Almost every experience we have can be categorized as good, bad, or neutral. Get that raise or promotion at work, good, get into a fight with your partner, bad, brush your teeth in the morning, neutral. When we judge things as ‘good’, we tend to want more. When we judge things as ‘bad’, we tend to resist or run away. If we judge something as ‘neutral’, we tend to ignore it. Most of us have been trained from childhood to label things we experience in life, to increase the good, decrease the bad and live with the neutral. As we start the new year, I’ve come to realize that I’ve gone most of my life being really judgmental towards family/friends, strangers and mostly towards myself. I’ll share with you my hopes, dreams, and plan on how to practice being more non-judgmental. Maybe you’ll be able to relate, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll take a step back and think about how you’re judging or not judging things in your life.

 

Many of us have made snap judgments based on appearance/looks without knowing the whole story. An example I can think of from my past would be judging a person based on their weight. Here is an example of the thoughts and judgments that go through my head.

 

I see an overweight person at the gym to start the year…

Thoughts and judgments: Gosh, he/she is overweight, they must be so lazy and lack any self-control to watch what they eat. They’re going to be one of the New Year’s Resolution people that comes for 2-3 weeks then stops coming. They must not care about themselves enough to be at a healthy weight. I would never let myself get to that point.

 

After thinking about how judgmental I was towards them, I would start to feel guilty and kind of like a POS for thinking this way. This example shows the negative and condescending judgment I tend to make about people I don’t really know that can also apply to my family/friends as well as myself. To practice being non-judgmental, I’m going to work on shifting my thinking and perspective to seeing them as a person first.

What I’ll be keeping in mind when practicing non-judgment for the situation above.

Thoughts and Non-Judgments: That’s great, they’re at the gym to exercise and become a healthier person. Awesome, we just added another person to our exercise community. Give them a smile, it’s free and it’ll make them feel welcome at the gym.

 

Deciding to delete Instagram from my phone to start the year has helped me limit my mindless scrolling and has decreased my tendency to judge myself and others. Inundated with everyone’s ‘highlight reel’ not only made me question what I was doing with my life but strengthened my habit of judgment. When we compare ourselves to others, we’re strengthening judgment. If we worked on seeing every experience as it is without labeling it good, bad, or neutral it can contribute to more inner peace, help us feel like we’re enough with everything we have right now, and just be a better person.

 

Practicing non-judgment is something that doesn’t just happen overnight. It’s going to take some time and a lot of work to undo 36+ years of thinking a certain way. Strengthening my non-judgment muscle is going to be a lifelong journey with a lot of missteps and hiccups but as long as I’m able to catch and forgive myself, I think it’ll get easier.

 

QOTP: “Judging a person does not define who they are…it defines who you are.” –unknown