Do Your Judgements Say More About You?
You know that adage about pointing at someone else in judgment? One finger pointed at them, but 3 pointing back at you? Well today, let’s unpack that pesky thing called judgment. I’m not talking about the kind of perceptual judgements central to our human experience and necessary for survival. Nor am I talking about the small garden variety day-in and day-out judgements that we make almost unconsciously to help us navigate and organize our lives.
Instead, I’m focusing on the labeling, stereotyping, reacting, case closed, mind-made-up kind of judgements. You know, the ones that tend to intensely divide and polarize our culture and ourselves. What would happen if you leaned into those judgements, explored them with curiosity, and let go of the perceived control you have through your judgements? What possible insights could you glean about yourself? What could you learn about the world if you sought to understand rather than be right?
And as with everything I share on the podcast, this is what I believe based on what I’ve read and researched. But please don’t take my word for it. Keep what sticks, discard the rest and for goodness sakes, go out and test drive it!
What You’ll Learn In Today’s Episode:
What it means to unpack the concept of judgement.
Why your judgements say more about you than anyone else.
What possibilities open when you lean into your judgements.
What Was Mentioned:
Clear Leadership: Sustaining Real Collaboration and Partnership at Work by Gervase Bushe
The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker
Ideas Worth Sharing:
“If you can unlock the powerful illusion of judgment, you may be able to access a boatload of insight and humility that will help you live a less judgmental life.” – Christina Sestan
“Our mind literally pretends certain dangerous impulses or unacceptable desires don’t exist. But have you ever heard the term, what we resist, persists?” – Christina Sestan
“The second you realize that no one is seeing the situation the same way, that there is, in effect, no common ground, the only sane way forward is curiosity.” – Christina Sestan
“When the most important thing seems to be to hang on, often the best thing is to let go.” – Christina Sestan
“We perceive the world not as the world is, but as we are.” – Christina Sestan
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Speaker 1 0:01
Hey, it's Christina. Thanks for joining us. And welcome to The Squeeze. You know that adage about pointing at someone else in judgment - you've got like one finger pointed at them, but three pointing back at you. Well, today let's unpack that pesky thing called judgment. A few years ago, I was down in Portland, making a quick stop at Trader Joe's before jumping back on the highway and heading north to Vancouver. If you've ever been to Trader Joe's, you probably know that the parking lots are kind of a pain in the ass to navigate, they're often full, and it's not uncommon for me, anyway, to feel a bit amped up just arriving there. So, such was a case on this particular morning, after circling the entire lot once with no luck, but, of course, suddenly I spied a space, and without thinking, I drove down the wrong way to get there, but before I could turn into the spot, a car coming the opposite way blocked me, and because the lane was only one car width wide, we found ourselves in a standoff. Now, because of the angle of the sun, I couldn't really see the other driver's expression through their windshield, so I just started kind of pointing to that empty spot and hoping they'd clue in and back up, but they didn't move, and I started to feel uncomfortable. Can you believe this asshole? I said to my husband in the passenger seat, he was beginning to look a little uncomfortable at this point. So again, I motioned to the spot, but still nothing from the other driver. Come on, I shouted, a bit more upset. Don't be such a jerk. I couldn't understand why he wouldn't back up. I only needed about 10 feet, probably less than a minute had elapsed, but it felt like eons, and I was becoming quite livid. My husband started quietly suggesting that I reverse, but of course I ignored him because it was like some critical principle was at stake here and I needed to defend it, but then what was probably only a second or two later, the pressure, it, you know, it just got too much for me, and I, I really just ended the standoff, I reversed back onto the street, and then, of course, I made a great show of roaring down the street to the other parking lot entrance, I eventually found a spot on the other side of the lot, and once my breathing had slowed and I could speak civilly to my husband, we got out of the cart and headed for the entrance, but as I'm sure you figured out, the story doesn't end here, because as luck would have it, just as we'd collected our cart and were heading down the produce aisle, I spotted the guy from the standoff. He was pushing a cart with a little kid in it, and my heart was started racing, and I just said to my husband, "I'm going over, I'm going to talk to him. And my husband, like, physically blanched, but you know, he couldn't say anything, because it was too late. I was already walking over. Now it's important for me to insert here that I really had no idea what I was going to say. I was not spoiling for a fight, despite how angry I was earlier. I just had this, like, I don't know, it was like a compelling need to understand. Hey, I said when I was standing next to him, are you the guy from the parking lot? And he turned, and he looked at me, and in that kind of wary sort of way, sizing me up, and, and I went on. I'm like, okay, I was just kind of curious, like, what was going on for you out there in the parking lot? I kind of felt a bit tongue-tied, and he paused.
