Coaching with LDS values

Episode 102: How to Stop Juding This is Bonnie Lyman, and you're listening to the podcast, Loving on Purpose, Episode 102, How to Stop Judging. Welcome to the podcast, Loving on Purpose. I'm your host, Bonnie Lyman. If you're having trouble navigating through your relationships with your adult children, if you are struggling to connect with them, or having specific challenges, you're in the right place. Hello, my friends. Welcome back for another episode. I am always so excited to share with you a way that perhaps will help you get along better with your adult children, but also everybody in general. I think this time of year is Thanks. It's a good time to notice how we're feeling. We're feeling a little kinder, a little more forgiving, and get inside your head and see why you're feeling that way. It is your thoughts. And Christmas time, there's so many reminders of good things that are being offered to us that Um, through the gospel of Jesus Christ, and we do come focused on his sacrifice, the sacrifice of Mary and the sacrifice of Joseph for For being such a supreme being that came to earth, it was quite incredible as to why he was born in the circumstances in which he was born. And, and so it's a lot. Uh, for me to reflect on my privileges and right now I, I'm feeling very privileged and don't know why I got to be born into the United States and where I live here in Spokane, Washington, we don't have any fears of tornadoes or hurricanes or tsunamis or earthquakes or once in a while, you know, We'll get some severe winds, but I really feel like I live in a bubble and I always wonder why I was so privileged to, to end up living here and being born in the United States. I don't believe God had favorites and placed us there for certain reasons, but I, I do believe we were placed in circumstances and have. Circumstances that come into our lives that help teach us, that help enable us to learn those things we need to learn to be not only the best we can be in this life, but also to be able to return to our Heavenly Father. So today I want to talk about judging and how not to judge and. Usually, when we think of judging, we automatically go to the negative judging, not judging people as to their goodness, but maybe focusing on their faults. And so, you know, all these things we talk about, all these things that we're trying to correct in ourselves. is really trying to help us to get to a place where we feel good. I know I mention that all the time, but that's all any of us want. We just want to feel good. And that doesn't mean euphoric, but just peaceful, just have some peace in our life. Um, and, and so I always say, when it comes to our relationship with people, it is a spectrum, but we're either loving someone or we're judging them and maybe not a spectrum but a continuum and on one end is extreme love and on the other end is extreme judgment but we fall somewhere in between and we want to keep getting closer and closer to Loving people and loving them on purpose, and one way to do that is to not judge them. If, if we are judging people negatively in, in the long run, if for no other reason than to be selfish, it does make us feel good. We do feel a little more peace in our life. If. If we're not noticing what we don't like about people or we're not blaming people for making us unhappy, which by now I hope you know, you can't make anybody feel happy and nobody can make you feel unhappy. It's all what's in your mind. We think, oftentimes, that if we, if we can control others, it helps us to feel good. Our brains want to tell us that if, if we love them, then we should try to control them, because we're only trying to help them be happier. And we control them by helping to change them by, we want to show them or tell them what their shortcomings are. But the, this, this just doesn't work. We can't help others by judging them. We help them by loving them and, and telling them as often as we can what they're doing right. Growth, change, repentance, all of these good things that make us feel good. They come from and are initiated from within ourselves, not from somebody else pointing out our weaknesses. It comes from seeing, um, ourselves as a person that has strengths to do good things and that we also have weaknesses that we can overcome. When we, by ourselves, learn to overcome our weaknesses or, by ourselves, we ask for help, it's much more permanent than when somebody else wants us to make the change and thinks they're loving us and helping us by pointing out our weaknesses. My gay son, who is living with a partner, He knew we would have liked things otherwise, but we had a choice at this point. We could judge him for really going down a path that we felt, because of our faith, was, was not good for his eternal salvation, or we could choose to love him just the way he was. And that's what we did, and loving was so much more satisfying than judging him. We not only loved him, But we loved his partner also, and we decided, because we love them so much, and we wanted them to feel a part of our family, we included him and his partner in all our holidays and our vacations, and just whatever we did with our son, his partner was also included. We have a negativity bias born. And this isn't a bad thing because it was there to protect us from danger. Earlier in the existence of the human race, there was a greater need to be on the lookout for danger. So it served us to access everything in our life or to s To see things going on in our life or to, um, beware and see things is a possible threat to our survival, but we no longer need to look for the danger in things. Or the downside of everything that happens in our lives. It really doesn't do us any good. I'm not in danger, especially in my little bubble here in Spokane, of, of bears. I know that I used to always let my kids walk to school, and we have to be a little more cautious about that, and not many people allow their kids. to come and go