Someone told me I was judgmental this week. At first, like most people, my first reaction was, “Who? Me? Nah.” After some thought, and talking to my husband, I looked at the statement objectively. While I do think that being judgmental can be useful, it can also be harmful. It is when the scale tips to be harmful that it is time to take a look at this thing called judgement. This is a growth point called ‘Being Aware’. Instead of being JUDGMENTAL, I decided to be CURIOUS. I took a step back and looked at where judgement showed up the most and how it was impacting me.
What I learned was that I was most judgmental of myself…not others. It spilled over into how I looked at other people, but it mostly had to do with me.
The thing is, if you are judgmental of anything, you are probably most judgmental with yourself. If you are angry with someone else, you are probably most angry with yourself. Since the first step in my system is to take 100% responsibility for everything in my life, I decided to take the responsibility of looking at how the results of being judgmental was showing up in my life. What I learned about myself lifted a heavy burden. I not only felt better, I literally felt lighter. I could breathe easier. It’s OK to be easy about things and not to hold yourself to such a high standard that you can never attain. I started to see the ‘big picture’ of things, including my journey and it felt great.
So, instead of struggling with the feeling of being bad because of my judgment, I consciously chose to look at it differently and use it to better understand the journey that I am on.
I challenge you today to take a look at how judgement is showing up in your life and what you can do to refocus your attention to live a better, happier life.
It’s amazing what you will learn about yourself and your motivation when you stop and take time to think about it instead of letting your immediate emotional reactions take over.