Judging Others to Protect Ourselves?
What We May Discover When We Get Curious
I caught myself judging someone this week. Not in a dramatic way. In a quieter, perhaps more uncomfortable one.
Someone I know who is navigating difficulties familiar to me suggested that we connect and support one another. And a part of me thought: I’m not sure she has much to offer me.
She seemed to be struggling more than I was. Maybe she needed support. Maybe staying connected would eventually feel burdensome.
Not exactly a thought I’m proud of.
But this is one of the things I value most about mindfulness: it doesn’t require me to pretend these thoughts don’t arise. It invites me to notice them—and get curious.
- What was underneath this judgement?
- Was it superiority?
- Or perhaps something more protective?
- Maybe seeing someone in a place I recognize stirred up a fear I would rather not feel: I’ve been there. I don’t want to go back.
Perhaps a part of me wanted to believe I had crossed the chasm, learned the lesson, figured something out. She is there. I am here. I am safe.
Tara Brach often reminds us that what we are experiencing is real—but the story we are telling about it may not be true. So rather than trust my first story, I became curious. And I had the conversation.
What happened was something very different from what I had imagined. We listened to one another. We shared experience. We supported one another. And then she offered me something I very much needed: a concept from a book she was reading—Eckhart Tolle’s idea of the “pain-body”—that illuminated something I had been struggling to understand in my own life.
The person I had quietly decided might have little to offer me gave me a gift.
Which has left me wondering:
- How often do we decide, consciously or unconsciously, who is the teacher and who is the student?
- Who is strong and who is struggling?
- Who has something to give and who merely needs?
Discernment matters. Boundaries matter. Not every relationship is ours to enter or sustain. But perhaps mindfulness asks us to hold our conclusions a little more lightly. To notice when judgment has arrived—and let curiosity have a turn.
Because sometimes the person we think needs something from us is carrying exactly the thing we need.
Here’s to staying curious long enough to receive the gifts we might otherwise miss.
