)
response over the weekend i had family members visiting in there was kind of the discussion around trump and abstain files and all in the war and everything that's happening that is truly upsetting for most of us and in kind of the typical hand-wringing and statements like the world is going to to hell in a handbasket right this is kind of this it's just this it's almost like

a thought form that is very easy for us to of hold on to. And I'm very careful with my in-laws. I don't want to press anyone into uncomfortable places, but I just looked at them and I said, really, is that, is that actually what's going on? Because Epstein has been doing this stuff for over 20 years and we're just now finding out about it. said, so let me ask you a question. What's more disturbing that it was happening or that it was happening and you didn't know about it?

Because what's happening right now is that we are becoming aware of how people have violated other people's sovereignty. And as you were saying around Trump, you know, it'd be very interesting to have a conversation with people and say, hey, what would you think about a politician who came in and was really disruptive of the power dynamics and showed you all the ways in which our government

has gotten out of balance and is not in integrity and can take our power and that we have been asleep at the wheel as a democracy. Would you want that person to come in and show you where all of these imbalances are? Yeah, that's a scary proposition and guess what? Regardless of where you are in the dial, for me, I look at it and I say,

whatever if you're on the left or the right the system is broke right like when what he has done is highlighted how broke the system is and that is a harsh thing because now we have to attend to it and we have not wanted to attend to it and that's where that avoidance piece comes in and this is you know it's it can feel really hard because it's asking us

Nate (27:11.937)
to in the midst of a lot of exposure to power imbalances, to hold our center and to just be the witness. But that is really what the call is right now for most of us, is to be the witness, to see it, to actually let the feelings come up and move through us and to find our center and then to understand that the way out of this is to not give our power back away to somebody else.

It's to find community, it's to disperse power out, and to have the relational aspect of human beings be the kind of driving thing that moves us into the future, not power dynamics, not imbalances, not polarity. But it's gonna all start with that process of

being the neutral witness, of being curious, of holding your center and saying, okay, we're lancing the boil. And right now, everybody's, frankly, everyone's covered in a lot of pus. And it's really gross. But we're gonna get through it.

Ashley Henderson (28:27.478)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you said so many good things. Yeah, it just makes me think about this, like when you're highlighting, like you have to feel the feelings and then you brought in the power dynamics. It's hard, it's hard to see that you've given your power away. But wouldn't you want to see that you've given your power away and actually feel the rage and grief and fear

around that, then just unconsciously be continuing to give your power away. So we're having to face and be responsible for and own the ways we have given our power away. So every time I come to a new level of, there's a whole conspiracy here of a world that doesn't want us to be in our sovereign power that actually

benefits from us giving our power away. When I start to see that I have emotions, it doesn't feel good to think that I've been at the mercy of that and I have to go into the feelings. But then when you come out the other side, there's a deeper level of acceptance that this stuff exists, then you have a choice. You're actually in a different position in yourself. You know what your values are.

You know, it doesn't have to be, I don't have to be all day in rage against people who are acting in, you know, ways that I think are probably evil, but I can know how I want to live. I could double down on how I want to be in the world, how I want to treat people, how I want to see people, the kind of community that I want to be in. And there's something really empowering about that.

that I'm not waiting for somebody to go to jail so that I can feel okay. Nobody has to go to jail for me to feel okay, would I like people to be? Would kind of justice being served and things happen? I think we're heading in that direction. I hope we're heading in that direction because it does, it kind of makes you feel a little bit like this world can be a little safer, but we have to do that. We have to free ourselves first so that things like that can happen.

Ashley Henderson (30:50.453)
So I feel like this is a time where there is a tipping point of are you going to take your power back? And I think you articulated it really well that part of that is just the process of letting yourself feel what you haven't wanted to feel and let yourself...

Ashley Henderson (31:19.153)
Let the parts of you that have been too afraid to really own your life fall away and just own your life. It's such a process, isn't it? It's just such a process. But there just does seem to be this like, either it's a reflection or it's an invitation right now.

