On Being Judgmental

Certainly, our experiences bring us wisdom over time, but wisdom can easily be mutated into the less desirable trait of being judgmental. And this attribute can pose a real challenge to living our lives positively and healthily.

Individual impressions that we connect - accurately or not - to particular people, objects, places, and situations, can easily become an indelible association in our mind. And if the impression is negative, all similar objects, people, and so forth are automatically attached to that less-desirable evaluation.

Our judgments are usually made instantaneously – a “first impression.” This seems natural enough. After all, the thoughts and feelings we have when experiencing something new can be important internal cues for triggering self-protection against pain and danger. Here they operate at the level of instinct – something surely innate and intended for our survival.

However, as conscious beings, unless we are willing and able to give our judgmental instincts a second (and sometimes even a third and fourth) look, we could be coming to conclusions based on not enough information. This results in closing our minds to new and potentially enlightening experiences, information, and relationships. We actually become stagnated by our own perceptions.

Unfortunately, further solidifying our judgmental tendencies is the secondary pay-off we might not even be aware we’re getting: the feeling of comfortable superiority to others around us. It is a false security derived from feeling that we are “right” and others are “wrong.”

The good news is that, as with any other character defect, we can consciously work on being less judgmental. The first step in this process, of course, is becoming aware of our tendency to judge. Particularly challenging is that for some of us, being judgmental is an automatic and ingrained reaction. And because it’s such a “normal” thought process, we might not even notice ourselves doing it. Like any kind of work we do on ourselves, it will take conscious thought and practice to catch ourselves.

Once we’re aware of our thinking, we may be able to delay reaching conclusions about the objects of our judgment long enough to ask ourselves if we are being fair and reasonable.

The real groundwork for becoming less judgmental, however, begins with changing the attitude we have towards – not the world around us – but ourselves. The habit of criticizing and condemning ourselves, in areas such as our career successes or failures, personality quirks, life situation, physical appearance, wealth or lack thereof (the list can be infinite), directly relates to how we perceive everything around us.

Thus, turning inward with more compassion and gentleness will transform the most significant judgment we make everyday - that of ourselves. Is your attitude toward yourself loving and patient, or are you constantly feeling that you don’t measure up? Changing our feelings about ourselves is something we can all make the decision to do. It may take some time, but we can draw upon our loving Spiritual resources for help.

Imagine the charity we could extend to others and everything around us, lessening the harsh and critical view of the world we carry around daily, if we turned around our attitude toward the one person we can change?