Author: HairWeavings Editorial Team

As we move through the later chapters of our lives, we often find ourselves reflecting more deeply on our experiences and relationships. One important but often overlooked shift that can dramatically improve our emotional and physical health is learning to observe rather than judge – ourselves, others, and the world around us.

At first glance, observing and judging may seem similar. Both involve paying attention to what’s happening. But there’s a critical difference: Judging attaches a label of good, bad, right, or wrong. Observing simply notices – without immediately forming an opinion or conclusion. This subtle but profound difference can impact everything from our blood pressure to our mental sharpness, immune function, and overall sense of peace.

Understanding the Power of Observation

Observation is about awareness. It allows us to take in information neutrally, without rushing to react. In contrast, judgment tends to be emotionally charged, often triggering stress responses in the body.

Research shows that practicing nonjudgmental awareness – often called mindful observation – is associated with lower levels of cortisol, the body’s primary stress hormone. Individuals who engage in mindful observation practices usually have significantly lower cortisol levels and better immune markers compared to those who do not.

Real-Life Example

Imagine you’re at a family gathering, and you notice your grandson is glued to his phone during dinner. A judgmental reaction might sound like, “Kids today are so disrespectful.” This spike in irritation can subtly raise your blood pressure and put stress on your heart.

But if you simply observe, “He’s focused on his phone right now,” you allow yourself to stay calm and perhaps later approach him with curiosity rather than anger, opening space for understanding rather than resentment.

Lower stress levels are no small matter. Chronic stress is linked to a wide range of health problems common later in life, including cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, memory loss, and depression.

Also read, 3 Ways to Effectively Prevent Type 2 Diabetes.

Judging: A Hidden Source of Chronic Stress

When we judge, we often create inner tension. We might dwell on how things “should be,” criticize ourselves for not living up to expectations, or feel frustration at the behavior of others. These reactions don’t just stay in our minds – they ripple throughout our bodies.

A 2019 study in PLOS ONE found that mindfulness training may reduce levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), an inflammatory marker associated with heart disease and cognitive decline, particularly in midlife-to-older adults and individuals with higher BMI.​

Real-Life Example

Perhaps you misplace your keys or glasses – a common enough occurrence. If your mind jumps to, “I’m getting old and useless,” this judgment creates discouragement and raises cortisol, making it even harder to think clearly.

However, if you neutrally observe, “I don’t remember where I placed my glasses,” you stay grounded, feel less stressed, and can calmly retrace your steps.

Judging frequently can create a “fight-or-flight” physiological state, even if there’s no real danger. Over time, this can wear down the cardiovascular system, increase insulin resistance, and accelerate biological aging.

Observing Builds Resilience and Cognitive Vitality

Shifting from judging to observing isn’t just about reducing harm – it actively builds emotional health.

In 2020, researchers did a study where adults between the ages of 53 and 86 kept daily journals. They looked at how being mindful – especially being nonjudgmental – affected people’s emotions.

They found that adults who were less judgmental of themselves and others felt happier and handled daily stress better. This was especially true for the older adults in the study.

This suggests that having a nonjudgmental attitude can help older people stay calmer and manage their emotions more easily when life gets tough.

Observation helps the brain stay more plastic – meaning more adaptable and responsive – which is critical for maintaining mental sharpness as we age.

Real-Life Example

Suppose you overhear a neighbor voicing a strong political opinion you don’t agree with. A judging mind might immediately label them “ignorant” or “wrong,” triggering anger and separation.

An observing mind notices: “They have a different perspective,” and allows you to maintain your peace, conserve your energy, and even stay open to understanding – all of which support brain health and emotional well-being.

In addition, observing rather than judging supports resilience. When we observe challenges neutrally, we are less likely to be overwhelmed by them. Instead, we can see options and respond thoughtfully rather than react impulsively. This skill has been linked to better outcomes in managing pain, and emotional distress.

The Link Between Observation and Physical Health

Observing with openness, rather than judging harshly, may also contribute to longer and healthier lives. There is evidence that individuals who score higher in mindful observation practices tend to have lower biological markers of inflammation and better stress responses, which are linked to healthier blood pressure, improved sleep, and stronger immune function over time.

One reason is that observation activates the body’s parasympathetic nervous system, often called the “rest and digest” system. This activation helps slow the heart rate, improve digestion, enhance cellular repair, and calm inflammation.

How to Shift from Judging to Observing

Changing long-standing mental habits takes practice, but it’s deeply rewarding. Here are a few simple ways to begin:

• Pause before reacting. Notice what you’re feeling or thinking without labeling it.
• Name what you see neutrally. Instead of “That driver is terrible,” try, “That driver is going very fast.”
• Practice self-kindness. When you make a mistake, observe it without harsh self-criticism: “I forgot my keys,” rather than “I’m hopeless.”
• Engage in mindful moments. Spend a few minutes each day simply noticing the sounds, sights, and sensations around you without judgment.