Nate (31:44.535)
Yeah, and I just want to highlight one thing that you said that was so key, which is that one tool that we can kind of use or one kind of touchstone that we can work with is that when we feel the rage and the anger come up and then it's directed outward at others, which is often kind of how some of us are moving through the emotions.

in that moment of rage and anger and resentment towards the other, just take a pause, take a breath and know that that is an aspect of you that you're externalizing and that the important thing isn't that it's... The important thing is that you're feeling the feeling and so just come back into the process of the feeling.

get a little less concerned about where you're directing the feeling right because It doesn't feel good to get angry to get frustrated to feel Violated right these are hard feelings But I would just say one masterful kind of spiritual judo move taking the energy and reforming it is to just Have those feelings come up and let them be yours

Just let them be organic feelings that don't need to be directed towards another. Because what you're really doing, you're kind of sending the signal back to yourself in a way. It's like you're half processing it. It's coming up and then you're otherizing it. And when it comes up and you otherize it, you don't own it. And unfortunately, part of the process of...

emotional regulation and really working with these feelings and letting them flow through you in a meaningful way so that they don't stay stuck in your body, which causes disease and mental illness, is to let them come up, feel them, own them, and release them. And so it's just that it's a, many of us can identify the feelings in how we are projecting them.

Nate (34:01.655)
So just take a moment and just, you don't have to do it every time either. Just think about the opportunity that's there for you to own that feeling, to let it be yours, to let it be very organic and natural considering what we're all dealing with, and to not hold onto it and just release it. Because I think that that process is going to bring us more into ourselves and into wholeness and into health and integrity in our body.

And then we're just better versions of ourselves out there in the world. And everyone being a slightly better version of themselves out there in the world, a more whole and accepting version of themselves, that's the only way I really see us getting out of this thing. I don't see it as otherizing. That's not gonna be the path.

Ashley Henderson (34:47.988)
Good point.

Totally.

Totally. And I want to say this, because we did talk about this before we got on today, that if you're in this process right now, if this all makes sense to you, if you're committed to knowing yourself, if you're really interested in the truth, and you're walking through all these aspects and it's challenging and everything, find community. I have noticed lately that...

Safe spaces where people can actually just be themselves in their messy, vulnerable process are just solid gold. It's where we're going to continue to heal and find courage. So I'm not saying.

Not like everyone's in therapy every every single person therapy you're either a therapist you're in therapy or you're both And therapy is so great because there's a safe space There's a safe container and I also think we can start really teasing out who who is also on this journey and Can I have partners and friends on the journey and can I create more community and more safe spaces?

Ashley Henderson (36:09.236)
where we can walk in friendship through this process. Because that's where we're at. We're really there. have, people know. You're making choices all the time. People are making choices around this stuff every day because it's in our faces. And so, yeah.

I think community is more important than ever. And safety, creating, you know, you can create it. You can create safe spaces. That's something that every person can do. And you would be so surprised to find out how many people are looking for that and wanting that. So that's my little plug for Sangha for.

Nate (36:54.172)
Yeah, I was just gonna say that there's so many different ways to get to find that community, whether it's a Zoom conversation with your friend, like you and I do, and always makes me feel recharged when we get finished with these conversations, like I'm really being seen and I can share the trials and tribulations of spiritual awakening with somebody else. If you have a...

a YouTuber or influencer that you really like, see if they have online communities. A lot of them do. Those are great places. And then as you were saying, with safety being such a big part of this and a good thing to find is like whether it's yoga class or a song or a place where you maybe you don't dig too deep and you're just sharing space with people and you're sharing space with the intention.

of wholeness of coming back into your center in that, you know, that could be group meditation or some kind of movement practice or, you you go on to meet up and do nature hikes or whatever. But yeah, really, I totally agree. And I think that that is, it doesn't need to be difficult and also it doesn't need to be everything. It's just like one or two good friends or good outlets.

can really ease the process.

Ashley Henderson (38:25.396)
All right, well, we did it.

Nate (38:27.344)
Thank you, everyone.