Living Without Judgment

In this episode, Dr. Gina discusses the benefits of living without judgments. She talks about the difficulties and stressors that come with being too hard on yourself or on your children. How being attached to specific expectations or outcomes can contribute to suffering.

Transcript

Welcome to Living Simply,

A guide to mindful living and mindful parenting with your host,

Dr.

Gina.

Hi,

Everybody.

Welcome to the show.

Hi,

Ben.

Hi,

Allie.

Hello.

My two little sick puppies.

Yeah,

To varying degrees,

But neither of us are in the best of spaces right now.

How are you this week,

Gina?

I'm good.

It's pretty cold outside,

But everybody around me is sick,

But I'm not.

Knock on wood.

Luckily,

We can't transfer it through the computers.

Yeah,

For now.

That's true.

Anything is possible.

So what are we talking about today,

Gina?

So today we're going to talk about judgment and how it's better to let go of judgment,

Basically.

That makes a lot of sense.

So what are some of your,

You know,

What are some of the early pitfalls that you think that people deal with when it comes to judgment,

Like right off the bat?

Well,

Right off the bat,

If we tend to judge other people,

We're also pretty hard on ourselves.

So when we fall into judgment,

What comes after that is possibly anger,

Self-loathing,

Being hard on ourselves,

Being hard on other people.

So often judgment in my sense doesn't lead to anything good.

Yeah,

That makes sense.

So it's really,

But it's really hard to not judge,

You know,

Situations and not judge ourselves.

So,

You know,

What are some ways that you can avoid making judgments?

So it's first,

It's pretty hard to avoid making judgments because everyone around us does.

We're immersed in judgment,

Whether it's TV,

The news people that surround us,

School,

School grades us,

Places judgments on our work,

Bosses place judgment on our output.

So the first step in at least reducing judgment is to start noticing and being aware how judgmental we are with ourselves and others,

Because it's hard to change something if you're not noticing you're doing it.

So first step,

Notice how judgmental you are and then you can course correct and maybe over time catch yourself sooner and ultimately reach a point where it becomes second nature not to be so judgmental.

So I think it's a bit of a process to undo this kind of programming.

What are some,

How do you catch yourself when you're being judgmental?

So what I do with my clients,

Because we're so stuck in autopilot all the time,

It's really hard to forget to notice.

So one first trick I give my clients is every time you're going to go through a doorway,

Which is often so there doesn't need to be a door but a doorway,

Whether it's through your car,

Your bedroom,

Bathroom,

Notice what you're thinking about.

And if there's any judgments in that train of thought.

So I find that's the first step to have little cues like that.

And set the intention in the morning when you wake up.

Today I want to set the intention that I will notice,

Pay more attention to my thoughts,

So that I can catch myself to see if I'm judgmental.

So that's the first trick to develop a bit of self awareness is to have certain cues to wake you up to it.

All right.

And do you think that people are more likely to,

Do you think people are more likely to judge themselves or others?

From what I see,

Usually it's both.

Yeah.

Unless,

Unless we go to the extreme.

So if we work with personality disorder like narcissism,

They're usually harder on other people than themselves but let's exclude these people.

What I find goes hand in hand,

The more self forgiving you are more likely you'll be more forgiving of others.

So I find if the harsher you are on yourself,

Perfectionism,

High standards,

The harder you'll be on other people.

So I,

My experience is it kind of goes hand in hand.

What do you think?

Well,

I don't,

I don't know if I,

I don't,

Allie,

You know me pretty well.

Do you think that I judge others more or myself more?

Oh,

I feel like kind of equally.

That kind of hurts my feelings.

I'm sorry.

I don't know which of those answers would have been better.

But I do think,

No,

I think you are constantly,

I think you're very self aware.

I think you're very constantly like we talk a lot,

Obviously about like our personal selves and bettering and what we could do differently and everything like that.

And you always like when you talk about yourself,

I feel like not that it's always negative judgment,

But you definitely judge yourself often.

We also talk about other things in our lives.

I don't know.

Maybe you do judge yourself more.

I'm not I don't think that that's a good thing,

By the way.

I'm not saying that like judging yourself more than judging.

I know I know.

Either of them are.

But yeah,

I think I think that judging yourself is the,

Judging yourself or judging situations more so than judging other people because you know,

There's like an instinctual or there should be at least there's an instinctual like feeling that judging others is there's something wrong about it and negative about it.

But when you're judging yourself,

It's sort of easy to be negative.

Like,

You know what I mean?

Like there's no there's less of the outside guilt of like,

You know,

It's not gossip.

It's not talking bad about somebody else like,

You know,

But you're judging yourself.

You think that that's being more real and more honest to judge yourself harshly.

And I feel like it.

So I feel like that might be a bigger problem than judging other people.

And then,

Of course,

Judging situations as a whole.

What I was going to say is judgment.

We want to expand it beyond because often we'll be harder on ourselves than our friends.

So example,

You might not judge Ali as much as you would judge yourself.

