Controlling Judgment
When I would find myself around difficult people, I was convinced that my frustration was due to their negative qualities: arrogance, obnoxiousness, selfishness, disrespect, and so forth. Clearly these people possessed poor character traits, and, unfortunately, I was caught in their presence.
If only I could help these people see their bad behavior, then perhaps they could start the process of self-improvement.
Of course, what I didn’t realize at the time was that the only way you can see ugliness in another is if you’ve first looked within yourself and seen it there.
After failing to effectively change others by showing them the errors of their ways, I tried what I thought would be the next best thing. Limiting my judgments of them.
When I would observe such deplorable conduct, I would simply force myself to not get upset. Maybe they were having a bad day. Perhaps they had a poor upbringing with ineffective role models.
In a sense, I rationalized away my judgment.
But what did that accomplish?
Very little.
I was still judging – just using a different filter.
It wasn’t until I realized that the most effective thing to do with judgment isn’t to control it, but rather to let it go.
I can only judge another person if I’ve first sided with my judgmental nature, otherwise known as my ego.
And when I truly let go of judgment, a wonderful experience of peace opens up. From this place, I find that I am able to respond to other people with much more presence and love.
Perhaps most amazingly, when I come from that state of letting go, very often the offending behavior dissipates. The words that came through my mouth and the actions my body enacted had far more effectiveness when I had entered into that state of non-judgment.
In the powerful words of A Course in Miracles, when we let go of judgment, “the world will change entirely as you elect to change your mind.”
Controlling judgment merely reinforces it; let’s strive instead to let it go. The results are spectacular.
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