image Courtesy of the New York Public Library. Public Domain.
According to a quick google search, the most common things to give up for lent are consumable luxuries like chocolate, alcohol, or meat, or activities considered somewhat taboo like sex or gambling. The idea is that when you think about doing one of these things you apply willpower and keep yourself from it. What about cognitive asceticism; the thought itself is what I try to give up?
This is exactly what I attempted. I gave up judging people for lent. I had no illusions that this would be easy. In the beginning I would be judgy, then would call it out and diffuse it. But I noticed this kept happening. A lot. Far more than I ever noticed I did before. I felt like I was failing at this and tried to salvage it.
I reframed being judgmental as thinking negatively about things. If I were looking at the good stuff, then, maybe, I was not being judgmental. After a while I had to acknowledge I was fooling myself, that judging something to be ‘good,’ I was 1) still judging it, 2) secretly comparing it to that which I disliked as part of that judgment, 3) tacitly assuming that my experience of things being ‘good’ or ‘bad’ had any value or relevance to others or even reality. Again, I had a stern word with myself.
It was 16 days in, right about half-way, that I realised two key insights. The first is that by thinking about not doing something was forcing me to think of it and driving my increasing obsession with it. The second was that when I would call myself out for judging, I was judging myself, deepening the spiral. There was no escape! When I realised this I was walking to work and I just began to laugh out loud at the absurd fool’s errand I had set myself.
Oh the tumble began. Can we even ever avoid judging? Is it safe to? Without judgment can I avoid danger, like when I’m crossing the street? Is there any difference between judging, judgment, discretion?…
… And is judgment the real layer between ourselves and pure experience of both our world and our emotions; basically a dampening blanket between feeling and accepting frustration, anger, pleasure, joy?
For the second half of lent I decided to accept judging, but to not let it go unexplored. I really dug into the discomfort I felt that made me deem something as ‘bad’. Often it was fear, almost as often jealousy that I don’t dare risk the stink eye for just doing what I want. Almost always there was a tiny quiet imp telling me that these people are doing it to me…specifically to me.
The antidote was pretty easy, most of the time. It’s as simple as telling that imp that I’m really not that important; people have their own issues, worries and concerns and I am definitely not one of them. Then, really reviewing when I have been imperfect myself and transgressing the seemingly inviolable rules I was judging other for ignoring. This helped me hold more compassion for others than I had before.
Funny enough, when I stopped shaming myself for judging and started looking underneath the mask, I noticed that I was not judging others, nor myself, as much.
Cameron Adams Couselling 