But if we expand it to situations,

Other people,

The reality of things,

Context.

The new anything.

So if we expand the judgment to not just directly to a human being,

But the way things are.

And especially strangers.

So you can be very kind to your friends and not judge them because there's unconditional love of your friends and family.

But let's say someone cuts you off on the road.

You might drop an F bomb or.

You know what an idiot.

I am right.

And no one's going to hear you.

No one's going to know.

Yep.

I think that that's a.

That's something that's really like lost,

I think,

Is the judgment of like a lack of empathy for others.

Not people that,

You know.

Yeah,

But people outside of that even.

Yeah,

Judging the cashier at the supermarket.

I was just going to say I work at a specialty food store and part of my job is I end up sometimes like on the register ringing up these people.

And I do it to where if I'm in the middle of something and I'm busy and I have to go on the register,

You know,

There's a little bit of like,

OK,

Hold on.

And those people pick up on it.

And in turn,

They are in the same kind of situation,

Like people come up to the register and they're just like miserable.

And they're so like they get up there and they're like,

I've been waiting in line and this is expensive.

And they're just so like it was like,

Whoa,

Hold on.

Like.

This is the first time interacting with you.

What happened?

Like,

Why is this so aggressive?

And they're just like from the get go.

So taking this situation and just being like almost hostile for no reason.

You have no idea.

Like maybe something's going on in their life.

We don't know.

But it's just like that's one of those things that I think about even recently to be a little understanding and a little bit more.

And if I feel like I'm going into the situation like in my own moment of like whatever,

I'm like,

All right,

Just hold on.

Take a breath.

We're all good.

Let's just bring up their stuff.

You know,

There's also like a like a level of judgment.

That for example,

In Ali's situation,

If you see her at a register ringing you out,

She's a young female,

What appears to be cashier at the moment.

You know,

And if she was filling out a paper on the other side,

Like,

You know,

Near the register,

But not helping with the line at the moment.

You might judge that person and not realize like she is a manager who's got orders to do and other things and like somebody else was supposed to be on the other side of that.

But,

You know,

But all you see is this person's ringing me out.

This is a cashier.

I'm going to,

You know,

And like that's not fair in any stretch in any in any situation,

Not just because I know the things that happen at the specialty grocery store where Ali works.

But,

You know,

The people at Walmart that are ringing you out that are doing that sort of stuff,

Like all of that.

Yeah.

You just never know what the actual situation is.

But we're so quick to judge.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And especially when it affects us directly,

We tend to make assumptions,

Take things personally.

And when we do that,

Automatically we'll go in judgment,

Criticism,

Self-righteousness.

They shouldn't talk to me that way.

They should be a certain way.

So shooting all over people or ourselves underneath all that is judgment.

Yeah.

So what's the best way to get around that,

To develop more empathy or so specifically right now we're talking about judging people.

Yeah.

And what's the best way to develop more empathy and to or to eliminate as much as possible yourself from judging people?

So the easiest place to start is with yourself,

Because when you start being more compassionate with yourself and noticing how often you do it all day long,

You realize,

Wow,

No wonder out of the blue it looks like I'm I'm depressed or down or bummed out.

I didn't realize how much I put pressure on myself.

So again,

Judgment doesn't have to be calling yourself stupid,

Dumb or what an idiot.

It could simply be,

Oh,

I should have worked harder today.

I should have I should have done more.

Well,

That's a it doesn't look like a judgment,

But it is.

So the way to do that is to have more self compassion and have more empathy for yourself.

And when you start doing that,

Developing that habit and giving yourself the benefit of the doubt.

So,

For example,

You're by the end of the day,

Your art to do list is never done and you catch yourself saying,

Oh,

I'm I should have done more today.

And you go,

Well,

You did a lot today.

You were busy.

You were under the weather.

You did the best you could with what you had today.

And then you'll feel better.

And you've just turned around your mindset from judgment,

Shooting all over yourself to self compassion.

And when you start doing that with yourself,

Automatically it's a habit you create and you start doing that more for other people because it becomes a habit.

So it doesn't mean if a guy cuts you off on the highway that you won't get startled,

You won't get upset.

So you might think,

What an idiot,

And then go,

Well,

Maybe this guy's racing to the hospital because they just found out their kid has a concussion.

Because,

Yeah,

I've cut people off before.

So when you also put yourself in the shoes of other people,

Because people will trigger us,

The first reflex is to ask yourself,

Where have I done this?

Maybe in a different costume,

But where have I lacked compassion for others?

When have I cut off people before?

And when you see your humanity in other people as well,

You're less prone to judgment.

So one of the big things that I think causes judgment is expectations.

Because we have expectations of a situation,

Because we have expectations of people in traffic,

Because we have expectations of the cashier at the grocery store,

Or expectations of ourselves to live in this perfect situation,

Everything should line up perfectly according to our expectations.

Do you think that that plays a big part in judgment?

Yeah,

I think so.

Because the minute you place expectations,

If you don't reach those expectations,

You might be hard on yourself.

