How Do I Judge People Less?

 

“God what is she wearing?”

“The way he’s behaving is so pathetic?”

“That’s not how I would do it…”

I am guilty of judging people all the time. Usually without even realising. A thought just pops into my head. However, there are other times when I've been oh-so-conscious of my judgements and have willingly put a thought into my brain that was mean and unnecessary but never has it made me feel good about myself. On those occasions when I catch myself out, I give myself a stern talking to and I usually realise that I’ve even done exactly the same thing I’m judging someone else for! There are lots of reasons why we might judge other people. We’re insecure. We’re scared. We’re lonely. We’re bored and try to use judgement as a way to spark some kind of interesting change. But I think something important to acknowledge is that judging other people isn’t always a conscious choice. Sometimes thoughts do just pop into our heads without us even realising. Things that we’d never ever say out loud. So we need to get better at catching ourselves thinking those thoughts and ask ourselves a few questions. How would I feel if someone was thinking that about me? How would I feel if someone actually said that to me? And most importantly why am I thinking that?

I have found the least judgemental people I’ve met are the people who seem to be very “at one” with themselves, who seem to know themselves really well. Who know their capabilities and their flaws, their advantages and their shortcomings and not only work on them but accept them. Not only are those people less judgemental but they also seem more peaceful overall. Less easy to anger and stress out. They’re less bothered by the little things and find it easier to objectively deal with the bigger things. I think a lot of our judgemental thoughts come out of our own unhappiness and so I think becoming less judgemental is absolutely nothing to do with other people and everything to do with looking inwards. Sometimes you can pinpoint your own unhappiness by pinpointing what you judge in others. What is it I tend to always judge other people for and does that correlate to an aspect in my life where I might be unhappy? Appearance? Relationships? Career? 

For me it was my size. I was SO insecure about how I looked. My shape, my weight, the way I held myself and why my body didn’t fit into clothes the way I wanted it to. I would sit in the mirror prodding and poking and manhandling parts of my flesh that I wished didn’t belong to me. So I would inwardly judge anyone I saw who was skinnier or in better shape than me. It was a poor attempt to make myself feel more at ease about my own size but not once did it work. Not once did tearing someone down in my head make me feel like I could stand taller. It didn’t take me long to realise the work that needed to be done wasn’t to be carried out by other people but to be carried out by me on myself. 

It’s not easy and I also think it’s hard to stop judging people entirely. Like I said, sometimes thoughts unconsciously pop into our heads but I don’t think it’s having the thought that makes you a bad person. I think it’s how we behave after having the thought that defines who we really are. 

Xxx