Speaker 1 3:35
He didn't say anything, and all of a sudden he just goes, you were going the wrong way, and then I was pausing, because you know what, he was right, and like, I didn't have a leg to stand on, it made no sense to try and deny it, so I said, yeah, you're right, I was going the wrong way, I was at fault, I'm sorry about that, and he kept looking at me, but he didn't say anything, so then I said, but like, can I ask, what was going on for you, and that's when he sort of looked a bit like confused, and, and I went on. I said, like, okay, I was pretty clear about what I was trying to do, you know? I was indicating the spot, and it seemed pretty clear, but you wouldn't move, like, what, what was going on for you? And he stared at me for another second, and then his face.. it's hard to describe it, but it literally changed. It went from that sort of wary, defensive kind of expression. It just like softened, and what he said totally threw me for a loop. He said I was being an asshole, huh? Yeah, he went on, I was being an asshole, and I'm sorry. Now I was utterly gobsmacked, and I found myself saying something like, okay, that's sure, cool. I was just curious, but you just kept saying sorry, and then after another second or two, I said, okay, thanks, I, you know, like I said, just curious, and have a good day, and I, I turned. And walk back to my husband, who had like this look of utter disbelief on his face, but the story still doesn't end here. We're loading our groceries into the car, and I hear someone shouting from across the parking lot, and then I turned, and of course it's that guy, he's jogging towards us, he's pushing his kid in the buggy, and he gets there, and he's all out of breath, and he's like, "Hey, you know, I just really wanted to give you a real apology. It was shitty what I did. I even saw your license plate, and that you weren't from here, and I can't believe I behaved that way. I don't want you to have a bad impression of people here. Like, is there anything I can do to help you guys out, and maybe change your impression? And I really wish someone had taken a picture of our faces at that moment I can't even imagine how we looked, and I probably just stood there as I tried to like figure out what he could help us with, and I all I managed was, well, yeah, he can help us get on the 405 it's always tricky from that particular Trader Joe's, and like he just lit up, and you know, then he carefully explained the directions, and and then we, we thanked him, and then he thanked us for giving him, you know, another opportunity to change our mind, and you know, he walked away, and he turned around and waved another time, like this is not a fiction, I promise you, it's not a fiction, and I tell you this story because simply it's the best example I have from my own experience that demonstrates what I want to explore with you today, which is judgment, and I'm talking about the kind that adds drama and chaos and conflict to our relationships, but in order to do that, I have to first make clear I'm absolutely not talking about the kind of perceptual judgments that are truly central to our human experience and necessary for survival. I have no beef with those. I don't want to get rid of any of those, so that might be, hey, I wonder if this ice is strong enough to hold me. That's good judgment. Or maybe I'm traveling in a really foreign country, and I think, can I really trust this complete stranger to drive me to a hotel when I don't speak the language? That's useful. I suspect you would agree with me. Let's keep that judgment intact. I'm also not talking about those what I call the small garden variety day in and day out judgments that we make them almost unconsciously, because they help us navigate and organize our life.
