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Freeing ourselves from judgment
“Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner.”
- Lao Tzu
I hope I am speaking for everyone when I say that nobody likes to be judged. I certainly prefer to not be judged by others, but I know it happens. I also know I am not innocent when it comes to me passing judgment on others. It’s part of the human experience. I have definitely gotten better about it over the years. I have also gotten much better at not allowing the opinions and judgment of others to affect my wellbeing. I realized people do not know my experience, so their opinion of me is limited and/or biased. It’s not fair to me to take it so personally when they don’t know all of the details.
Learning to not care what people think about me (especially people who barely know me) was not easy to do. I admit, I still fall into this trap, but rarely. Part of the reason I had so much trouble letting go of the judgment of others is that I used to be a big people pleaser. I did not want to let anyone down or give them a reason to dislike me. What a huge drain on my energy that used to be! I learned I can’t please everyone or even most people. I learned how to deal with disagreeing with others and not taking their opinion of me so seriously. It’s still a work in progress, but it has gotten so much better since my 20's.
