How often have you heard someone say, ‘If I was him/her I would have said or done things differently!’ as a way of negative judgment against words or an action that someone else has used or taken?
Most people believe that if they were in another person’s ‘shoes’ (in the exact same situation that they were in) that they would do things differently. However, it is pointless and erroneous to judge someone else’s choices and actions based on our own set of experiences. They have been shaped by their own personal life experiences, which are different from ours. They are unique, and if we were walking in their shoes we would in effect be them and therefore we would do exactly as they have done.
Why are we judgmental?
Most of us were taught from a young age to judge others as a way of comparing how we are doing so that we can gain a measure of where we are and determine if we are doing ok. We picked this habit up from those that were responsible for filling our impressionable minds with information when we were young. Therefore, if those who had influence over us while we were growing up were judgmental against others, as well as against themselves, then we are likely to have developed similar traits.
The people that surround us and grew up in similar circumstances to us are likely to also have similar habits/patterns of thinking as they learned from the same people that we did. So we can also expect them to be comparing themselves to us as well as to everyone else that they come into contact with. The need to judge or compare ourselves to others seems to be a characteristic shared by much of the world’s population.
Is this necessarily a bad thing?
It is important to remember that when other people comment on our lives that they are viewing us through their filter of understanding which is made up of their programming and their experience. This means that different people will have different opinions and reactions to what we do and say based on how they themselves view the world.
We will then receive various different judgments, (thoughts and ideas,) about what we have said or done, and often they will vary from what we believe.
So, who is right?
They can all be right based on their personal beliefs about life, and they can all be wrong based on our beliefs about life!
How does this help me?
Once we realize that we are unique and that we have a unique view on life, we can come to understand that all other people are also unique. They see you do something and think that they would do it differently. Ok, no problem. Let them do it differently when it is their turn. But you, as an individual should never live your life based on someone else’s expectations of how they would live their life! It will not work for you, as you are different people with different beliefs, ideas, and experiences.
Our personal growth and development advance when we endeavor to live our lives in the best way we can to become in tune with our beliefs.
There is nothing wrong with offering advice when our intention is for the best outcome for the other person, however, we should never offer words to put another person down in any way whatsoever. It doesn’t help them and Karma will come back to bite us in the bum!
We are all individuals and are all here learning what it is to be a human being in this physical dimension on Earth. We learn best with positive encouragement and support from our family, friends, and peers.
Maybe my ideas are not always the best available ideas?
Our beliefs are not ‘set in stone,’ and this means that if someone comes along and offers you a better way of dealing with a situation that we could benefit by scrutinizing what we consider to be true and adapting it to ‘upgrade’ our mode of thinking. If their way will improve our life or outcome in some way, why not learn and adapt it into our habits so that we benefit now or in the future? After all, there are many ways to think, behave, and react to any given situation and it is unlikely that we always have the best solution in every circumstance!
Learning new things is good, and adopting them, after consideration if they are better than our current way of handling a given situation, is even better if it will enhance our lives in some way.
We are judged by others based on their beliefs systems, which is not necessarily based on reality!
The real point I want to get across is that we should not be too concerned with what other people think about us! They may have been brought up in a learning environment that is more restrictive or more negative than how we were brought up.
Should we value their opinions? This depends on a number of factors like:
- How important to you is their opinion?
- Why is their opinion important to you?
- Have they offered good advice in the past and how often?
- Do they genuinely have your best interests at heart, or are they trying to pull you down to their level?
People who continually offer judgment against others usually do not have their own ‘house in order!’ What I mean by this is that they are rarely in a good position to offer advice or information that will be of benefit to us. And more often than not, they do not have our best interests at heart.
However, people who offer constructive criticism based on real-life experience and are knowledgeable about us and our situation can be worth listening to. It does not mean that we should do everything that they suggest we do, as we are still an individual with our own thoughts, ideas, and beliefs, but we can more often than not learn something by listening to them, even if we do not adopt what they are sharing with us.
Are the judgments you pass against others for their benefit?
Not being concerned about what others think about us also means that we should stop judging others based on our unique belief system.
It’s important to note that judgmental people are often as ‘hard’ on themselves as they are towards others. The habit of self-criticism is just a bad habit that some of us adopted when we were young. This habit does not serve our continued personal growth and development in any way and in fact, keeps us feeling insecure and takes us away from feeling any love and respect for ourselves.
If we do not do anything to rid ourselves of the negative habit of self-judgment, we will pass this habit onto those that we are responsible for raising now and into future generations.
Take a moment to reflect and ask yourself: ‘What is it that I want to pass onto my children and grandchildren?’
If you think about how being ‘put down’ has made you feel in the past, it may change the way you react towards those you love in the future.
