judgment Archives - Adulting: Second- Half

The Most Popular Posts

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Earlier this week I was perusing my Nextdoor website for recommendations for some housework that we need to have done. I believe that this was the original intention of Nextdoor, as it focuses on one particular community, usually within a 20 mile radius. Unfortunately, though, like almost all social media websites, our Nextdoor has also become a political fight, “mask vs. anti-mask”, “vax vs. anti-vax” nesting ground, among other heated, controversial topics, both local and national. I usually avoid these posts, as if they were the most contagious variant of the coronavirus out there, but I somehow got curious about a particular post written by a neighbor named John Guidi, that was noted as the day’s most popular post. It turned out to be a well-written, hilarious, sarcastic post, starting with this line:

“Political posts: If you feel you must make controversial posts on this board, please adhere to the following guidelines:”

Here were some of the guidelines:

5. Make sure to condemn somebody in every post.

8. Try to offend as many people as possible.

11. Always attempt to be very defensive.

15. No matter what someone else posts, always try to find fault with it.

17. State and restate the obvious.

I honestly read the post with glee and apparently so did many others in our neck of the woods, as it had over 200 likes and “thank yous” and smiley faces attached to the post, and 177 comments, comments which turned out to be a lot more of the usual back-and-forth, righteous, “rule” additions, posturing at the podium, etc.

I then took a look at the second most popular post of the day, which turned out to be a mother sincerely asking for recommendations for a local therapist for her adolescent son, who is suffering from depression. Her post showed earnest concern and desperation. Her name and her picture and her neighborhood, were all published on the post. And the beautiful thing is that the people who answered and commented on her post, were so kind and loving and honest about their own struggles and situations. She got dozens of recommendations and many tender and hopeful and caring posts, sending love and prayers for her comfort and for her son’s recovery. I got a lump in my throat thinking about how courageous it was for this mother to publicly admit that she needed some help. And the people of my neighborhood and surrounding areas could not have been more kind and understanding, and thoughtful and compassionate with the posts that they wrote to answer her plea. She wrote a sincere “thank you” post more than once throughout the Comments section.

Wow. That’s when I got my own personal “a-ha” moment. As well written as the first post was, it really wasn’t any different in tone, than so many of the biased political posts that we are besieged with, on social media today. Reading the first post and agreeing with it, I realized that right at that moment, I, myself, was in my own high-and-mighty, judgmental, “I am smarter/wiser than”, smirky, condescending ego mindset. It felt “good” and yet not good, all at the same time. Reading the second post, I was humbled. Being a mother, I felt so much empathy for the fear that we mothers feel when we can’t protect and heal our own children, all by ourselves. I felt so much admiration for that mother and equally, I felt so much gratefulness that my community responded like it did, with concern and support and hopefulness. I suspect that the people who answered her, came from many different backgrounds, political and otherwise. Reading her post and the responses to it, was affirming to me. I felt good. Just good. I felt connected to everybody in my neighborhood, not just the people who share my beliefs.

Do You Want To Be “Right” Or “Happy”? - NICOLEVALEK.COM | Choose happiness quotes, Strong mind quotes, Happy quotes

Friday is Real

Hi, friends. My regular readers know that they can usually start their Fridays out with a whimsical little post from me, speaking of my frivolous favorites. Typically, I list three favorite things, or songs, or websites, or books, or whatevers, on any given Friday. But I didn’t do that today. On this Friday, this is the first time that you are hearing from me. On this Friday evening, I am sitting in an airport, awaiting another amazing adventure with my immediate family – the five people in this world, whom I love more than life itself.

No one would ever feel sorry for me. I have nice things, a decent sized savings account, and a husband of almost 27 years who loves me, and whom I adore back. I have a beautiful family, supportive friends, and overall, a really good life. Typically, I “reflect” my life. Typically, I look good in the airport. I have nice purses and luggage and clothes and I know how to put on make-up. I am well-traveled. I guess these days, I would be considered to be, what is commonly called (with an air of disdain), a privileged, white woman.

