Judging others or oneself is an attempt to create experiences of feeling better than/less than, inferior to/superior to. When we judge someone, we operate from the space of self-righteousness or self wrongness, because we feel the nudge to put others down to feel pleasant about ourselves and when we someone up on the pedestal, we do it only to find ourselves small and worthy.
Our brains are wired to make automatic judgments about other people’s behavior so that we can avoid spending time understanding them.
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A lot of our judgments are a consequence of what is spoken to us as children. We usually play the same old tape that was recorded in our minds as young children. We tend to love and criticize ourselves the way it was done to us. Have you observed yourself reiterating the same old tape when you get angry at yourself? Don’t you find yourself saying the same things as someone in your childhood did?
That’s because, all of this has been fed to our subconscious mind about what’s right/wrong, good/bad, what’s acceptable/what’s not acceptable. This forms the basis of our understanding of our world which we further transfer to our children.
Our judgment tendency is ego-driven. Ego according to Freud, is part of us that tries to make sense of everything the events, the people, the places, and even ourselves. Therefore, when we are unable to identify with the belief and value system of other human beings or when we don’t know the situation and person well, we tend to make preconceived notions.
Ironically, a lot of times judgment only mirrors us, because the parts of ourselves which remain unacknowledged, unhealed, and concealed are often the ones that we see in others.
However, being judgemental robs us of our awareness and the opportunity to be empathetic. If we ever connect and consciously look into ourselves as to what kind of judgments and the energy we are emitting in this world, we would be shocked at how much mental space judgment takes up.
While snapping judgments at people is easy, one can consider ‘situational attributes’. This simply means that we give the benefit of the doubt or observe people’s actions and think about what might be causing them to behave that way.
CONSIDER EMPATHY /UNDERSTANDING INSTEAD OF HARSH