Do you think negatively putting someone down is a good way to encourage and support those we love and care for?
Do you think it makes for a better living environment, working environment, or family situation when we are critical of each other?
Healthy, happy individuals will want to instill beliefs into their future generations that support positive growth, overall well-being, confidence, self-respect, and self-reliance, etc. It does not serve our well-being to be surrounded by a family or social group that has low self-esteem and little self-respect!
My current situation is stressful. What can I do to help myself?
We are magnificent beings, born with so much potential to create wonderful lives for ourselves. However, as we grew and adopted the beliefs of others who were responsible for teaching us when we were young, we may have taken on so many limiting beliefs. And often, these beliefs remained mostly unchanged for most of our lives. Many of us learned to be critical of ourselves and others as a way of justifying why we can’t do something, achieve more, or have the dream lives that we desire.
Luckily, the story need not end here. There are two positive steps we can take to help get ourselves out of this trap to dramatically improve our lives.
1) If we can stop judging others based on our unique view of life and allow them to be themselves, then life becomes less stressful. (This, of course, does not mean that we need to submit to any negative or violent behavior from others. We should always exercise our right to be safe and if necessary remove ourselves from any negative, destructive, or violent situations. Our intuition will often be our best guide to tell us what the best course of action is.)
2) We need to stop being self-critical. Sure we are not perfect! But who is? We benefit when we stop comparing ourselves to others and comparing what we are doing to what we think we should be doing. If you have a goal and you have not yet achieved it, don’t beat yourself up over it! This does not help you in any way whatsoever. Instead, first, reflect upon why you have not yet achieved your goal. Then, if it is still important to you, learn and implement the necessary steps required to achieve the results you desire.
A positive attitude will give you a positive life. And a negative attitude will give you a negative life experience.
Which do you prefer?
Why not begin now to create a more positive and healthy life experience for yourself. You alone have the power to achieve this!
Begin now by always, always, always, being good to yourself. Learn to listen to the small voice inside your head that is constantly telling you stuff. Is it telling you supportive and beneficial thoughts and ideas? Or is it feeding you with thoughts of fear, low self-esteem, and negativity?
It is your choice, and with some mindfulness and effort you can change the channel (to a more positive one.)
What experiences have you had when dealing with negative people Did you find a way to get them to stop actively judging and criticizing you?
What about your own negative thought patterns? Have you been able to ‘upgrade’ to a better channel?
Please share your experiences with us in the comments below.
Shared with love and respect for all beings in the hope of making the world a more positive place to live.
Andrew
Hi, Andrew.
Thank you for sharing this highly informative and interesting article with us. It is true: The people who judge the most, are usually extremely unhappy with and about themselves. It’s their insecurities that cause them to reflect upon others. I used to be scared of judgment, too.
It took a long time until I realized that it is sheer impossible to please everyone. No matter where you will go, there will always be folks who approve of you, and then there’ll be those who judge you for the clothes that you wear, your skin color, hairdo, etc. The way I see it is: We have two options here to deal with judgment.
We can dwell on the judgments which others pass. This means, we will feel miserable and actually torture ourselves, as we will seek ways to live up to the judge’s expectations. Or, we can do the innate thing. We all are part of the Universe, thus we are space. Judgment and the emotions that it’s stirring up within us, are like the wind.
We should acknowledge its presence, embrace and thank it shortly (because we’ve learned something from it), and then we should simply let it move on. No storm lingered forever, yet, and it never will. Once we can control this, judgment will be meaningless for us; we will not fear it any longer, either.
Well, that’s my theory regarding judgmental people and how to handle them. It does work for me, and perchance it will help someone else to.
Again, many thanks for this great post. I’ll be back to check for updates, as I do like your topics.
Warm wishes,
Alexandra (Lovebodyfatsolutions)
Hi Alexandra. Thanks for taking the time to read and comment on my post. I like how you say that judgments and the resulting emotions are like the wind and stir through us but never last forever. ‘This too shall pass’ is a quote I read along time ago and tried to remember whenever I was facing some thought, feeling, emotion or situation that is not to my liking. Judgments against us only show us what another person is thinking based on their beliefs. They are really none of our business and it serves us if we can remember this and not have any attachment to what others are thinking about what we do, say, wear, look like, etc.
However, everything that is in our lives is there because of the Law of Attraction, so you can say that we have attracted the judgments to ourselves to reveal to ourselves what we really think about ourselves. And because of this, we are given an insight into what our subconscious beliefs are. This is an opportunity for self-exploration and a wise person would recognize it as an opportunity for personal growth and development.
Shared with much love and respect,
Andrew
Hi Andrew,
This was a great post and a good reminder. I also read another one of your the other day where you talked about being in the light, and I feel that as a human being we can all act in negative ways, however when we do I feel like we have moved away from God and are not in the spirit. When I act negatively like been judgemental it is like a warning light that I have stepped away.