Nonetheless, today, I look a wreck. I threw on clothes that were on a heap on my floor, and make-up wasn’t even a consideration. I was seriously questioning whether me or my family would even make our flights. My husband ended up doing half my packing. I spent my morning at the hospital, a place that is fairly familiar to our family. My youngest son, who suffers from epilepsy, endured another major seizure this morning, after recuperating from a different, traumatizing seizure from the night before, when he ended in a heap up on the floor, convulsing uncontrollably, right after celebrating his brother’s birthday, with cake and ice cream. My baby’s feet were turning blue. It was hard to see if my son was really even actually breathing, so even though we are all experienced in these events, I frantically called the paramedics, yet once again, for the familiar reassurance and comfort that these incredible people always bring, along with all of their other muscles, (brawn and heart) and the heavy duty equipment which comes from being among the bravest and most compassionate people in the world.

This morning, after my son’s vitals all looked good, we conferred with his doctors. As usual, epilepsy remains a mystery. Trying to figure out epilepsy is trying to make sense out of nightmares which do not make sense. Epilepsy is always about trying to understand a personal mystery with dire consequences, and there never, ever seems to be any real, concrete, reassuring answers to give you any comfort and respite. Epilepsy makes you believe in hope, like nothing else you have ever believed in, because usually hope is the only thing you have left to hold on to, when dealing with this frustrating, personal and heart-breaking ailment.

Right now, I am writing this blog post from an airport this Friday evening. I don’t have my usual air of excitement, confidence and aura of “put togethered-ness”, that I sometimes carry along with me on my trips. I am scared out of my mind. I want to grab my son and I want to keep him in my own little cocoon, where he and I can never get hurt. Adventures be damned. I just want us to be safe and loved and alive, together.

But my son doesn’t see it the same way. My son doesn’t want epilepsy to win. And his doctors agree. So, right now, we are just doubling down on his medicine and praying that his body doesn’t rebel against his choice to live his life. And right now, I am that privileged woman, who you see walking through the airport, all decked out in fancy clothes that hide and shield, a wounded, desperate heart, praying that she is making the right decision, to roll with the punches, and to let things be as they may, as she walks behind her precious, beloved son, in a crowded corridor in any given airport.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

All of the Flags

How beautiful! Brazil projected the flags of our countries on to its “Christ the Redeemer” statue last night. As awful as all of this COVID-19 situation is, I do love the feeling of the world working on something together, and putting so much of the hatefulness aside.

This is one of those times in life that I am trying to expand my patience and my understanding of people and their reactions to this experience, and I am also hoping that they are doing the same for me. What is the “right” reaction to these times? Is there even such a thing? It is said that when parents experience the tragedy of losing a child, they are 50 percent more likely to get a divorce. I believe that this has a lot to do with the fact that we all process our emotions, our trials, and our experiences, differently, in an internal sense. We grieve differently, and on different internal time schedules. We know this and yet we are aghast, when externally, people are all behaving so differently towards a situation, that it makes us start questioning our own reasoning and our own sanity. That’s all very uncomfortable, isn’t it?

Like all times in raising children, I am having to hold my ground in what I believe we, as a family, have to do to keep not only our family safe, but also our community safe and our medical workers safe, so that our hospitals aren’t overrun and our doctors aren’t sick. In my opinion, these have to be our priorities. Clearly, not everyone has the same opinion, as I do. Our beaches are packed. It is times like these that I have to remind myself that I can only control my own discernment, my own actions and reactions, and to put the focus back on to myself, and the well-being of me and my family. Everyone processes things differently. Everyone takes time to let things “sink in.” Everyone has different beliefs on how this all should be handled, individually and as a community. And who really knows, who is really “right”?

I think that I have witnessed a lot of denial, and anger, and rebelliousness, in myself at times, and also, with other people. No one wants this to be happening. No one created this virus. No one wants their lives changed instantly, in what feels like a blink of an eye. But, the virus is here. It is causing deaths, and disruptions, and shut-downs, and economic pain, whether we think it should, or not. It is what it is. We can only control our OWN reaction to it. To try to control others’ reactions to it, is futile and a waste of time. To lament and to judge and to resent others’ reactions to it, only causes pain for ourselves. At the same time, we don’t need approval from others about our own decisions and our own reactions.

A reset button has been hit on the world. As a society, we are in a major pause. Many of our lives have been reduced to being “quiet with ourselves”, in a way, which many of us claim to want, all of the time. Yet, a lot of us seem very uncomfortable with this new reality, this new introversion, and so we still try to control everything outside of ourselves. If ever a time, there was going to be the life lesson about self exploration, self examination, self love, self acceptance, now is going to be the time. And the beautiful outcome of that is, if more of us come to that level of self understanding and acceptance, we will feel that same, all-encompassing compassion towards all others, and the world will be an even more beautiful, uplifted place. I see the world as a Phoenix, who will rise beautifully, and cleansed, and simplified, and renewed, from the dark ashes of loss and of fear and doom and sadness.