Speaker 1 7:13
So, you know, that might be like, okay, if I leave now, can I get through rush hour traffic and be home by six, or, you know, how long is it going to take me to finish this report, or even sitting in a restaurant looking at the menu? Gee, should I order the half or the full portion? Okay, so I mean, you get it, that those are useful. What I do want to focus on here leans more in the direction of like labeling, stereotyping, reacting, case closed, mind made up kind of judgments, maybe that sounds like what you heard in my story, like what a jerk. I can't believe he won't move out of my way, or some other possibilities. He is so domineering, I can't get a word in edgewise. Or she is constantly trying to deliberately undermine me with the boss. Or how about this one? They are here to take our jobs and notice that last one for a second, because we are living in such an intensely divisive and polarized culture right now, that this is the kind of conversation people are shying away from, but I include it because the guts or the formula within are the same, and if we can unlock this one, maybe we can shift the larger cultural conversation in a meaningful way, so let's start by leaning into those judgments, the ones that are more like labels and stereotypes. When we judge others from this place, our judgments are often so instantaneous that we, we don't even notice or question them, and we often voice them with a kind of certainty or boldness or even what I call a righteous indignation that comes from a sort of assumed and unexamined position of rightness. I'm sure you know exactly what I'm pointing to. When you hear it, they're unmistakable, whether shouted or whispered or something in between. There's this really distinctive edge to them. Personally, when I hear it, I recoil, and then I fear hearing something on the heels like, don't you agree, because I know then I probably have a difficult conversation on my hands, but I also find that people don't generally make those kinds of statements around people who might not agree, or if they do, that's when they're kind of talking at normal volume, and then all of a sudden they lower their voice and say, you know what you think about those people, right? And that always cracks me up. And as soon as I hear that tone whispered, I know it's coming. In spite of the certainty behind judgments, there is simply no logic, and that's where I'd like to take you now, because if you can unlock the illusion here that holds judgment together, you may be able to access a boatload of insight and humility that's going to help you live a less judgmental life. So, here goes. My judgments say more about me than they do about you, my. My judgment is not about you at all, so let's unpack that. That can be a, that can be a mouthful, particularly if you go and tell someone, oh, by the way, your judgment means more about you. They're not going to agree with you. So, first of all, we'll unpack it. Let's consider the psychological term projection. I'm sure you've heard this in your travels. It works just like a movie projector in a theater. Our judgment is like the film, and the other person is then the screen, and we project our judgment onto the screen, but we don't see our own hand in it, because our psychology works hard to defend a kind of self-image that we have as a good person, but haven't we all had an experience in our lives where we overreact to a situation, and then afterwards, you know, we say to ourselves, Why did I do that? What was all that about? It's the existence of that question, why that points to the blind spot. Carl Jung, he's an infamous Swiss psychiatrist. He coined the term the shadow. Maybe you've heard that before. And we all have shadows that contain those aspects of our personality that we've chosen to reject or repress. Our mind literally pretends that certain dangerous impulses or unacceptable desires don't exist, but you ever have you ever heard the term, what we resist persists.
