How to deal with judgment
Sounds like clickbait? Well it’s not.
Dealing with the judgement of others can be a really simple expression of human understanding and compassion. It can be the opportunity to reassess your own sense of self — self-respect, self-compassion, self-love — and mirror that back out to the people around you. It is a chance to stand firm in that sense of self and not give two flying F’s at how anyone else is living their lives, because your energy will flow where your spotlight goes. Negatively or positively.
And you can’t control what other people think…
I stand before you as the 30-something mother of three (sometimes 4), with tattoos and multi-coloured hair. It’s not a new ‘thing’ or a phase, it’s just who I am, so the occasional awkward glance doesn’t bother me, finding that a smile or simple conversation is often all it takes to disarm most people.
Ever so occasionally there will be a moment where I truly am judged, anything from a backhanded comment to a full-on disapproving glare; moments that spark insecurity and self-reflection for all the wrong reasons. Reasons exterior to myself and my life, people whom I’ll probably never see again, yet often I have relinquished my control, all of that self-understanding, and bowed myself as less-than for not meeting their expectations. I took to heart that they had chosen to actively dislike and ultimately reject me.
I wanted to please everyone.
I learned heavily that I couldn’t. So I stopped investing my emotional energy into caring what other people thought.
We are all imperfect humans, that is probably one of our greatest uniting threads. Understanding who you are is personal, and when we feel the need to seek exterior validation we undermine that relationship with ourselves. We give away a part of our authenticity and replace it, which can serve as a great survival strategy in hostile situations — schooling for example — but the deeper message you’re telling yourself if that ‘they’ are right, and ‘you’ are wrong.
The only message you need to remember, is what other people think about you is none of your business.
Some relationships are borne out of choice — like friends — some out of necessity — like dentists — and some relationships are games that you don’t have to play. And by relationship I mean repeated interactions with the same person, either out of choice or necessity; there may come a time when you have to make a decision about whether that interaction continues.
You don’t need to judge another person to know that your interactions leave you feeling slightly less-than yourself in some way, and you don’t need to sacrifice parts of yourself to fit in with anyone. It’s okay to exercise a level of self-preservation.
You have the right to be who you are and to feel comfortable in your own skin, and when it comes to the why of others judging you? Well, perhaps you reflect to them a hidden or repressed part of themselves that they wish they could express. Perhaps they envy your freedom. Remember that society, fashion and trends are all fickle blinks in time which fade and change quicker than you can, and no matter how hard you try or how you feel at a time, time will change you too.
It’s okay to be. It’s okay to evolve. Just be true to you.
Some people don’t have a choice about ‘looking different’, perhaps from birth or after an accident or trauma, while others make a choice to look as different from their birth-selves as they physically can. No one has to be at peace with how you look, but you. Of course if you change your appearance to the extent that you affect your own life choices, then you have a responsibility to live up to that decision, but that it a post for another day…
If you’re feeling judged remind yourself that it doesn’t have to be your problem, and it isn’t your opinion of you. You don’t have to take it on board. People act, react and judge from their own pain, their own insecurities, and the greatest gift that you can give that person is understanding. Even if it is from a distance. Even if it is just understanding that their judgment is not your problem; this is personally cathartic but also gives you an objective freedom from their negative emotion, which can be particularly helpful if it’s not an option to stop interacting with that person. Co-workers or the great-great aunt you only see once a year perhaps.
Looks are fleeting but emotional interaction has the ability to last a lifetime. Ultimately, what people will remember about you is the way that you made them feel.
Focus on that, and you’ll find yourself surrounded by the right people for all the right reasons. You’ll shine brightly even if you do look different and you may just inspire someone to live within their freedom a little bit more.
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