I thought that Think Smarter (Twitter) put it beautifully, with this post:

Stay well, friends and readers. I love you and I am here for you.

Intentionally

Fortune for the Day – “What’s old collapses, times change, and new life blossoms in the ruins.” – Johann Von Schiller

The bucket story from yesterday’s blog post, seemed to resonate, so I will add one more thought that really stuck with me from Dr. Christian Conte’s book about anger management. He states that as people, we are more likely to judge ourselves on our intentions and yet, we are more inclined to judge others, by their actions. So, this implies that people are judging us on our actions, because they really aren’t privy to our intentions and they may make incorrect assumptions. Just having this knowledge about how we judge ourselves and others, makes me want to maybe give others a little more of the benefit of the doubt, but to also hold myself a little more accountable for my own actions. Along these lines, I recently copied down this quote into one of my “Things to Ponder and Write About/Inspirations” notebooks. I think that the quote is from Think Smarter on Twitter, but I am honestly not certain:

“Any time you worry that someone is going to judge you, that is really you judging yourself.”

Hmmmmm. Judgment is an uncomfortable subject, so let’s bring this back to intentions. Last year I read that it is more useful to rephrase “New Year’s Resolutions”, to “New Year’s Intentions”. “Intentions” has a more positive, hopeful ring to it, than the demanding, demeaning, judg-y, foreboding tone of the word, “Resolution.” If you are having trouble coming up with New Year’s Intentions, these questions that I cut out of an article from the last issue of Spirituality & Health magazine, I thought were interesting, positive and absolutely thought-provoking:

What’s unfinished for you to give?

What’s unfinished for you to learn?

What’s unfinished for you to experience?

What are you waiting for?

Happy Friday Eve, friends.

Cast the First Stone

The other day I was getting a pedicure. There was a woman, sitting next to me, getting a pedicure, as well. She was speaking very loudly on her cell phone to someone who was obviously not getting their fair share of speaking time. This woman barely took a breath, as she barked forcefully into her phone for everyone in the whole salon to be privy to her conversation, whether we wanted to be or not. I became an eavesdropper by involuntary default.

The basis of this woman’s one-sided conversation, more like a spotlighted soliloquy, was all about how enlightened she was and how she hoped the rest of the world would get on board and move on up the scale of enlightenment, with her. The woman referenced Dr. Phil a lot. She then started complaining about a friend who didn’t give her enough “likes” on Facebook and the shining moment came when she stopped mid-sentence to shout at the technician, who was doing her pedicure, to stop rubbing her feet so hard. If this is “enlightenment”, the world really is in trouble.

I started feeling very annoyed, and then I could feel myself climbing on to my judgmental pedestal. This woman was rude, inconsiderate, selfish, gossipy, out-of-touch, loud, obnoxious and not at all enlightened. I started feeling like I was the arbiter of enlightenment and I had to bite my tongue not to put her back down in her place, to her base level on the spiritual growth chart. But then, I had one of those dawning a-ha moments when I put the spotlight back onto myself. How many times had I spoken too loudly on my phone, sometimes even in close quarters like elevators and waiting rooms? How many times had I been on the phone when someone was waiting on me, telling myself that a quick “sorry” was enough to excuse my thoughtless, impersonal behavior? How many times had I dominated conversations, rudely interrupting my friends and family, because I deemed what I was saying to be so much more “enlightened and important” than what they had to say? How many times had I felt annoyed or slighted when I didn’t get someone’s approval?

This self-awareness movement that we have going on in the world right now, is tough. But the funny thing about the situation is that when I put the focus back onto myself (and the only person I actually have any ability to change), I got a different perspective about the woman in the salon and the whole experience. I actually felt sort of grateful towards her for making me get a better understanding of areas where I could improve myself and my relationships. Wow – things that make you go “Hmmmm.”

“People are quick to judge others’ faults, but never quick to point out their own.” – PictureQuotes.com

“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” – Mother Theresa

“Be curious, not judgmental.” – Walt Whitman

Judgment Day

As I get older, I have a fear of becoming extremely judgmental and set in my ways. Now that’s judgmental in itself, me presuming that older people ARE more judgmental and set in their ways than younger people. This self realization lead me to do some homework on this topic of judgment versus discernment.

