judgemental
| how you judge others is how you judge yourself
an everyday moment:
I remember when people used to tout that the key to internal peace was to practice ‘non-judgement’. It seems kind of impossible and I still think that to some extent that living this way of judging nothing and no-one means not giving yourself the grace of being a human. Judgement is important - to be able to judge a situation is basically the root of our ability to survive. So rather than think that you’ve ‘failed’ spirituality because you judge things left and right - it’s more helpful to observe the unnecessary judgements that you automatically make and see the innocence behind them.
I didn’t really understand the statement that ‘how I judged other people was how I judged myself’ until I began developing an awareness of the judgements I made on autopilot. And it all comes down to associations. For instance, I’ve come across a person who judges others who they perceive as more wealthy than them as ‘privileged’, ‘selfish’ etc. For that person; wealth is associated with abuse of money, or to be wealthy means to intentionally deprive other people of wealth, show off their money without consideration and therefore wealthy people are ‘bad’, ‘evil’ or should feel ashamed of their wealth. And it seems extreme, but depending on how that person was brought up - this association probably has really reasonable grounds (e.g. grew up in a poorer household and lived in a corrupt environment where the norm was for people to be bribed with money in order to get their way). But this judgement of others has a way of biting you back in the butt. Because if you judge those you see as ‘better’ than you financially and you think they should be ashamed of their wealth, you unconsciously stop yourself from accumulating financial wealth or actively pursuing it - because it’s associated with shame and inevitable corruption. So, even if you’re poor, at least you live on a moral high ground and see yourself as somewhat ‘better’ as the people who are more financially wealthy.
a reflection:
The fluffy cliche I started with does actually have some truth to it → how we judge others is how we judge ourselves. But it's not as literal as, oh if I judge someone as 'smart' that means I'm also judging myself as 'smart'. Rather, taking the same above example - if we were to have the same amount of wealth - and we judged ourselves as all of the above (bad, evil, corrupt) we would not be able to live with ourselves - so we’re actually sabotaging ourselves. It’s about not taking the association you adopted as a child as the absolute truth and seeing examples where your association is not supported - there are plenty of people who are wealthy and use it for good, where their wealth enables them to expand their kindness. And seeing, oh, how innocent that my mind is doing all these cartwheels and tricks to judge others so that I feel safe in my environment (familiar environment = poorer household therefore identifying with ‘I’m just not the type of person who makes this amount of money’). And then (towards whoever you’re judging) - being like ‘bless them for unashamedly being wealthy and a good person - they show me that I can do both’.
There are so many more examples. Maybe you’ve judged others as ‘lazy’ because you grew up learning that laziness or not executing things to the highest quality is an unacceptable way to exist. Maybe you associate laziness with failure, lack of success, proof that someone is not ‘hard-working’ and doomed. By extension, you subject yourself to the same critical eye when you think you’re being lazy or not giving 100%. It would be wrong to say that this judgement has no benefit - being self-critical for laziness may put the fire under your butt to do better and that is important. But, you can be non-self critical and solely be self-aware that oh I’m not putting as much effort into this - figure out why and then figure out whether you actually want to put more effort or feel like doing something else.
magic in the mundane
To see yourself as less worthy or needing to be ashamed for ‘slacking off’ means that there is this pressure where you must constantly be hardworking/not lazy in order to feel no guilt. No wonder so many of us completely dissociate to gain rest - through scrolling, eating, watching - through not being conscious of rest, guilt is delayed. The problem with having this black-and-white perception of laziness is that we miss how laziness can actually be an excellent quality. Laziness is also a means of reserving energy, being able to complete tasks with as minimal energy as possible - without laziness - we would have expended energy on too many tasks and not be able to survive. Laziness allows us to reserve energy for what we love to work on the most and direct less energy/be lazy in the tasks that don’t light us up as much. Laziness is the root of efficiency. By giving yourself the grace to be lazy, you also allow yourself to be hardworking (less efficient but more effective) in another area. What I notice is that the areas where we ‘should’ ourselves into hard work (such as studying, working a job, writing etc.) are the areas we tend to feel trapped in laziness. It’s like the areas where laziness is even more of a ‘no-no’ and if it happens, results in greater guilt are the areas where laziness happens the most. Maybe…just maybe, if we give permission for ourselves to be lazy, promise ourselves we can be aware of the laziness without shaming ourselves for it - the laziness will occur less often. It kind of works on the same principle on food → when you stop restricting certain foods and allow yourself to eat it without guilt, you can practise more awareness on the experience consuming the food gives you and choose whether you want to repeat that experience versus being overcome by guilt. Is being lazy in certain tasks actually satisfying? Or is it result of only having little energy left after pressuring yourself to be hard-working at it and feeling dissatisfied? Or is there a way to make the task more enjoyable so you feel like investing more effort into it? Or do you actually hate the task, but it’s still necessary and the only way it is tolerable is by exerting as little effort as possible and having a minimum viable result?
fromtheheart mantras
- In the situations where you were not allowed to take up space as a child are often the situations you judge others in.
- For example, being slobby, messy or disorganised - you don’t allow yourself to be and so you judge others who you think are. Or maybe it’s being in a less than happy mood and not seeming joyful. May judge others as being ‘downers’ or no fun etc.
- Laziness is the root of efficiency. But the caveat is that laziness can hinder quality and excellence of work.
- Instead of ‘don’t judge yourself’ → observe what trait you judge about others as 'bad' or 'good' and whether you judge yourself the same way when you display that trait
- It’s human to judge others. Why? Because making judgements, distinguishing between behaviours and traits that are ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ provides us with the mental security of knowing how our environment works - and therefore how to act in it in order to belong (and not be ostracised). That’s why we verify our judgements with others - and why gossiping is so entertaining- everyone is exchanging ideas on how the world works, making sure that there is common ground or their idea of the world is right and how they've been behaving or existing is also acceptable.
- It's about realising that there is more than one way to exist in the world AND be loved, safe, acceptable so I no longer need to get on a high horse and make everyone agree with my judgement on how that person should be judged
- In order to become more compassionate and less judgemental towards myself and others, I HAVE to judge others to learn what judgements I can make less often.
- I can judge others and be a good person
from, the heart <3