LOVE MONTH: DAY 11: “The more one judges, the less one loves.”― Honoré de Balzac
I know from personal experience that I have a hard time with my judgments of others. It seems Ego has a strong voice for me in this arena.
I love it when I first meet someone, and we are happy to hang out together. This can be a romantic relationship or a friend, even a sponsor/sponsee thing. It is fun to get to know them and find out who they are.
When I feel uncomfortable or insecure with someone, I tend to jump right into those judgments, weighing their seeming worth against my own. And I have to begin to make up a story around that so I can feel more adequate within my own skin. A lifetime of doing this is probably never going to be gone, no matter how many times I see this pattern and work to undo its damages to my heart.
Being aware of it has helped a great deal. As soon as the story starts, I can back up and reverse its impact on my thinking and on my relating to that person. I soon look for the similarities, rather than the differences, and judgment is gone pretty quickly!
But, I do know, from long-term relationships, that I tend to dig them all up as soon as some perceived slight or offense happens with someone. Ugh! Then I get to reframe my “grievances” for validity. It is almost always that something happened that hurt my baby feelings, because there is a damned story with it…again!!! Geez! Never ends…at least not in the first 34 years…almost 35.
Learning these things about myself is the result of hundreds and hundreds of inventories, Steps 4-9 on ME. I get to see my patterns and my BS for what it really is. Every judgment harms me, because it puts Ego back in charge and separates me from one of God’s kids…not the goal. Never the goal. And I have learned that there are only a handful of people with whom I need real separation. They are the ones I must continue to pray for, with an open heart and an open consideration. I am so blessed to have this process to do these things again and again and again.
Dolphin Hug 