What Judging Others Reveals About You

I bet you know somebody who's been in a grocery store, probably a mom, maybe a dad and their kids were misbehaving, screaming asking for candy, and the kids were really loud. You thought, “oh my gosh that parent can't control their child”.

Or maybe you saw somebody who was rather large, maybe not dressed the way you thought they should be dressed and you thought “oh my gosh, somebody that size shouldn’t be wearing something like that”.

When we judge others we really are using our model of the world, to use an NLP term, to judge them. For example, referencing the parent and the kids in the grocery store example, who said kids couldn't be loud in the grocery store? Who decided that? And along with that, part of the judging process occurs because we see something going on in someone else that we don't like in ourselves, so in the parenting example I might think the parents can't control their kids and that bothers me about myself.

Our judgment really tells more about us than about the other person. Our judgments tell us how we think things should be, i.e. my/your model of the world versus how someone else shows up representing their model of the world.

We judge because we see something in others that we don't like in ourselves. An example of this in my life is when I see someone who I judged to be not dressed appropriately because of their size. When I look back at my thought process around that thinking, really I have projected onto them the insecurity and the dislike of my own body and appearance.

So, what do we do about the judgment? The first thing to realize is that we all judge. That's just a fact. Secondly, I would say to notice when we are judging and realize that the judgment is really about ourselves. The judgment is really about you and not the other person. It’s about what you see in the other person that you don't like in yourself.

Bam. There it is. There's why we judge and what it really means. It means that we're insecure about the things we don't like about ourselves, and the only way for us to know that is to see it in other people first.

The other big piece regarding judgment is to really shift your thinking around the thoughts you're having about that person, the perception, the story you're telling yourself about the other person. For example, the person who is not dressed as you think they should be, to use one of my examples earlier. Perhaps the person has lost a ton of weight and these are the only clothes that fit and they're comfortable. Who am I to judge what they wear? Am I worried about how people are judging me because of what I wear?

All of this is about self. It's all about how we think about ourselves; it's about noticing how we think; it's about knowing how to switch our thinking when we notice it.

This is one of the pieces I love about NLP. It really helps people begin to notice their insecurities, the things that trigger them, the reasons they are judgemental about things, and it provides a solution.

So if any of you are interested in knowing more about an NLP, reach out. Fill out your info on the contact page and I’ll get back. Or text me “NLP” at 206-309-6580 and I'll get back to you and we’ll talk about all of this.

Now it's your turn.

Leave me a comment and tell me what you think about this topic and what it revealed for you.