However because I fall short of what I expect for myself and also fall short of what others expect of me, it helps me be understanding when people are not been their best version of themselves, since I am not always been my best version. When I am in the light I am forgiving loving and kind which is my best version and understanding. Someone shared with me recently, that hurt people, hurt people, so when someone is acting negative, I think my best self would not run away (unless as you said you are not safe) but my best self would be forgiving and understanding and remember we all fall short. I like what Sharmay said to learn to ask questions or what Dalibor said try and see it from their perspective. When we run away we are running from ourselves and I think when I do I am been pretentious since I have acted negatively at times.
I work with people a lot and have had sometimes that are not their best self and have been mean and then when I just say I am sorry, they often apologize. Understanding softens hearts. I also have a saying that helps when I am been judged and that is “what you think of me is none of my business”, so it helps me out of worrying about what others think of me.
Hi Phyllis. Many thanks for sharing your personal experiences with us. It good to be able to recognize when we are not behaving ‘at our best.’ It is in these moments that we have the opportunity to assess and adjust our behavior- This means it is in this moment that we can re-wire our brains to create better habits for ourselves, now, and into the future. Even though we all sometimes ‘fall short of our best’ it is no reason to beat ourselves up! If we can realize that life is a journey, and we are all learning what it is to be a ‘better human’ we can view those times when we don’t measure up as learning events. The fact that we are aware of our short-comings gives us the opportunities to perform better given a similar situation in the future.
Be good to yourself, because, at the end of the day, you are a magnificent spiritual being who is just playing a game of life in a human body, with thoughts, feelings, and emotions, and we are here to experience all of the sensations that we can, just for the fun of it!
You are right when you say ‘what others think of me is none of my business.’ It also pays to forget about the negative judgments that we have against ourselves!
I wish you well on your journey.
Andrew
“Personally, I never liked the advice of simply not judging others or ourselves. It’s not only in our nature – it’s how we make sense of the world, interact with it, and better ourselves. We form conclusions based on our observations and experiences, then we act on them. Sometimes our conclusions end up being wrong, and those mistakes are necessary for self-improvement, so we can do better in the future.
What works well for me, though, is a rule of thumb to always act on the assumption that another person had a good reason for whatever they did, even if it’s not how I would have done it. I stop myself from dismissing them as stupid or crazy, and just ask directly, “Why did you do that?” “Why did you do it that way?” “Why was that important to you?” Asking and talking aren’t our first resort, for some reason. Often the answers surprise me, because the person took into account some detail or factor that I simply didn’t. I find myself much less angry and much more forgiving in general with this approach.”
Hi Sharon. I think observation with awareness as to what is going on around us is very beneficial, and as you say, it is how we learn and interact with our environment. When we judge something as good or bad we are always using our filter of what we believe to be true and this is not necessarily the best way to handle a given situation. So, by doing what you do, asking questions, we are empowering ourselves with appropriate information (from another persons point of view) and are therefore able to better understand what is going on. We may also learn something new, which is always a bonus and will help us to become more understanding of why other people act in the way that they do. Taking the time to understand is always better than passing judgments based on our personal view of reality.
Many thanks for your insightful comment. I wish you well,
Andrew
Positive thinking is always good way to deal with negative attitude. But it is not as simple always. If I can, I try to think how other person see issue or see the problem we are facing. That can give me opportunity to perhaps see in different angle and keep my head cooler longer.
As for some of my negative thoughts, I find it more difficult to deal with them as it is always harder to set yourself on right track than someone else.
That a good idea, to look at any issues from other perspectives. It helps us if we are able to understand what the other person is thinking or feeling, and then we are able to come up with solutions to problems that will benefit all concerned. Thanks for sharing.
Andrew
Very lovely post. The mind is powerful and can really affect our health and way of life; And what we put into the world will affect others. Its so easy to feel sorry for one self or become bitter when life beats you down. Especially if, as you said, you learned to be that way from a young age. And then its easier to pass judgement then it is to help others. So, agreed – You have to start with yourself! I myself have dealt with negative energies and passing judgement. The biggest thing I have learned that helped me is avoiding others with that energy. Seeking positive people to help uplift and keep one focused on the positive. Being more positive really has been such a game changer for me! I think judgement does have its place in life – its used to make life decisions. But as you said, its not fair to judge based on our own expectations and experiences only.
Hi Sherry. Thanks for taking the time to read and comment on my post. I have to agree with you that it is so important to remove ourselves from the influence of negative people and to surround ourselves with happy vibrant positive people. This will help us change our mindset and this will definitely lead to improvements in our lives. Have a great day 🙂
Andrew