One of the things I see many of my clients struggling with is an inbuilt – and deeply ingrained – judgment system that leaves them feeling ripped off, powerless, frustrated and even angry at times, so I wanted to talk about how a simple shift in the way we judge the people and circumstances of our lives can relieve us of those all-consuming feelings of injustice and instead move us into a place where we have a whole set of choices we didn’t know we had before.
If you are the type of person who feels deeply for the victims in the world and you feel helpless to make the world a better place then this is for you. Perhaps you feel like a victim yourself and you are sick and tired of people taking advantage of your kindness, or overstepping boundaries they should know better than to cross. You might be one of those people who gets hot under the collar when an obviously healthy person parks in the disabled parking zone or when someone pushes in front of you when you have been waiting in a long queue at the bank.
Whatever the injustice is and however you might be feeling, there is another way to look at life, and every little thing in it, that will take you out of a place of powerlessness and frustration and leave you feeling a lot more positive and empowered in your life.
All you need to do is swap out right or wrong for helpful or unhelpful. That’s it. Now let me explain.
There are so many things in life that seem to be obviously right or obviously wrong, but unfortunately, there are many people who seem to have a different idea to us of which side of the fence their choices and behaviours should fall into.
Based on that alone, there is no way we can ever find peace in our lives because people will always act outside of what we believe to be the right way to behave and we will rarely be able to do anything about it.
No wonder so many people feel frustrated and powerless, right?
It is my observation, and in more recent years, my experience, that the people who live the most peaceful and most productive lives are those who ask different questions resulting in different answers and the most empowering way to judge a situation or event is to ask is this helpful or unhelpful rather than asking is it right or is it wrong.
I guess what I am saying straight up is that judging things as right or wrong is unhelpful. It shuts down further exploration, open conversation and effective communication which means problem solving is stalled.
If we are judging ourselves as wrong it can leave us in a debilitating state of shame. If we are judging someone else as wrong, it leaves responsibility for forward movement in the hands of someone other than ourselves and waiting for someone else to do the right thing can take a very long time.
When we judge something as being unhelpful however, our minds automatically go looking for what would be helpful. And when we know what would be helpful, we have options for moving forward. It’s a much more empowering way to process through the things that life presents to us.
Until next time…
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