Speaker 1 11:23
In his book, Clear Leadership, Jervis Bush talks about something called defensive projection. Quote, essentially, if I don't want to see my own pettiness, for example, it takes some energy and effort. A part of me wants to be aware of my pettiness, and another part doesn't defensive projection is a kind of mental sleight of hand that lets me take my pettiness and put it onto you, you carry it for me, so I can be aware of the pettiness, but instead of seeing it in me, I see it in you. End quote. Remember that guy at Trader Joe's during the standoff, and my judgments of him, jerk, asshole, even if one of my judgments hadn't actually turned out to be true, because if you recall, he actually admitted to being an asshole. What then does this judgment have to tell me about myself? Well, if I use the projection definition here, what I was actually doing was projecting my shadow quality, and I forgive all the profanity, but my shadow quality of being an asshole onto the other driver, and to acid test this theory, it's really simple. I just have to imagine myself being that way to someone else, or how I would feel if someone thought I was an asshole. I'd be gutted, I would hate it, I would actually writhe in discomfort, because you see, in my worldview, behaving that way is kind of an unforgivable sin. But hold the phone, didn't I drive the wrong way in the parking lot and block someone else? Hmm, starts to get interesting. Hey, you're listening to the Squeeze, and if you like what you're hearing, there's a whole world of citrus couching to discover. We've got an online leadership program, it's called Citrus You, and it features those three key tools you need to be a better leader, well, to be a better human. We also have a number of mini learning bundles that you can get into, and there's plenty more. If you're interested, you can follow us on Instagram, or check out our website@www.citruscoaching.com And the show resumes now, but let's try on a completely different scenario. Imagine you're in a meeting, or you're just standing around talking to a group of friends, or I don't know, having a beer, or whatever. You're telling a story, or you're sharing an idea, and you're just getting into it. When someone starts speaking over top of you, in that instant, you think, how rude, how insensitive. You might not say it, but you think it. It's a knee-jerk reaction that you're completely certain is true. I mean, how dare they? This is so obvious for all the world to see. It's not even a question in your mind whether everyone else around the table would agree with you. You are what I would call confidently indignant. But what if I stepped in and asked each person one by one what they thought of the situation? Does everyone agree that it's sensitive? No, of course not. Some will, sure, but it's unlikely everyone will. And voila, here is the key. Here is where your logic grows. Then, because my judgments are never going to be identical to yours, but by virtue of what we call a clever mental hack that is really designed to hold up our self-image as a good person, we conveniently ignore the fact that our judgments are completely subjective and interpretive, and then we go on to act as though we're speaking for everyone. And and from there it's a really slippery slope into the victim role. This was done to me, and that's where we seek agreement from others. So, together we can build a collective judgment file on the person who spoke over me, and bam, they're branded as rude and insensitive forever and ever. Amen. But, of course, I'm sure you've never done this before, but probably other person, but not you, wink wink. Okay, the second you realize that no one sees the situation the same way, that there is, in effect, no common ground. The only sane way forward is curiosity, and it's not an easy thing to do when you're caught up in the adrenaline of being wronged. But think of it this way, how much do you really enjoy the experience of being wronged, of being the victim of someone else having the power to make you feel this way?
Speaker 1 15:52
I know I hate it, even if it can be really hard to let go of it. Always feels in the moment like there's just so much at stake, and a back down would be wrong, but the best way forward here is paradoxical. In fact, when the most important thing seems to be to hang on, often the best thing to do is let go. So, back to that example of sitting around with your friends or your colleagues, and someone speaks over you, you could have chosen to take a breath. You could have chosen to resist your judgment. You could have reminded yourself that you don't know why people do what they do, because well, unless you can pull a psychic license out of your wallet right now, you don't know. You could have waited until after the meeting to openly ask the other person, what was going on for you? Maybe you would have heard something unexpected, maybe they were just super caught up in your story and excited, and they wanted to add something, and maybe they would be horrified to realize how you felt impacted, and voila, a completely different outcome that feels much lighter. Why is our judgmental side so resistant to change? Why do we want to be right more than we want to be peaceful or even connected to the other person? Clearly, there's a piece about needing to see ourselves as a good person. I talked about that with the shadow and projection, but I think there's more to it, you know. When I judge someone else, in effect I'm actually pretending to know what their motivation is and why they did what they did, and truthfully it's something I couldn't possibly know. So in my example, you know, that person spoke over me because I've decided they're rude and insensitive, but maybe what I might also be seeking is a feeling of control, or what I would call anxiety management. When I feel more in control, I feel less anxious. So I tell myself stories all day long about why people do and say the things they do and say, but there's a price to the storytelling