to school by themselves until they're perhaps maybe, I don't know, sixth grade, seventh grade. But the danger is is not there and we get too hung up on being too frightful of living our lives. In fact, it serves us better to see that even hard things As an opportunity to evolve as a better version of ourselves, when we can deal with hard things, we can serve and help more people by being an example of someone. That can do and survive hard things by judging people, thinking people are doing things that aren't right, makes us feel resentful and disappointed and, and often even heartbroken, especially when we're thinking about our decisions. Adult children judging others for their weaknesses does not cause them to change, and it serves no purpose. Number one, we are all aware of our own weaknesses, and we don't need them pointed out to us by someone else. And number two, maybe you think it's a way. That we can help change people, but it doesn't work that way. So here are some suggestions on how not to judge others. Number one is to get curious. To get curious about them and their actions. I wonder why they are making those choices. Or, I wonder if they're having a bad day today. They're, this is not something that a normal, happy person would be acting like. I wonder what they must be feeling right now to be, be behaving that way or saying those things. Number two. is to get curious about our own thinking. And that might go along the lines of, I wonder why their behavior, their unkind behavior, let's say, bothers me. I wonder why I just can't let that behavior go instead of making it so personal. I wonder what other perspective I could view where that comment they just made came from. We never know what someone is thinking. I love the thought Byron Katie taught me. If I thought If we thought like they thought, how would I be behaving or acting? If we thought like they were thinking right then, we would probably be acting much like they're behaving. That behavior that you have some negative judgment about. But we all have different brains, so we all have different opinions. And so, that means we have different feelings, so we behave differently. There is relief when my clients hear that there are other moms going through the exact same heartbreaking experiences they're having. We thrive on being around like minded people. But when we're not, it doesn't mean anything has gone wrong. We Unless you're making a judgment about it. It just means you're viewing the situation different than how they're viewing it. So, our judgment that they shouldn't be doing that, that, you know, even if they're being unkind, there's usually something behind that. Being unkind does not make another person happy. So they're really not doing it on purpose, but they're dealing with something. So our judgment can always be one of compassion. So number three, after getting, just, just to being in the land of curiosity, hmm, I wonder what's up with them, or hmm, I wonder what's up with me that I'm taking this so personally. We, if we focus on what we admire about that person, or remember the things that he does right. then we're less likely to judge so quickly, or at least so harshly. A good example of this, a couple years after being married to my husband, there were about ten things he did that really annoyed me. 50 years later that we've been married, he's still doing those same 10 things, but I don't focus on those anymore. I focus on all the great and wonderful things he does. So the fourth tip or suggestion. Be aware of what you focus on. Joy comes not from how somebody treats you or what they say to you, but it comes from what we focus on. It is possible not to judge a person for his weaknesses, and his weaknesses may be that he's not Very kind to you. If you train your brain with some practice, you can focus more on what you like about a person, rather than what you don't like. And if you practice it enough, it will become a default. or you will at least have a compassionate thought about them instead of a judgmental thought. It may be just one thing, maybe you can only find one thing you admire about a person, but we're either judging people I've been helping moms for over four years find more peace in their relationships by learning how to default to focusing on what their adult children are doing right, rather than waiting. for them to change or figure out how we can change them. I like to assume that my children are doing the best they can because I'll never really know the challenges and the trials that they are dealing with in their lives right now. I never. will experience being their age at this time and the different things that come before them and the things they struggle with that I never had to struggle with. Love always feels best. So why wouldn't we choose Love every time. I hope you will try to try to implement one of these suggestions this week that you can have a more peaceful life. It was great talking to you. And I'll get back to you next week. If you liked this, this episode, and you felt it was of benefit to you, I ask you to share it with somebody that perhaps it could also benefit. But if you're still feeling kind of stuck in that you don't know how to apply what was talked about, or where to start, I'd On, on changing your thoughts, on changing your perspective, on bettering your relationship, get on a call with me and we can have a discussion and I can tell you how to apply it and where we start. And then you get to decide. What you want to do about this relationship that maybe you're struggling with, with your adult children. There is no reason to go on the rest of our lives, struggling with our relationships with our adult children. Let's assume the best. Let's assume that we all love each other. And we're just trying to figure out. How to maintain our own boundaries and respect another one's. But I can help you with everything. So just go to BonnieLyman. com and book a call. I can't wait to hear from you. .