If you're prone to judgment,

Being hard on yourself versus self-compassionate,

That ideally we have expectations,

But to also be flexible,

Not so rigid in thinking things should always go the way we want in a perfect world.

Maybe it's possible,

But this world's not perfect,

Right?

So it's also shifting our expectations,

Infusing them with flexibility,

Because we survive better in this world if we're flexible than if we're rigid,

Whether it's with ourselves or other people,

And ground on our expectations in reality based on our values.

But also accept that we're all different.

We all have different values,

Different upbringings,

Different culture,

Have some flexibility with other people that not everyone's like us.

So that directly correlates with your expectations,

I feel like,

For your kid,

Your child,

And being flexible and things not going the way you want them to,

And the judgment towards the child and their judgment towards you,

I'm sure,

As well.

Like dealing with that with kids.

Yeah,

And especially with kids,

I think what's hard is we tend to compare to other kids.

We tend to compare ourselves to other parents.

We fear judgment.

So we get,

If our kid acts up in public,

We get embarrassed because what are other people going to think?

But if we were alone and they'd have the same tantrum,

We wouldn't react the same way.

So the fear of judgment also guides our behaviors.

And with kids,

We project our fears and our judgments on them,

And if they don't follow the straight and narrow,

Then we react at that level.

And then we're,

Based on the last episode,

Then we're not present to the child's needs.

We're being present to appeasing our own judgments and whatever anger or emotion that comes with that.

So we are almost to the end of this episode already.

And Gina,

You said that you had an idea for how you wanted to end every episode.

So could you kind of lead us into that?

Yes.

So I wanted to end every episode with a moment of gratitude because studies that look at habits of happy people,

What they consistently have in their arsenal of tools is they live a life in gratitude.

So not necessarily a punctual moment of having an attitude of gratitude,

But literally from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed.

If we live knowing each moment throughout the days,

How lucky we are and what we're grateful for,

We tend to approach life in a different way and we tend to be happier.

So every day there's a multitude of things we can be grateful for.

So I thought it'd be good to lead by example and do that with every episode.

So do you want to start,

Ben?

What are you grateful for?

Oh,

Man.

Why do I have to start?

What am I grateful for today?

Okay.

So it's almost as we record this,

It's almost lunchtime and I am grateful for a good friend of mine who got me.

So basically I've been looking for some stuff as far as diet goes,

Not like a fad diet,

Like just eating what you eat every day.

And I've been looking for jackfruit for a long time.

Jackfruit?

Yeah.

And I can't find it around here.

And Allie went to a food show the other day and on her way home she stopped at a Whole Foods,

Which we don't really have one in the immediate vicinity of the area here.

And she got some for me and I was very excited about that.

And I'm going to cook it when we finish this.

And it's not the actual item that I'm grateful for.

It's just having a friend who remembers and cares and wants to surprise you with something is really nice.

So yeah,

I'm grateful for good friends.

Awesome.

How about you,

Allie?

I am grateful.

Well,

This morning I had a bunch of errands to run and I have a bunch more later in the day.

My sister is getting married next weekend and we're all very heavily involved in the wedding.

So there's a lot of stuff that I'm trying to get done these two days that I have off.

So this morning when I woke up it was snowing and I was very worried that it was going to impact my entire day.

And it's cleared up and it's nice and sunny.

And that absolutely helps my mood every day when there's an abundance of sunshine.

So when we were out doing our errands everything kind of slowed down and stopped.

I'm very grateful that we're nice and sunny and we can continue on with all of our stuff.

That's awesome.

You know,

What are you gratitude?

What are you grateful for?

I'm going to start with this one.

There's something I'm grateful for every single day.

So I won't repeat it every episode.

So I'll always add something else to it.

But every morning,

Every day,

Every night,

I am grateful for my daughter being healthy.

Because as you know,

When she was two,

She had leukemia and she had a severe anaphylactic reaction to one chemo.

So I almost lost her twice.

So every day I'm grateful that she's here with me and healthy.

So that's a given and healthy for my health.

Because without health,

We don't have much.

So putting that aside,

Today I was super grateful that I have a car.

Because like you guys,

It's cold,

It's snowy.

I see people freezing outside taking the bus and it allowed me to drop my daughter off at school,

Go to the gym,

Do a yoga class and be here on time for this show.

So if I had to take the bus all the time,

I wouldn't have been able to do all those things.

Awesome.

That was really fun.

I like that.

I like that segment.

Me too.

Awesome.

All right.

Well,

Gina,

Tell everybody where they can find you.

So you can find me on drgina.

Ca and on Facebook,

Dr.

Gina Madrigano and on Twitter,

At Dr.

Gina.

Awesome.

All right.

Thanks,

Guys.

And we'll see you next episode.

Thank you.

Bye.

For more information or to book an appointment with Dr.

Gina,

Go to drmadrigrano.

Com or click the link in the description of this episode.

Reviews

Thank you Gina for your insight. Liked the gratitude bit at the end 💜x