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