I admit that I judge...Will You?

Today, I went shopping with another mom to buy the end of the year present for our daughters' teacher and the teacher's assistant.  We had decided that a larger group gift would be more appreciated, so the other mom had collected money to do just that. 

While we were at the first store, the other mom pulled out the envelope with all the collected money and proceeded to count out not just bills but coins. Instead of standing their with a blank slate, I stood there and watched through the lens of my conditioning, and I went straight into judgment.

"Really, coins. You couldn't have given her bills? You had to give her coins that she had to lug around? Come on..."

And then I stopped myself.

I stopped myself because I noticed that I was "spreading poison" (to use the words of Don Miguel Ruiz.) That through my judgments of whoever gave the coins, I was energetically contaminating any future relationship and the world in general.

I had no idea what the story was behind the coins, nor did it matter. What I do know is that judgement is a sign that I still have work to do around my own sense of self, especially when it comes to money.

Yet, the story doesn't end there.

When I came back from the shopping trip, I hopped on a FB live within my FB group and told them the same story that I am telling you, and one of the members of the group wrote me a note saying, "I likely need to see and ponder this thought today, because I was feeling quite judgy about you being judgy! I didn’t even really catch the irony until the end, but it was so bad I found myself considering if this was the right place for me."

Have you ever done that? Judged someone for being judgmental and then wondered if you wanted to hang out with said person?  

I am thrilled that she had the courage to say that to me because we ended up having a great conversation about how often we don't recognize our own judgments, yet we are quick to point them out in others, the various things that trigger us to judge, and that they are not the same for different people.

The main point, though, was the our judgments of others mean more about US than it does about the other person, and that when we look deep enough we can uncover the fear and snuff it out with LOVE.

A work in progress,
Theresa ​

Courage. Compassion. Connection.