Why are we so quick to judge others?

It occurred to me recently that the only thing I can know for sure and make comments about is myself. That is why I write about myself. I have always had an issue with believing people who dish out advise and tell people how to do things instead of talking about their own experiences of things.

The day that changed my life was when I watched the documentary on Neale Donald Walsh’s life (the author of Conversations with God). The documentary showed how he was at the lowest point in his life and he lost everything to the point where he lived on the streets) and then he began to write and find answers. And the whole world saw his difficult journey but the whole world saw how real and difficult life can be. I was so moved by how real he was and how unashamed he was to put his life out there for people to see and learn from.  And I said to myself that one day I was going to do the same.

 But back to the theme of today, I think we are very quick to make presumptions about others when really we don’t know.

I have noticed with me that when I become opinionated or I have too much to say about someone else that it’s really just a distraction from myself. It’s easier to focus on negativity of others and how they are living their lives instead of acknowledging what’s really going on in our own lives.

I think human beings have forgotten how to love and support one another. People have even become scared of the word love or it’s only reserved for certain people. But what if we could drop all our judgement and just find more compassion and understanding for other people.

I think we are constantly trying to protect ourselves and so we are always on the defensive and our guards are up. But these walls don’t protect, they keep away.

It doesn’t mean we have to accept behaviours that we don’t agree with but instead of coming from a place of judgement we come from a place of compassion.

But perhaps this comes down to self- love once again and that is why it’s so difficult for us. I feel like everything comes down to self- love. If we don’t love ourselves and basically if we are hard on ourselves and treat ourselves like shit can we really treat others nicely?

For some reason society has built a stigma and some sort of guilt around self- care, especially  with men. They must be good providers but when it comes to loving themselves, finding compassion for themselves it’s seen as weak. But I am not sure how common it is for a Father to say to a son that he needs to love himself and take care of himself and be there for himself. A man is mainly acknowledged for how well he provides for his family and others.

So can we really be honest with ourselves? Can we be that self- aware that when we find ourselves judging someone else, in that moment we can acknowledge how shit we are actually feeling about ourselves?  We are constantly compensating for how bad we feel about ourselves with things, whether it be material things and talking others down.  

We often will find ourselves in situations where we are treated badly but I really do believe that people treat us the way we treat ourselves. And people treat us badly for as far as we are willing to let them do so.

It’s a difficult thing to acknowledge that we really don’t love ourselves enough or maybe at all. And there are many reasons why this could be but the fact is we can’t blame others anymore for this. No one is going to ride on their white horse and pull us out of our self-loathing. Only we can do this.

But acknowledging it doesn’t mean we fall into victim mode where we now feel sorry for ourselves because we feel that we are not good enough, its more about owning the fact that perhaps all the bad things we think about others is really what we think about ourselves. When we own our stuff we become empowered, not victimised. It’s easy to be a victim though because then we always have someone to blame and so we never have to take responsibility. But then we stay unhappy waiting to be fulfilled by someone or something.

I believe if we can see it in ourselves, and then have compassion for ourselves for feeling it then we can begin to love and support others around us. And then we don’t even have to try because it will be a natural process.

It’s empowering to own how vulnerable we can really be and feel. It’s dis empowering to constantly blame others for making us feel a certain way.

But why should we change anything about our lives right? Why should we suddenly start acknowledging things in ourselves? Because we all so badly want to be loved and accepted by others and we are on a constant search to find this acceptance everywhere we go, when really, the person that is going to love us the most is starring at us in the mirror, every day. When we can really feel that, love from others will just flow and acknowldegement from the outside won't be so important to us.

We so badly want to be understood and supported and loved for who we are and seen for what we do but we cannot seem to give that acknowledgement to ourselves. And the more we seek it out in others the more unfullfilled we seem to feel. It's a difficult process this, one that I often battle with. But it comforts me to know that so many of us feel the same way and so we are never really alone.

So something for me to ponder on and practice for sure.

Love always

Becoming the Lone Wolf

I haven’t written in a while mostly because I was approached by an old friend who has been following my blog and seemed to believe in my writing so much that he is putting a website together for me. Excited is an understatement and as usual it’s always a shock when someone comments positively about my writing, albeit, a pleasant shock. So I wanted to wait to post all my new stuff onto my website but I have been having writing withdrawals. It seems that writing is not a part of me, it has become me and without it, well I can no longer imagine it.

I still laugh because I remember when my Mother bought me my first journal, I wrote often, but with much resistance, and most of my entries began with “I f.ing hate writing but for some reason I do it anyway”. Oh yes, I had the dramatic teenager thing down to a tee. But I once saw a quote that said the hardest part of writing is the actual writing; this could not be truer. It’s a mixture of difficult and exhilarating at the same time, for me anyway.

I must say though another part of why I haven’t written also has to do with the fact that I have become a bit of a loner. No I don’t mean a hermit, or a recluse, I mean I have become someone quite independent and enjoy being in my own company. I used to hate being alone in every sense of the word. I was out every weekend with friends, and the thought of being alone for an hour used to send me into some sort of anxiety. But it’s amazing how much you learn about yourself when you can actually just be with yourself, without any resistance. I have found a new found love for nature and this is where I recharge my batteries as much as I can. Trees seem to be a better source of comfort for me than people lately.

I came across an article recently that spoke to me on a deep level. It spoke about the Archetype/symbol of the Lone Wolf.

So that is what I would call myself lately, the Lone Wolf. The article describes how although wolves normally live, travel, and hunt in packs, occasionally a young wolf will choose to leave the pack and set out on its own.  The Lone Wolf is an archetype, a metaphor, a symbol for freedom, independence and self-reliance. The term Lone Wolf describes a person who is an individual in the truest sense of the word. The Lone Wolf is someone who prefers to work alone, is Self-Reliant and enjoys the peace and contentment of his, or her, own solitude. The Lone Wolf lives by his, or her, own rules: rules which are in harmony with universal laws and its own personal Divine Nature. I am sure there are many people who can relate to this.

So this pretty much explains where I am at. I feel like I have distanced myself from expectations, demands, of society and people and I get very turned off by people who believe that things should be a certain way. We don’t even realise how some of the people we choose to spend our time with have these unfulfilled dreams and expectations of themselves and without realising it we have taken their expectations upon ourselves, only to find ourselves in a position where we feel anxious because we haven’t reached certain goals or we think we are not where we should be in our lives.

So, I would describe it like I have become un-tethered to the pack.

In the last few months, so many things, ideas, thoughts began to NOT resonate with me and I often felt guilty because suddenly my thought process and the way I viewed life was completely different to so many people. And often that old feeling of "maybe I should rather not say certain things and do the right things in order to feel like I fit in better" would be better, but who would it be better for? Certainly not me.  

So I took a writing break to talk myself through this process and find my way in this new way of being and most importantly not judging it. Let’s just say that if you ever have a strange, bizarre idea about the universe, and life, I would be the first to listen because let me say that society’s way of thinking can be very narrow minded, and its one way only and that can be suffocating to many people who just don’t fit into that box or way of thinking.

So here is to the beginning of a new chapter, a different, awakened Talya, and some new ideas and writings about life that I have in stall.

And the truth is, alone= all one.