Small shifts like these, repeated daily, can create meaningful improvements in health and well-being over time.

Conclusion: Observing Is a Gift to Yourself

The art of observing rather than judging is not about ignoring problems or pretending everything is perfect. It’s about giving yourself the gift of clarity, peace, and resilience.

As we age, these qualities become even more precious. They help us maintain strong bodies, flexible minds, and open hearts.

By choosing to observe with kindness and curiosity, we not only improve our health – we also deepen our connection with ourselves, others, and the richness of life itself.

Let’s Have a Conversation

Have you ever caught yourself judging someone else’s behavior instead of simply observing it? What did you notice about how it made you feel – both in the moment and afterward? How does your experience differ when you simply observe without labeling or criticizing? We’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences.

From a bamboo-scented candle to a Japanese BBQ sauce used by Hailey Bieber.

Yeehaw! It’s a real-life boogie and a real-life hoedown.

Not a great look.

This phrase carries quiet power; like a stone placed just so on a sunlit windowsill or a single brushstroke on bare canvas. Georgia O’Keeffe lived by this principle, though she first learned it from Arthur Wesley Dow, her teacher who saw art not as imitation but as harmony – the delicate balance of line, space, and color.

Dow taught composition rather than copying. His lessons emphasized how emptiness could hold meaning equal to form. O’Keeffe felt this deeply, later phrasing it in her own words: “Fill a space in a beautiful way” – a philosophy that guided both her art and her life.

The Art of Space

Consider her paintings. Enlarged blossoms floating in void; weather-bleached bones against endless sky… each composition breathing through its deliberate emptiness. What she excluded mattered as much as what she included.

She applied this same discipline to her New Mexico homes. The spare interiors – adobe walls, wooden beams, a single ceramic bowl catching light – mirrored her artistic vision. Nothing extraneous, nothing wasted. Rooms were composed like canvases, with space treated as an essential element, not an absence to fill.

This concept extends beyond art and décor – it reaches into the very fabric of how we move through the world. Some fill space with noise, haste, or demands for attention; others, like O’Keeffe – who composed her paintings with deliberate forms and meaningful empty space – approached life with similar intentionality, creating impact not through excess, but through the still power of thoughtful, focused presence.

Learn more at The Georgia O’Keefe Museum.

The Woman Who Held the Room

Imagine entering a crowded gathering. Conversations mingle in competing fragments. An older woman enters – moving deliberately, not from frailty but from having nowhere urgent to be. When she sits, she settles completely, as if the chair had been waiting for her arrival.

She doesn’t raise her voice among the din. When spoken to, she turns her whole body toward the speaker, hands resting in her lap. Her simple, “Tell me more about that,” creates a pocket of calm. Without effort, she recalibrates the space. The noise softens. People begin leaning in rather than talking over one another.

Later, when asked about her secret, she smiles. “It’s not about saying the right thing,” she explains. “It’s about leaving room for the right thing to happen.”

This is the essence of filling space beautifully – not commanding attention but giving it, generously and unhurriedly, making the room feel lighter and more expansive through presence alone.

Composition of a Life

It is a profound truth that our lives, like art, are shaped both by what we include and what we exclude. O’Keeffe’s paintings demonstrate beauty through subtraction. The woman’s presence revealed grace in the spaces between words.

In our cluttered world of constant more – more noise, more stuff, more hurry – there’s a subtle revolution in doing less, but doing it with full attention. It manifests in how we design a garden, and equally in how we listen to a friend or enter a room – not to claim space, but to honor it.

To fill space beautifully isn’t about decoration. It’s about attention – knowing what to place and what to leave vacant. It’s restraint, clarity, and the courage to let emptiness speak.

O’Keeffe once described communicating through color and form when language failed. “I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way – things I had no words for.” The same applies to how we move through our days. The way we sit at a table, pause before responding, allow light to fall between us – these too are ways of filling space beautifully.

The Unseen Brushstrokes

In a world that values fullness – full schedules, full inboxes, full homes – there’s wisdom in O’Keeffe’s approach. Sometimes the most beautiful way to fill a space is to preserve its openness, to let it breathe.

What does the space around you say when you aren’t speaking?

Think of the difference between someone who bursts into a meeting, scattering papers and frenetic energy and one who enters with composed focus.

Or consider an exchange in which one person, while the other speaks, plans her next point, and compare it to someone who actively listens.

How might you fill one corner of your world more beautifully by attending to what already belongs there? By listening beyond what is said, to what wants to be expressed when the noise falls away?

This is how the desert speaks: through letting the wind carve its name in slow syllables. What we name emptiness is fullness in disguise – it is the shape around which all meaning gathers, the silence between the notes that calls the melody into song.

Also read, For Beauty’s Sake: A Lighthouse Keeper’s Tale.

Let’s Reflect:

What does the space around you say when you aren’t speaking? How would people describe you? Do you fill a room in a beautiful, calming way?