Oh no – I did it again!

Esther’s Friday Blog

Thank you Birgitte for the idea of the subject of this week.

“No no no – I did it again. Damn, I am so tired of myself” The blender part fell into the smoothie, when I was almost finished making the smoothie. Delicious smoothie on the table instead of in the glass.

Well – of course this is irritating – but the world didn’t go under – did it? Will the smoothie become better, if you knock yourself on your head?

Our inner judge is always ready to strike, when he/she discovers a chance to judge either him/herself or others.

“Oh no, do I really have to sit next to that guy all the way. He is probably smelly and he looks stupid”, you are thinking, while you are squeezing down beside an overweight man. The judge is here again – this time on the airplane travelling abroad. A moment after these judgmental thoughts, you discover that he is kind and nice, when you need to go to the toilet, and he has to rise from his center seat and wait for you in the aisle, until you are back. – And – hey – he is not stupid either. He is reading business papers containing graphs and tables.

As soon as we see a person, who is somehow outside the “normal area”, we are very fast to judge this person.

Immediately, after realizing that you were wrong about this man, you get embarrassed and start knocking yourself on your head again – blaming yourself for being judgmental towards other human beings.

Often this takes place automatically – almost like an autopilot – and we do this a lot of times every day.

If we want to get rid of our inner judge, we can start observing every time it happens. Not analyzing – but just observing everything from the above. – Yes, the blender part fell into the smoothie – and so what? I pick it up again -and luckily there is still some smoothie left.

9 out of 10 times, when we judge others either consciously or subconsciously, we end up finding out that there was no reason to be judgmental after all.

Practice in observing every time the judge appears – whether you judge yourself or others. If you are judging another human being without knowing the story of this person – stop and consider, whether there might be some hidden reasons for this person to act in a certain way (which you might find irritating).

Some years ago, when I gave classes in communications, I used a film featuring John Cleese as a part of the education.

Especially, I remember a scene, in which a man gets very irritated at a colleague, who is speaking aggressively. The man is just about to answer aggressively back to the colleague, but John Cleese whispers in his ear that he should imagine that the wife of the colleague has just been run over by a car. This makes our man speak very nicely and kindly to his colleague, who immediately becomes more calm and says: “Thank you for understanding me. My wife has just been run over by a car.”

Nobody is perfect – neither your or me. Pull that index finger back now. There are so much other healthier things to spend your time on.

Have a fantastic weekend – Life is waiting for you!

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Photo: Freeimages – Greschoj