We are good at judging and condemning and why? Does it not fit in with your own picture, jealousy, unknown (makes you unloved) … everyone will have his/her reason, but the fact is that relatively many people have their opinion immediately ready. What we don’t always realize is that the judgment says more about us than about the person you formed your opinion about. What is that and how can you reverse the process?
Why judge?
Some people call it cheap and easy, because having your judgment ready immediately will never provide you with more and better insight. Your conversation partner may just pick it up and may even drop out. However, what is more important is the reason why you are so quick to form an opinion about the person or situation in question.
Instead of just focusing on the why , which can also lead to overanalysis, you can also see whether you can reverse the process and focus on letting go of your judgments. During this process you will usually automatically arrive at the cause of your judgmental character.
Listening carefully and forming a well-founded opinion, whether you learned it from your youth, you are a bit jealous or you think you should have an opinion about everything immediately, is suddenly less interesting if you can reverse the process and you then also feels comfortable with it. after all, not unimportant.
How do you avoid judging?
For some, the process goes quickly if they notice that having your opinion ready if it is well-founded feels more pleasant. For others, it has crept in, perhaps a character trait or acquired from childhood, and it is a longer process to get it out of your system.
However, if you put in the effort, you can absolutely learn it. You just need to get the feeling that it can be nice to hear someone else’s story, then get your inner process going (and it’s okay to include a gut feeling) and then give your opinion. to come. After all, think about why you should form your opinion immediately? By the way, non-violent communication also concerns the non-verbal part. Be alert when you start a conversation.
Points of attention
There are some points that you can work on to get it into your system, such as:
- Make sure you are calm when you have a conversation, there are no underlying issues running through your mind. This can cloud your image or you may not even pick up parts of the conversation.
- Before you start, remember that you just want to hear someone’s story, that you are curious, even curious, and above all, don’t interrupt. This also applies to, for example, a documentary on TV. Read this first and then form your opinion (possibly supplemented with more external information).
- If you already have an opinion in your mind during a mentioned process, think at that moment why you are already forming an opinion (just ask yourself the question). Be alert at such moments, because they provide you with a lot of information about yourself. In particular, the why may become a lot clearer to your mind. This again helps to reverse the process.
- Feel, experience what it does to you when you are not yet allowed to form your own opinion or when it does happen to you. Be conscious about this, because this can also give you guidance in the analysis and prevent it in the future.
- During such a process, it is good to know the difference between asking a question that provides more clarity and incorporating an answer/opinion into your question. It is therefore best to ask an open question and try to approach it with a positive attitude.
- So obvious and yet not… listen/look carefully, always.
- Make sure that you have sufficient insight after the conversation to form that opinion. Additional questions or even some research can help you form your opinion from different points of view.
- Disagreeing with something is not judging, but only if it is based on exposure from multiple sides.
Finally
What has been ingrained in humans cannot simply be removed. It takes a lot of practice to let go of judgments or condemnations. So don’t give up too quickly. A person can change, but only if you really want to, take it seriously and give it time.