that is often more than the benefit we get out of it, because control is always an illusion. Sure, we've got degrees of influence in situations, but usually what we're driven to find is we're looking for that kind of control that once we have it, we can relax in a kind of once and for all way, like a big wave that's going to wash over us with a kind of everything's going to be okay now forever feeling okay. I'm not going to dispute that at times I've wanted this too, but that's not how life works. Full stop. And therein lies the source of a lot of our anxiety, our inability to reconcile our true lack of control. Why do you think we have such a fear of death here in the West? I mean, when you really think about it, our denial of death is pretty crazy. Death is like the one sure thing we're gonna face in life. We know that. Here's a quote from social anthropologist Ernest Becker in his book, The Denial of Death, and that was written way back in 1974 Quote, human beings are mortal, and we know it. Our sense of vulnerability and mortality gives rise to a basic anxiety, even a terror about our situation. So we devise all sorts of strategies to escape awareness of our mortality and vulnerability, as well as our anxious awareness of it. End quote. He goes on to explain that one of the core purposes of culture is to suppress our awareness, so we can function. Becker believed that if we were constantly aware of our fragility and how close to the edge we actually were at all times, we wouldn't be able to function, and society would fall apart. Having pursued a pretty holistic spiritual path that has covered some of the territory of Eastern religions and practices over the last few decades, I have experienced practices that put us in a more direct relationship with our mortality, with surprisingly joyful outcomes. I'm also aware that these paths are not always well traveled, so for most of Western culture, perhaps Becker was right.
Speaker 1 20:07
And then, quoting Becker, who is himself quoting Luther, he says, 'You must be able to quote taste death with the living lips of your body, so that you can know emotionally that you are a creature who will die, end quote. Oh, the lengths we will go to manage the anxiety that accompanies the inevitability of our mortality. But perhaps now you can answer the question, why am I so anxious all the time? Okay, so if you want to destabilize your judgmental impulse without having to expose yourself repeatedly to your own mortality, and I understand, really, I do. Lots of people have a very big fear of death. Let's try something simpler. We perceive the world not as the world is, but as we are, and this is just cut from the same cloth as what I said earlier. Your judgments say more about you than the person you're judging. We're always interpreting what happens in life according to what amounts to an incredibly subjective lens. I'm going to give you a metaphor. You've probably heard it before. I think it fits. It's useful. Imagine we're all wearing a pair of glasses, but no one's glasses are the same. Some glasses are smudged, some are cracked, some are shaded, and so on. Sure, we're all looking at the same thing, but our glasses, which are otherwise known as our perspective, point of view, outlook, mental models, and so on, they make us see it differently. Same thing, but we see it differently, and even the kind of issues that cut deep and are playing out in our culture right this minute, we take a side because there really is a right or a wrong, or we believe there is, and this kind of black and white approach can only ever result in one thing, and we're seeing a lot of it, conflict. Any controversial issue you can think of that we as a community are facing right now. Well, it's literally got limitless points of view about it, and conflating the totality of those experiences into you're either with us or against us really does seem insane. The world is, after all, made up of shades of gray. Let's try something. I want you to think of the last time you witnessed an argument between two people, you weren't involved, you were just watching. And now ask yourself, do you believe they both thought they were right? Sure, that's fair. And do you believe that they each thought that if only the other person would change, the situation would be resolved? Yeah, sure, absolutely. Now, look at it through the metaphor. Imagine that what they're arguing about is some new policy or something, and they're looking at the same thing, but they're wearing different glasses and therefore seeing different things. And this is where it gets interesting, because what they're seeing and how they're reacting directly correlates to the pair of glasses they're wearing. In other words, their reaction makes complete sense to them. And here's yet another example. Imagine you and I are in the lineup to get coffee, and afterwards I comment to you how rude I thought the server was, but you don't agree. Now, in that second, I'm operating on the completely mistaken foundation that we're seeing life the same way, and so it goes that if you see life the way I see it, you'll respond to situations the way I would, but you don't, and that's where I get stymied, that's where I feel justified in my anger or frustration, or whatever I feel towards you in that moment, in my mind you've gone off script. We so badly want to say who is wrong and who is right, but that whole approach is just an incredible recipe for frustration and conflict. We're both having vastly different experiences because the pair of glasses we're wearing are different, and let me just say a word or two about how your glasses came to be what they are today. Your outlook, or pair of glasses, is shaped by every single experience you have ever had in your life. They're shaped by your history, your education, your socioeconomic status, where you live, your family beliefs, and on and on and on, no one will ever see life the same way. Even identical twins reared in the same environment will have unique points of view.
