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What Judging Others Teaches Us About Ourselves

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Judgment is Projection

All judgements of others are a projection of internal unhappiness onto the outside world. The beauty of this, though, is that it helps us learn how we really feel about ourselves.
Other people and situations are gifts to us to help us remember that we are not our thoughts. We are so much more.

Let’s say you are reserved and quiet and you see a person who is loud and talking to everyone – the life of the party, so to speak. You will most likely find this person to be an obnoxious show-off. This will be your judgment, but the judgment has nothing to do with the other person and everything to do with you. It is because you would be embarrassed acting that way that you resent someone else doing it. Perhaps you think you can’t “let go” in case someone laughs at you or maybe you think you won’t be accepted if you act expressing yourself in a different manner. Whatever it is that keeps you from being free- figure it out and then let it go. There is no reason to feel stifled and stiff. Be free.

We can see this repetitive mechanism playing out each time we see someone doing something great or getting recognition and we haven’t yet done what we really want to do. We resent the other person instead of being inspired by them because we are unhappy with our perceived lack of success. In this mindset, we are rarely able to be truly happy for others and often downplay their accolades in a perverted attempt to feel better about ourselves. Why don’t we try something new? Instead of feeling bad about ourselves and the other person, let’s see them as an inspiration to us and ask them to help us take steps to meet our personal goals. This way we connect with others and do something we always wanted to do. That’s a winning combination.

Many of us negatively judge the behavior of others when, in fact, we do the exact same thing. This is an easy one to see. For example, I have a friend who constantly complains about how her sister uses people to fill her time because of her fear of being alone. In fact, my friend does the same thing. People are typically “fillers” for her time so she doesn’t feel alone and lonely. Many of us do this as if to “give away” something we don’t like in ourselves by focusing on it in someone else. Maybe we can hide from our unhappiness if we blame someone else for doing what we do. Don’t be tricked by this any longer. Use it to see how you really feel about yourself and then correct it.

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