I'm Not Judgmental I'm Just Right
In October of 2015 I went to a week-long retreat at Deer Park Monastery, one of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh’s Buddhist monasteries. One of the themes of the retreat was recognizing false perceptions, the notion that what we perceive is limited and, because it’s only a piece of the whole picture, usually wrong. The classic metaphor is a bunch of blind men touching an elephant, they all touch a different part of the animal and each think an elephant is something different. Thich Nhat Hanh teaches that one of the most important questions we can ask ourselves is, “Are you sure?”
I came home questioning everything and realizing just how judgmental I had been, even though I’d been studying this concept for nearly two decades.
I exclaimed to my wife: “You know. It’s crazy, I never thought I was judgmental, I just thought I was right!” It felt like such a radical realization.
I’m still laughing.
I thought about all the fights I’ve had with people, or the times that I’ve accepted people on the surface while silently judging them internally. Have you had this happen? A friend comes to you with what you think is a terrible choice and you don’t say anything disapproving, yet you silently think that it’s a growth process they just have to go through to learn, and some day they’ll grow and change into a more mature or developed person, the kind who makes the same choices you would make?
I thought about other times I’ve caught myself furious, upset, or offended by a circumstance and assumed that everyone in the room was thinking the same thing. Or the times I’ve loved what was happening, or what a person said or did, and assumed that because I thought it was right it must be right for everyone involved.
I thought about how unconscious and limited these thoughts were, and how they influenced all the subsequent actions/choices/decisions I made in those moments. My perceptions weren’t wrong; they were incomplete, a small part of a much bigger picture I couldn’t see.
I thought about my ancestors, the relatives who modeled this behavior for me.
I thought about how my “rightness” caused so much unnecessary stress and tension inside my mind and in my relationships.
I came up with a term: Righteous Blame.
Righteous Blame (RB) is when you think you’re right and you insist that the other person or group is wrong for not doing, saying or believing what you would do, say or believe when faced with the same or similar circumstances. You stay angry or distanced from the person or group if they won’t do it your way, because, of course you are right.
A Parable:
Some friends of mine were having a hard time in their marriage. They just couldn’t get on the same page. They went to a counselor, who said to them, “Do you want to be right or do you want to be married?”
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I’ve been practicing relaxing, breathing, and stepping back when I’m angry or upset by someone’s behavior. I’ve gotten in the habit of meditating when I notice I’m feeling Righteously Blamey or unquestionably right. Instead of sending that text from an RB place, I breathe, come back to the present moment, sit with my feelings, and wait for insight and perspective on the bigger picture. It’s hard but it works.
My wife Sophia coined the phrase, “Everyone’s best is a mess.”
I like it. I’m working with it. It makes room for me to aim for understanding rather than perfection, expansion and growth rather than idealism and righteousness.
The way I judge, think about and treat others is also a direct reflection of how I treat myself inside my own head.
How kind, expansive, understanding and compassionate am I to myself when I see ways I’m behaving that I don’t like?
How can I grow and change without punishing or hating myself?
These practices have been challenging to implement. Being right has been a self-protecting mechanism I’ve used since I was a little kid. Growing up around adults who were at times unsafe, I constantly had to evaluate if I was okay in their presence. Through the eyes of a child who perceived everything literally, people either went into the good category or the bad category based on my limited perceptions of right and wrong. There was no room for shades of gray. At any given moment if you were good that meant you were right, sane, and on the same page as me. If you were bad, you were wrong, crazy and not safe. My judgment saved my life, and it also fine-tuned my skills of picking up on the red flags unstable people wave.
Developing this radar reaped benefits, yet there’s a downside. My child-mind still has a habit of making people either perfectly good or categorically terrible:
It’s hard for me to distinguish between isolated instances and habitual destructive tendencies. For example, I grew up with someone who habitually watched TV to numb out and dissociate. Now, whenever someone I love watches TV a lot (and there isn’t clear logic to how my child-mind decides how much ‘a lot’ is), I freak out and wonder if they are wasting their life away and if they are bad for me to be around.
I can put people up on pedestals or knock them off, hard
When I do pick up on someone’s real instability or challenges, sometimes I can’t be with them compassionately- my child safety mechanism typically defaults to shutting them out or distancing them to protect myself
I work at maintaining intimate relationships where we are imperfectly doing our best together. I’m getting better at accepting myself and others exactly as we are. I am gradually expanding my perceptions and relaxing my judgments. I am making space for all of my feelings, and not distancing myself from them the way I’ve distanced myself from others to avoid pain.
I am more grateful each day and I’m finding a lot more happiness in every moment.
My self-awareness is increasing. All the years of therapy, and practice: the Reiki, meditation, and related self help stuff have given me a deeper and deeper perspective on my inner workings. This perspective helps me be gentle with myself when I recognize I’m RB’ing, even if I can’t change it in the moment. It feels like progress.
Does any of this ring a bell for you? Share in the comments any of your thoughts, reflections, or personal examples. We can learn so much from each other…