How To Stop Judging People

No matter how much you tell yourself that judging is bad or harmful, it's not going to stop you from judging. In order to permanently stop judging people, we need to deeply understand the cause of why we judge people. This talk will provide insights that are meant to help you to finally stop judging people.

Transcript

Hello,

My name is Noah Elkrief and in this video I'm going to talk about how to stop judging people.

So if you are human,

Then you probably judge.

We all judge people and no matter how much we don't want to,

It seems sometimes as though there's nothing we can do about it.

And today I'm going to share some things you can do about it and sometimes a very easy and simple way to stop judging without trying to control it.

The first thing that people do when they realize that they're judging is they try to stop.

Putting forth a force,

Like effort to stop thinking negative thoughts about people just creates an internal conflict inside.

And often we end up judging ourselves for not being able to stop judging.

So if you can't stop judging purely from discipline and effort,

I'm here to tell you you can be gentle with yourself.

It's not your fault.

Thoughts don't change by trying to force them to change.

They change when we address the underlying incentive or force underneath it.

So why do we judge them?

What is the cause behind it?

What's the fuel behind the judgments?

And for most of us,

For me anyhow,

And for a lot of people I worked with,

The fuel is to feel better about ourselves.

When we judge someone,

Even though it doesn't necessarily feel nice to judge someone to be worse than us or bad in some way,

It makes us feel better about ourselves.

So if I judge you to be more unhappy or if I judge you to be less successful or if I judge you to be inefficient or stupid or anything,

I'm simultaneously unconsciously saying I'm better,

I'm smarter,

More successful,

Happier,

Whatever.

And the way to undo it,

The way to stop judging is to first acknowledge what are we trying to get out of it?

What are you looking for?

What are you trying to convince yourself of?

And the way we find that is through the specific judgment we have about people.

So if I judge people,

For most of us the judgments we have follow themes that happen almost every day or very often.

So at work maybe you frequently judge people to be less efficient,

Less capable,

Less smart,

Less something,

Less powerful,

Less knowledgeable,

Whatever it is.

And whatever you're judging people to be is what you measure your worth on,

It's what you measure your value on.

So if you judge people to be less smart than you,

What you're unconsciously doing or what you unconsciously believe is how smart I am determines my worth.

Say that again slightly differently.

If I judge you to be stupid,

What I'm saying is it matters how smart you are,

Your worth is based on how smart you are.

And I am looking for my sense of worth,

Which is my sense of safety,

Based on how smart I am.

If I judge people to be unattractive,

What I'm saying is the amount of worth a human being has,

What determines whether a human is lovable,

Worthy of love,

And therefore safe,

Because if we're worthy of love we're safe as a child,

If we're not worthy of love it means we're unsafe.

So if I judge people to be unattractive,

What I'm saying is how much love I get is based on how attractive I am.

And I'm trying to convince myself desperately that I'm attractive so that I can feel worthy,

So I can feel good,

And so that ultimately I can be safe.

You get that?

So what we judge others on,

So to play it back a little bit,

Because maybe it's getting a little bit confusing,

The first thing is to stop judging you have to see why you're judging.

That's to feel better about yourself,

To feel worthy,

To feel lovable,

To feel safe.

The second thing is what specifically,

What are the specific themes you're judging people on?

Because those are the specific themes you're trying to find worth in.

The third part of this,

The third step you could call it,

Or the third aspect of it is what to do about it.

So now I realize I'm looking for worth from success,

I'm looking for worth from my intelligence,

From my attractiveness,

From my personality,

From how happy I am,

Whatever.

Now how do we undo it?

How do we let go of that?

And there are many ways to do it,

But the first thing that comes to me is to feel the pain of the opposite.

So if I judge someone to be bad for being stupid or unsuccessful,

What it means is I'm terrified,

Terrified to believe and feel that I am stupid or unsuccessful.

It means I am so desperately looking for worth,

Safety,

And feel good from thinking and believing I am good enough because I'm successful or smart.

So what I encourage you to do is the exact opposite of what you've been trying to do,

Which is to feel what you judge others to be.

So close your eyes,

Maybe we'll do it a little bit right now actually,

To close your eyes and imagine yourself as the opposite,

As what you judge others to be.

So if there's somebody you judge to be unattractive,

Unsuccessful,

Stupid,

Unhappy,

Failure,

Imagine yourself in that position.

Imagine yourself as unattractive,

Imagine yourself as unsuccessful,

And just feel the pain of that.

Feel the sharpness,

Feel the hurt,

Feel how horrible it feels to feel I'm not worthy of love,

To feel maybe disgusting,

To feel inadequate,

Unlovable.

