Let’s Stop Judging and Start Loving

“Who am I to judge?”

Pope Francis

Codependents, like most all addicts, spend a great deal of time playing prosecutor, judge and jury. Most of our attention is focused on ourselves. This is actually one situation where we do focus our attention on us—unfortunately. When it comes to negative energy, we have an abundance of it for ourselves. We are critical, merciless and unforgiving with our every fault or failing. Of course, this pattern of negative behavior causes us eventually to be just as easily critical, merciless and unforgiving towards others.

I’ve come to believe that the people in this world who are most critical of others must either be codependent/addictive thinkers, or those who are totally obsessed with following rules, or both. And I’d like to see this all change.

We need to make this world a kinder place. That means that we need to focus on being kind to ourselves, first and foremost. Once we can empathize with ourselves, we will stop being so self-critical. Once we begin to understand our own human brokenness and to accept it, we will also be able to begin the process of understanding and empathizing with the human brokenness of others.

Someone recently wrote me upset with issues in the United States like illegal immigration and transgender people. He wanted to know if he had to love everyone even when he didn’t agree with what he knew about them and their behavior. I told him this:

“We are called to love and be kind to everyone (including ourselves). This doesn’t mean that we have to love everyone’s behavior. But I think the big problem that arises for most people today is that they make judgments about others based only on their experience, or their side of the story. Rarely do we honestly try to put ourselves into the shoes of those we judge, be they illegal immigrants or transgender people, etc.

Jesus Christ actually placed himself into the midst of all of these same sorts of people in his ministry. He sat with them, ate with them, talked with them and tried to understand their plight and their feelings. And he loved them—and was kind to them—despite their faults and failings because he came to understand them. We almost never do this. He was able to judge what he truly came to know. We judge based in what we “think” we know, and rarely are those judgments kind or loving.”

In order to properly love ourselves, maybe we need to get to know ourselves better. Many of us only know the person we were told we are. We accepted someone else’s negative version of us as our truth, and we’ve loath ourselves under the delusion that we are as unacceptable as mom or dad said we are. Getting to know our true selves through the eyes of kindness, empathy and compassion can set us free from harsh self-judgments. And getting to know others as they truly are through the same loving eyes, can help us to be kinder and more loving toward everyone, no matter what their life situation is. How about we stop judging and start loving with kind hearts? Sound good to me.