We want to change the things that bother us the most. We don’t need to look too far to find people and situations we feel are overdue for an overhaul, such as the myopic turf wars that limit our opportunities to collaborate, chauvinistic leadership styles that don’t honor the value in diversity, or the self-centered leader who puts his own welfare above that of the people he is supposed to serve. These are all things that legitimately make us angry and upset. We want to see them changed.
Here’s the thing. You may first need to change yourself before you are able to truly create lasting change in the people and situations that bother you most. That’s because you cannot change what you are judging.
Think about it. How do you feel when someone judges you? Are you willing to bend in that person’s direction and change your behavior to satisfy that person’s desire for you to be different? I doubt it. It’s more likely you will judge the person in return for judging you. You will fire up your defense mechanisms of choice and the cycle of judgment begins. Once the cycle gets started, it can be very difficult to stop.
Here’s how the cycle works. Judgment springs from fear. We fear the things that we don’t understand, don’t know how to change and are concerned can threaten us in some way. When we judge something we are afraid of it allows us to feel separate from whatever it is. Because judgment springs from fear, we respond to our judgments in the same ways we respond to fear – fight or flight. When we respond with fight we attack the other person or situation, directly or indirectly, often in hurtful ways that enable us to feel safely superior. If we choose to flee what we are judging, we give ourselves permission to dismiss the person or situation as hopeless and walk away. In either case, we have forfeited any chance of playing a meaningful part in creating change.


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