I find myself waiting in
line at the supermarket judging how people dress, peek into their carts to see what they're buying. I judge
people when I'm driving and they are speeding, honking, cutting me off (like I've never done that...) I judge people in a split second, literally. But I'm
trying to make those unconscious judgments conscious and stop them. I
know nothing about those people, nothing, and yet I have the gall to judge
anything about them.
And knowing someone does
not make it any better. It could be your best friend in the whole world,
your kids, your spouse. You really can't judge their behavior or their
feelings or their actions. We really don't know what's going on in anyone
else's life. Even the people closest to us sometimes have things that we
just don't know about. Or feel something that they aren't sharing with us.
My first child completely
spoiled me, he literally only cried when he was hungry or tired. And the
first month he cried a bit more because I was starving him (blog about mom
guilt in a future post).
Once we added formula he
was angelic. My daughter on the hand was a screamer...naturally. And of
course after having Thing 1, Thing 2 had a hard act to follow. So there
were times that I wanted to launch her out of the window. I could picture the
whole thing happening in my head. I just wanted it to stop. I was
exhausted and not running on all cylinders....
But I would never act on it
and I knew I would never actually do it. At one point I even said I could
understand child abuse, NOT CONDONE IT, but understand it. (I'm an advocate for
the little people, child abuse is NEVER acceptable!)
If reading that last
paragraph made you queasy or made you want to report ME for child abuse, I'm
telling you now, we can't be friends. When I was feeling those feelings I
needed my mom friends to say, I hear you, I'm here for you, and what you're
feeling is ok...hopefully while we are drinking a glass of wine. There
are so many things that we all do and don't do, that we should do and shouldn't
do, that we want to do but can't do, that we don't want to do, but can't stop.
I don't need a lecture, and I usually don't even need advice....I just
need someone to listen and say; I hear ya sister...we've all been there!
So don't judge me, I know
I'm not perfect, not even close. I know I have things that I can improve
on and I'm working really hard on trying to fix them (I really am) but I
don't need more mom guilt (I have enough). The concept of judging
favorably comes from the original self help book, the Bible. (And if
you're not religious, that's ok, because it's really not about religion, it's
about living our best life!) I have attended a number of lectures on this topic (Lori Palatnik, Adrienne Gold, Sharon Shenker) and one of my favorite quotes is; "You are meeting this person in chapter 3,
you don't know what happened in chapters 1 and 2." We can't judge anyone
if we are not walking in their shoes. And although you may know everything
that's happened with your kids or spouse, you don't know their feelings, their
interpretation of each situation and therefor you can't judge their response.
If you need to vent about
your kids driving you crazy, dreaming about running away to tropical Island, need to let off some steam about a fight you had with your
spouse, even if you want to launch your baby out of a window.... come over, have a glass of wine and tell me about it...I won't
judge!
Do you feel like you get
judged by others? In what circumstances? Do you (consciously or
unconsciously) judge? (No need to answer that, just something we all need to
think about!)
