The best way to deal with a judgmental person is to ignore him/her.
But there are situations when you can’t ignore the person because you have certain expectations from the person OR you have certain expectations from yourself.
What to do?
The next best thing is to process the emotions you get while the person judges you in a certain way.
If you can keep your being in a pleasant state even when judged, the judgmental person has lost most of his/her power.
To bring more clarity to the subject, I want to tell you the story of a person who began his life in a miserable state as a child but was able to transform into a pleasant being.
He was judged for who he was.
- He was judged by his family – for not conforming to their ways of living life;
- He was judged by his friends – for being over-emotional and exhibiting certain emotions for someone other than his friends;
- He was judged by his classmates – for putting his teen emotions first over studying to “fit” in the perceived norms of career;
- He was judged by his community and society – for disregarding their rituals and leading a different way of living;
- He was judged by his employers – for not being an obedient employee like everyone else was;
- He was judged by his business partners – for not working as per his insane expectations the generate more $$$ to fill his pockets;
- He was judged by his subordinates – for being a very unconventional leader;
- He was judged by his loved ones – for not committing to the accepted social wrappers used for identifying human relations;
He was judged, judged, and judged.
He did not know how to deal with judgmental people, so he felt miserable: no acceptance from his society/family/loved ones. No success in job and business. Nothing wonderful to look forward to in life. A severe emotional disturbance.
He wanted to be accepted for who he was. He wanted to be loved. Madly. Totally. Completely. And so, he was looking for “acceptance” outside himself.
The problem with his approach was this – he had no control or influence over the outside world.
He had to feel miserable. It was by design. It was by the choices he made. Although the decisions were made in ignorance, the consequences didn’t care if the guy was ignorant or intelligent.
He reacted to his misery: he cried, fell, wanted to run away, and even wanted to end his life. He felt so thirsty for acceptance that his desire for acceptance started to lose its importance.
He started observing what he felt when things happened to him and what other people felt when things happened to them. In the process, he began to understand his mind, body, immediate surroundings, and the environment that made him feel in distinct ways.
He learned that he was giving power to certain negative emotions. Since he was capable of being depressed and feeling miserable, he was capable of being joyful and remaining pleasant. It was just that he had to replace his thinking process that was not serving him with the one that would help him.
He paid enough attention to his inner self and his immediate surroundings – and he started to get answers to all his pressing questions from within.
His confidence rose, and so did his self-esteem. He released the need to “prove” to the world that he is noteworthy.
If the world takes note of him, great; if the world does not take note of him, it doesn’t matter to him. He felt that he was entirely on his own.
He tried to keep himself in the moment and worked to improve himself as much as possible. After a while, he stopped attempts to improve himself. He was alive not to be “an improved object” who would be useful to himself or someone else but to live without worrying about his past or future!
25 years passed.
He was able to change himself into a better possibility every few years. He was no longer the human he used to be, and he enjoyed his elevation process more consciously than ever.
Once he understood that being judged by others has nothing to do with him and everything to do with other people’s limitations to process certain behaviors or non-behaviors, he found peace.
As a byproduct, he stopped judging other people!
He processed it like below:
- He does not judge humans who matter to him. His inner circle.
He doesn’t judge them because he loves them, and because he loves them, he has no time to judge them. Life is short, and heaven and hell are nothing but the names assigned to specific types of experiences. He chose to keep himself pleasant by not judging them! - He does not judge humans who don’t matter to him. His outer circle. He has no time to waste on people who don’t even matter to him. Judgment consumes energy, and the energy one possesses is limited. To create heaven within, we should use the energy to keep our mind, body, and soul pleasant.
As a mortal human, he acts like and dislikes certain things, situations, and people, but he does not mean any of that. If he gets success, he celebrates it. If he does not get success, it is okay too. He tries to improve his skills and expand his perceptions.
He feels disturbed when things don’t go as he expects, but soon he says these two words “Cancel Cancel” to himself and moves on to his next endeavor.
The above is not fiction and shows what’s possible for a human being. I hope this will give you some insights into your endeavor of being a pleasant human!