And when you feel that pain consciously with awareness,

You can let that pain move,

You can let that pain be expressed.

Maybe it comes out as a cry,

Maybe it comes out as a shake,

Maybe it comes out as ahhh I don't want to feel this,

Ahhh.

Something like this,

And just by feeling it and letting it move through us,

It can lose its power.

You with me?

So even if you think there's no chance that you could possibly be the other side of your judgment,

Like if you judge people who are fat,

Right,

To be ugly or unworthy or lazy or whatever,

And you're so skinny,

You might think,

Well I can't judge,

I can't,

I couldn't possibly be fat and it's not true or whatever.

But what happens is if you find your worth,

Your sense of self-worth from telling yourself I'm skinny or I'm beautiful,

What that inherently means is I'm unworthy,

Unlovable,

Not okay if I'm not beautiful,

If I'm not skinny.

And even if you think consciously,

I will always be this way,

I will always be skinny,

I will never look like that or whatever,

I'll always be successful,

I'll always be smart,

You're unconsciously living with this pressure that I have to stay this way.

I think you probably know what I mean.

It's very,

Very,

Very common,

If not for everyone,

For everyone I've ever had sessions with,

For everyone I've ever talked to.

It's this pressure to maintain the concept that you are good in some way.

And that pressure is like a constant anxiety in our life,

And one of the ways it manifests is through judgment.

So the second way that we're going to deal with it,

Other than feeling the pain and letting it out,

The sense of unworthiness of being the sort of negative side of the judgment,

Right,

Because there's two sides of a judgment.

I'm good,

Successful,

Which means I'm bad,

Unsuccessful.

I'm good for being skinny,

I'm bad for being fat.

They're essentially value assessments on opposites.

So skinny and fat aren't inherently good or bad,

Or worthy or unworthy,

Smart and stupid aren't inherently good and bad,

They're just opposites.

And we place the value assessment on it,

Usually because of how we're programmed in our childhood from our parents and our teachers,

And society,

And so on and so forth.

So that leads us very nicely into the second way to deal with these causes of judgments,

And that is to ask yourself,

Does this good quality,

Does this goodness actually make me worthy?

I'll say that slightly differently.

If you're judging someone to be bad in some way,

You're inherently judging yourself to be good in the opposite way.

And so I want you to ask yourself,

Is my worth based on whether I'm good or bad at this specific thing,

Or whether I'm this opposite or that opposite?

Is it true that I'm less worthy of love if I am,

Or I had the quality that I judge this other person to be?

Because that is such a painful and inaccurate,

Erroneous assumption that was programmed when you were so young that you didn't know any better,

No matter what it is.

And as I say that,

It might seem obvious that you're right,

That I'm wrong in this,

And that's okay.

But we're going to investigate it for a moment.

So is your worth based on how attractive you are,

How skinny you are,

How much money you make,

How smart you are?

I know it seems that way,

And I'm sorry that I'm laughing,

For me it's very comical,

For me it's so unbelievably obvious.

And one of the ways that you can ask yourself,

Or get in touch with what is your natural,

Authentic truth as opposed to what someone taught you,

Is to imagine,

Close your eyes and look at a child.

Not you,

Not yourself as a child,

But just imagine a child,

One year old,

Two year old,

Three year old.

And imagine that they're heavier than average.

Does this child deserve less love?

Are they somehow less worthy of love because they're heavier?

Of course not.

That would be an unbelievable joke.

Imagine that this child,

Now an average looking child,

Or average weight,

Takes longer to do puzzles,

Right?

So has lower intelligence.

Do they deserve less love?

What the hell does their intelligence have to do with how worthy of love they are?

They deserve love just for being alive,

Just for being here.

Look at them in the eyes.

If you can't see this really clearly,

Look at their eyes.

Look at what comes through their eyes.

Look at their aliveness.

Look at them.

Or if they're unhappy then.

If they're unhappy,

Do they deserve less love?

If they're less quick,

Like less athleticism,

Do they deserve less love?

Are they less worthy?

Somewhere along the way,

We've been programmed out of our natural,

Authentic,

Obvious assessment of human beings as simply worthy and good enough.

You are good enough as you are.

No matter what the qualities are,

Whether you're athletic or not,

Whether your intelligence is faster than average,

Whether your income is more or less than average,

Has nothing to do with how lovable you are.

You have to investigate this assumption.

So when you find yourself judging someone,

Ask yourself,

Is it true that they are somehow less worthy of love because of this?

Because of this characteristic?

