The Andean Fox judged and mocked the Llama for walking too slowly, too softly.
He called her path weak and naive.
Until the storm came.
Until the ground he trusted gave way.
And the one he judged… returned to carry him.
No lecture. No pride. Just loving presence.

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Last week, Spirit sent me three messengers. They didn’t look like messengers—each came from a different walk of life, a different age, a different worldview—but each brought the same medicine: the quiet but potent reminder that judgment steals from life.

The first was someone younger, intellectually sharp, deeply concerned with avoiding the harm of cultural appropriation. His intentions were noble. But as we spoke, I noticed how his vigilance became a net that caught even his own roots. He began questioning whether I, a man of my own lineage, was “appropriating” my own culture because I chose to express it in ways unfamiliar to him.

I did not respond with resistance. Instead, I held space. Because the wound wasn’t truly about culture—it was about disconnection. In shamanism, we are taught that disconnection from the Self creates fear. And fear, when not healed, calcifies into judgment.

The second encounter was with an elder. She spoke of a relative—someone she had quietly labeled as “irresponsible” for decades. As I listened, I saw clearly: this man had made choices that were simply in alignment with his path, even if they looked chaotic to hers. Yet the real pain was not in his lifestyle—it was in how long she had carried this verdict inside of her. That judgment had hardened her, drained her joy, and anchored her to a version of reality that denied her own inner peace.

The third was a young man—fiery, angry, disillusioned by “systemic racism.” He spoke of injustice, inequality, and suffering. But as I asked questions, a truth emerged: he had never directly experienced the things that consumed him. His reality was being shaped almost entirely by what he absorbed through social media.

As a shaman, this signals something powerful: he was feeding his life-force to a story that wasn’t his to carry. Instead of tending the fire in his own village, he had become lost in a storm not of his making. That, too, is a kind of self-abandonment.

Judgement is often a disguise that wears many masks—morality, activism, righteousness, concern—but underneath, it’s almost always fear, trauma, or grief in costume. And when left unchecked, it separates us from our vitality, our joy, our sacred now.

Shamanism teaches us to see with the heart, not the eyes. When we look at others and assign them roles—oppressor, victim, ignorant, selfish—we stop listening. We stop witnessing. And we shut the door to the richness of life.

Each of these three souls reminded me that life becomes sacred when we drop the lens of judgment and pick up the lens of presence. Not everything needs to be labeled. Some things simply need to be lived, observed, honored, and let be.

I invite you to notice where judgment has calcified in your own field. Where are you withholding love, curiosity, or understanding—not for the sake of others, but for your own healing.

Because in the end, judgment chains you. And liberation begins by simply choosing to see again, with the wisdom of your heart.

With heart,
Shaman Flavio
HealerShaman.com