When my four kids were little and they would be making fun of each other’s haircuts or outfit choices or the ways that they each laughed or ran or threw a ball, I would spout out this “groaner” statement, “There has never been a statue erected to a critic.” In time, my youngest son, who I have more than once suggested has a tendency to be inflammatory, would say, “Actually Mom, there is a statue erected to the movie critic Roger Ebert in Illinois.” This would start the chain of snickering and they’d all be friends again. Kids against Mom. Mission accomplished. 😉

Anyway, I decided to do some studying on the difference between being judgmental and being discerning. Being judgmental or not being judgmental, seems to be a hot topic these days. These are the days of the idea that everyone’s the same, everyone gets a trophy and yet, there’s been a lot of backlash against the practice of “trophies for everyone.” I understand that backlash. I don’t deserve a trophy for singing or dancing. Those aren’t my talents. Other people are better at singing and dancing than me. That doesn’t make them better people than me, just better singers and dancers. Way better.

The topic of being judgmental has a lot of weightiness to it because of the religious undertones. “Let he who has not sinned, cast the first stone,” comes to mind the minute I think of the judgment topic. The Bible itself is telling us not to be judgmental. But if we didn’t have judgments, if we didn’t recognize differences, would mankind have even evolved? Would we even exist? That’s when I really started researching preferences or discernment versus judgment.

Now I like to simplify things. I have always thought that those yellow Dummy books like “Home Buying for Dummies” for instance, were just great. So, I have dummied the whole “judgment versus discernment idea” down for myself. I find it helpful. I hope that others do, too and that I’m not the only “dummy” on the subject.

Let’s pretend that we are in a park and we see a cute, tail wagging puppy and we also see a snarling tiger. The non-judgmental, non-discerning person will say, “Puppies and tigers are just the same. I’m going to love up on both of them!” Even us dummies can see that this is a recipe for disaster. The judgmental person will say, “Tigers are BAD, EVIL creatures. Their only motivation in life is to maul and eat people. I’m going to start an “I HATE TIGERS” club to get others to agree with me and validate my opinion which is the only right opinion to have about tigers.” This is showing a lot of hate and fear, a need for control and a need for outside agreement and validation for the judging person’s opinion. It is also making sweeping generalizations about tigers and their motivations that the judging person couldn’t possibly really fully know or understand. The discerning person will say, “My education, experience and gut instincts are telling me that I should keep a very safe distance from wild creatures like tigers. Domesticated puppies are likely to be safe, so I don’t have to keep my distance from the puppy.” Or the discerning person could say something like this, “I have a lot of background in animal behavior and I have a tranquilizer gun in my backpack. I find the tiger intriguing, so I will take calculated risks when approaching it.” The discerning person is making decisions for himself or herself based on facts, experience, gut instincts, and what is best for that individual person. The discerning person has no need for outside validation; they are comfortable with making their own assessments for what is right for themselves. The discerning person is coming from a place of self-confidence, self-protection and creating healthy boundaries for himself or herself without requiring other people to have those same boundaries for themselves. There is no religious edict that I know of that is against us being discerning.

That may seem like an oversimplified example, but if you put a person who has committed crimes in place of the word “tiger”, you can see how it fits. It is not being judgmental to not hire an arrested embezzler to invest your life savings. That is a discerning and wise choice. To say that the embezzler is a bad, evil person who did their crime because they only have hate in their soul is judgmental. The embezzler will go to jail to pay their consequences for committing a crime. That is all that there is to it. Those are the facts. In nature, there are no rewards or punishments, just consequences for behavior, thus leaving out judgment. Judgment is perhaps between us and our Maker only. But discernment shows that we have self-understanding, self-care and preferences. Discernment perhaps is a tool given to us by our Maker so that we can grow to be our own best selves. Discernment allows us to grow to the best of our own abilities in the safety and security of knowing and trusting ourselves and trusting our individual choices completely. Discernment says, “I know what is best for me. I know what I like and I know what I need.” Discernment is a tool for us to use individually. It doesn’t try to control other people.

I’ll end this blog post with a description about one of my favorite cartoons that I cut out from The New Yorker magazine. In it, a boy and his mother are looking at a piece of modern art in a museum. The picture shows the mother saying something. The caption reads, “Instead of saying ‘It sucks’, try saying ‘It doesn’t speak to me.’ ” Judgment versus discernment. There is a difference.