Because if I'm saying they are less worthy of love before having this characteristic,

I'm inherently saying I am less worthy of love if I had that characteristic.

Which means I walk around with pressure and anxiety trying to maintain the belief that I am not that bad thing and I will never be that bad thing.

Not such a nice way to live.

On top of that,

When we judge others,

We're closing our hearts to them.

We're not seeing them.

We're not hearing them,

Which is unkind and unenjoyable.

So here we are.

Judgments.

Every time that I think I don't have any judgments left,

I keep finding a subtler and subtler level of them.

I keep finding subtler and subtler incentives for why I want to keep them for some hidden purpose that they have for me.

So sometimes,

Even if it's the opposite,

So even if we're on the negative side,

Like we're miserable or unhappy or had a painful childhood,

Sometimes we want to judge others to be worse than us or,

Sorry,

Get distracted by a dog that just came by.

So sometimes we just judge others to view ourselves as different,

As special.

So we might say,

They didn't have as bad of a childhood as me or they didn't have to go through that or they're happy and look at them.

They're so good,

Whatever.

And judge them for being the good side.

You might judge them for being happy,

Judge them for being successful,

Judge them for being attractive because they didn't have to go through what we did and they have it all and blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

And so those judgments are serving us by helping us to keep our sense of being special.

And special is this very sneaky little identity that so many of us have and it's trying to establish ourselves as different and therefore lovable or unique in some way.

And we are all unique but when we try to maintain a belief,

Like a self-image of unique,

One of the main ways we do it is through judgment.

It's not so nice.

And the way to come out of it is to ask yourself when you notice the judgment about someone being good in some way or bad,

You ask yourself like,

How does this serve me?

Do I really need to keep this identity as special?

Am I willing to let go of it?

Am I willing to let go of the idea that I'm somehow different,

Unique,

Better,

Special in any way?

And it might seem scary so like even in this moment you can just close your eyes,

Imagine a judgment you have about someone,

Anyone,

Imagine how it makes you different,

Special,

Unique,

Because I'm not like them.

And then ask yourself,

Am I willing to let go of this identity,

This aspect of my identity,

This piece of my self-image?

And it can seem threatening,

Scary like if I let go of this then I'm just normal,

Then I'm just like everyone else,

Then I'm not different,

I'm not special.

And even though it seems scary,

I urge you to give it a shot to see what happens if you let go of it.

You might discover on the other side is more relaxation,

Peace,

And actual like confidence,

Self-worth,

Not like some confidence I am great,

But this confidence and self-worth of like I'm so solid.

I'm so solid like I don't have to worry about what people think or I'm so solid I don't have to judge others.

I'm so solid I don't have to think I'm better than others.

I'm so solid that I can open my heart to others no matter how they are.

So it seems like that's all I have to say in this video.

If you judge others it doesn't mean you're bad,

It doesn't mean you're doing something wrong,

Every human being is doing it.

The question is whether you want to continue and do you want to put in a little energy and effort towards trying to undo the cause of your judgments.

And even if this doesn't work,

Maybe what I just shared with you doesn't work at all.

It's okay,

It doesn't mean anything about you.

It's not the right method for you,

It's not the right time,

Whatever.

Be gentle with yourself,

You're okay,

You are good enough as you are no matter how much you are judging.

Okay see you around.

I just messed up that one.

See you around.

I was caught between like see you later,

See you on the next video,

I'm not exactly sure.

So see you in another video sometime.

Bye.

Reviews

Wow, I was fighting this issue for quite a while till now. I thought I am unconsciously compensating my low self esteem, but this conclusion brought me nowhere. Yours is much more actionable. I will try. Still can’t believe majority of people do this.
Grateful to you! Namaste

Very insightful and helpful….Grateful!🙏🏻♥️

🙏🏼

Wow that was pleasant and helpful 😊 thank you so much 😊

Exactly what I needed to hear. Thank you.

A true insightful understanding of the human psyche through a lesson of lovable acceptance of self therefore others. Thank you. And it was wonderful to hear you laugh at yourself being truly human.

Thank you Noah

Great insight! Very useful and valuable talk.

This is was exactly what I was looking for since long time! I really like it, it goes deeper in our wiring system and gives more then one tool on how to deal with it right now. I will def come back to this several times! Thank you for it!

Great tips... thanks

Thank you. Love these practical talks really sinking into our core beliefs - how we get there and how we can move away.

This is so good...I did not realize that the judgments I have are actually a mirror of my own fears of unworthiness based on the same things I criticize...Thank you !🌠

Thank you 🙏