Side-Stepping Judgment Makes Your Heart a Little Lighter, Your Day a Little Brighter
Photo by raychan on Unsplash
Just the other day, I was washing up a tiny Mexican pottery bowl, about two inches in diameter. Not only was this bowl very pretty, my wife and I had found these bowls increasingly useful for holding small quantities of food, condiments, etc. The thought occurred to me: “Oh, it’s a pity that we gave away two of these bowls and that we only have two left.” I was about to say this to my wife, when I thought twice, realized my negative slant, and said instead: “These little bowls are so useful — maybe we can get some more of them.”
I had switched from a negative to a positive framing and I, for one, felt better expressing it this way. Had I expressed my original version, I would also have spread my negative framing to another person, my wife.
What’s more — I realized some moments later — I would have conveyed a not-so-hidden judgment: it was my wife who had generously given away those bowls. So, had I gone with my original framing, “Oh, it’s a pity that we gave away those bowls and that we only have two left,” I would have been saying, in effect, “You were wrong to give away those two bowls and it’s your fault that we only have two left.”
My judgment had been disguised with the we (“we gave away those bowls”) when we both would have known that by we I meant you.
My judgment was also disguised by softening and generalizing, saying for example “It’s a pity…”
Who on earth is it’s? It must be someone on this earth… oh, maybe it’s the creator of the thought. Em, that’s me — it is I who’s feeling discomfited, not some generality of life that’s somehow universally upset. And “a pity”? — now that I’ve established that it’s actually refers to me, what am I actually feeling? Annoyed? Disappointed?
Whatever I might have been feeling in that moment, as soon as I expressed myself positively and without judgment, the feeling changed. There was no need to prolong that feeling in myself, nor to spread it to another person.
This is a time when I side-stepped a little judgment. And there are hundreds of times when I have not, and when I have been surprised at my wife’s or others’ reactions to the judgment I’ve inadvertently —and unwisely — made.
I mention this as an example of how subtle this business of judgment can be. It might seem like just a matter of words, but words can matter. I was happy to have side-stepped my judgment on this occasion. Not only did this later lead to a great conversation with my wife about the subtleties of judgment, but it also shows that change is possible — that we can gradually, or not so gradually, learn to get more proficient at being non-judgmental. When we do this, we build trust. And with trust between two people, life feels so much better.