Speaker 1 24:29
If this hasn't yet been demonstrated to you that judging others is a losing strategy, and that focusing instead on your inner game will net you more peace of mind and connection, maybe you're not ready, and that's fine. You may need to just test drive it a few times, but if you are serious about seeking to understand and relate rather than going for yet another run on the never-ending hamster wheel of being right and certain, you're going to have to find a regular practice to continually remind yourself. How gray the world actually is. You're going to have to loosen your grip a bit on your fixed beliefs, be a little more open to the experiences of others, a little less quick to react. If you're willing to slow down, lean in, and be curious about the other person's actual experience, you're going to see different outcomes. If you're willing to be curious about the smudges on your own glasses, remembering that your reaction will always tell you more about you, then you may experience a little bit more lightness. If you're interested, here's something you can try. Years ago, I came up with this idea. I thought everyone has inside their head this thing I called the big book of appropriate behavior, and it's filled with all the rules and systems of judgment for life. It probably includes a lot of shoulds and musts and nevers and always that we picked up along the way as kids, either directly or indirectly. It probably includes rules forged from painful embarrassments, shameful mistakes, just to ensure we won't repeat them. Your book is largely just another anxiety management strategy to ensure you're accepted, well liked, and approved of. But if you were to actually look at what's in your book, how many of those rules would you really align with? How many of those rules actually make life kind of suck, but before you set out writing down your book, there are two incredibly important things you need to know about it. Number one, no one's book is the same, and so the next time you want to get on your high horse, because everyone knows that you don't talk over someone in a meeting, relax, remember everyone else has their own book, it's different than yours, and they feel equally invested in theirs being the right one. Number two, most of your book is unconscious, and this is great news, because by writing some of it down, it becomes more conscious, and then you can decide if you want to change any of it. When it's unconscious, it runs us like an operating system on your computer, it controls how we behave, but by becoming more aware we're at choice with whether we go along with it in future. Every time you find yourself stubbornly holding a rigid position about something, every time you feel angry and judgmental at someone else, pause and make an entry in your book. What rule are they threatening? What belief does their behavior challenge for kicks, I write mine in Old Testament language, so it might sound something like "thou shalt nod and act interested even when not listening" or "thou shalt not offend anyone, and on the surface of it, they're not all that earth shattering, and they actually appear quite innocent, but that's not the point. The point is that they own me, and until I get wise to them, I'm not really a choice. So, this exercise is not as easy as it looks, because your rules are probably pretty slippery and well camouflaged. So, if you want a little extra help, message me for a worksheet. I don't even know if worksheets are still a thing, but you can still message me. Okay, so say it with me: your judgments say more about you than the person you're judging. So get over that part of you that is trying to control and manage anxiety. Remember that the world is filled with a plethora of perspectives, and try seeking to understand rather than to be right, and that's it for today. But just remember that in future shows I'm going to actually invite guests, but I have to start somewhere. I want to build a bit of a base, find some momentum, and then I can invite the really big names.
Speaker 1 28:36
So stay tuned, and remember when you're pointing a finger over there, there's one pointing at them and three pointing back at you. Good luck, and have a great day. So you've been listening to The Squeeze. Thanks for joining us today, if you want to continue tuning in, don't forget to click subscribe, and as always, we want to hear your thoughts, your comments, your feedback, and challenges. If there's anything you don't agree with, thanks for joining us, and see you next time,
Unknown Speaker 29:15
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