Observation is not judgment.
Were you a hot mess during your teenage years? I know I was. I was so unsure of who I was, where I was going, whether or not I had any value…the list goes on and on.
I was so hyper sensitive that if you tried to point out something to me that could in any way be taken as a judgment against me, I jumped all over it. I must have been difficult to be around.
I think a lot of us can relate to that.
But hopefully, as we get older, we mellow a little, and learn to hear words from others as an observation devoid of judgment, and can grow from the experience.
Unfortunately, from time to time, I find people well past their teenage years who still persist in taking the simplest observation and turning it into a personal attack on themselves. This makes it hard for them to be around anyone.
I believe they are this way because they carry a little secret that they really don’t want anyone to know. In my experience, the people who have the hardest time believing that you are not judging them have that difficulty because they spend so much of their time judging others.
They can’t believe that you could be non-judgmental, because they don’t believe that people like that really exist. All they’ve ever known is the soul crushing feelings of inferiority that they carry, and the ever present desire to judge others so that they might feel better about themselves.
And the real sadness is that these are often the people who really could grow and find a happier moment of being if they would actually listen and learn from the observations that kind, caring and non-judgmental people have for them.
But they shy away, scared to allow sunlight to reach into their darkness and bring peace into the chaos, and healing to the wounds that they carry with them.
And they remain trapped in their wilderness of recrimination, until someone manages to help them make that jump out of the darkness.
But there are also those in this world who have made peace with themselves. People who are able to hear the observations, and possibly even the judgments, of others without feeling a wound on their soul.
These are not people who have reached a point where they have no feelings of inferiority, but they have instead reached an understanding within their soul of who they really are, and are no longer at the mercy of others, or even themselves.
The difference between those who react to everything and those who take offense at nothing comes down to one world.
Acceptance.
Simply that. When you accept who you are, all of your faults and strengths, you find that the judgments of other no longer affect you in the same way. Inside your heart is a statement of who you are, but also who you are becoming.
The best way I know to move beyond the opinions of others is to be at peace with yourself, so that yours is the only opinion that matters.
-- Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings