Good or Bad. Right or Wrong. Easy or Difficult. Every day we are surrounded by judgments, whether it’s on the television or in our minds.
I try my best to be non-judgmental. I practice listening and making space for other points of view even if I don’t share them. But every now and then, I fall into judgment again.
Judgment is one of those qualities, like anger, that most spiritual perspectives try to avoid.
All our emotions have an adaptive purpose – each of them is there for a reason. Trying to ignore them is like refusing to use our built-in internal compass.
So what is our judgment for? What should we do with our judgment of others?
The impulse with judgment is usually to shame the person we are judging, to make fun of them or ostracize them. This is not an adaptive response. Shaming someone can cause isolation, pain and might even end up perpetuating the behavior you are judging.
Whatever we choose to do with our judgment, we must do it with a healthy dose of compassion, both for ourselves and the other.
Mots commonly, judgment acts as a reflection, mirroring whatever we are most uncomfortable with in ourselves.
Judgment is often simply sublimated self-criticism – and this is worth remembering when you are on the receiving end of the judgment stick.
Judgment can be a red flag that there is something dangerous or unsustainable in our relationships.
For example, if we catch someone in a lie, our judgment may simply tell us to no longer trust that person to tell the truth. We don’t necessarily need to end that relationship. We simply need to file that information away for our own future safety with that person.
In some cases, we do need to say or do something. Judgment can arise because we see an unethical behavior that might actually hurt someone else.
Sometimes our judgment is simply our judgment of ourselves.
Sometimes it is there to remind us of our responsibility to the others in our human community.
As long as we keep love, compassion and self-reflection with us, our judgment can be a vital aspect of our personal and our social ethical compass.