Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged

Hi, and welcome to the Storied Human. I'm Lynne Thompson. Tonight, I'd like to talk just a little bit about judging other people making judgments, it's been on my mind, because I've been working on it for quite a while I was quite the judgment person, quite the judger. And when I was younger, it became a habit. And I don't think I'm alone in that, it's so easy to do it. And I read this really cool article about how judging, you know, assessing a situation is natural and important. And we have to do that, like, you know, judging the danger of a situation or judging how much time we have left to do something. I mean, those are normal reactions, but when we get gossipy about it, when we get two dimensional about it, when we look at someone very quickly, and think we know that they're deficient, that's when it's a problem. And it took me years and years, and, you know, lots of reading and noticing different quotations about it, to realize that
when you judge someone, you're really judging yourself, you're really commenting on something you don't like in yourself, which is kind of like uncomfortable to admit. But it's true. Like I'm, you know, I can knee jerk judge still, I can just knee jerk, boom, see somebody boom, you know, she shouldn't be doing that with her kid, or she should be the you know, Mother shaming, and all that stuff that you do, or even, um, you know, judging people's driving or just getting mean about it. And I am offering a solution. And it's the same kind of solution for every behavior that we want to change. It's basically you transmute the thought you change the thought, you take a moment you take a breath, you catch yourself judging, if you want to stop judging,
you catch yourself and you say, Well, you know, I don't know that person's situation. I don't know who they are. I don't know what they're dealing with. I don't even know what they're doing. How do I know that they're negligent? Mom, maybe they're like, so stressed out, they can barely function that day. How dare I, you know, that kind of thing. Like transmute change the thought, and become more empathic about other people. And realize that you're just like reflecting yourself out into onto other people. And, you know, this is like, easy to talk about, but hard to do. And I still judge people, it's just where I go, it's a habit. But now I just think it, you know, I don't say it. And I don't let it go too far. And I just think it's such a worthwhile thing to work on. Because we don't need to make people, you know, two dimensional, we don't need to distance ourselves from people, what we need to do is remember that we're all similar, and we're all connected, and that we never know someone's story. We never know their story. They could be getting chemo treatments, they could be not paying attention, because they just lost someone. They could be forgetting stuff, because they're really tired. They, you know, have a new baby at home and they're exhausted. They could be doing things for any number of reasons. And if we think about why we do stuff, we realize there's tons of reasons why we're not our best self, or why we're making a mistake, or why we're seemingly not paying attention.
It becomes really obvious to me, but this took years to figure out so I thought I would share it. Maybe you can figure it out sooner than me. So then it's worth sharing.
And it's kind of appropriate for this podcast, because like I said, we don't know someone's story. We don't know their story. So we can imagine their story. We can imagine human reasons for people behaving in ways we don't approve of. And it's also good when we do make a judgement. When something happens. Somebody does something that we don't approve of just take a moment and say like, what is that bringing up in me? Like, what do I not like about myself that that bothers me so much. And I have to admit, I've caught myself several times. You know, judging someone and then going, Whoa, you know, I don't like that. I'm like that. That's like really pushing my button, whatever it is, you know, I don't like certain things about myself and when I see
him and others, it really bugs me and I start to judge them and distance myself from them. And like, that's so much a waste of time. So anyway, if you're finding that you're judging people try to catch yourself and realize that that person is a person, a human being, and they're doing their best. Like my mom always used to say, remember, people are doing the best they can at the time with what they have. And it's a much nicer way to live than, you know, the way I used to live was in judgment mode. Just the problem is it becomes a habit and like almost, you know, neural groove in your brain, it becomes like a pathway that you just get negative about people too much. And that doesn't help anybody, especially you. So that's my little tidbit for tonight. make of it what you will. I wish you the best. Take care