Growth Through Judgment

Watch the episode here:

• Everyone can have their own opinions
• It’s up to you to be bothered by others’ opinions
• Judgment is very personal
• Have the best intentions in whatever you do
• Judgment is emotional immaturity

Hey, what’s shakin’!? Hey, I’m Rick Jordan. Today, we’re going all in. Opinions. Don’t you love when people just have freaking opinions? You’ve probably heard the phrase before like opinions are like assholes. Everybody’s got one, right? And that I was at an event with David Meltzer, he’s a good friend of mine, please go on follow him and share his content because he’s amazing. And he made the statement there that really, really resonated with me around opinions, but it actually crossed over into something else because of its judgments. And judgment is like a fancy word for opinion, that’s actually a heavier word for something like that. And I’m sure you’ve met people like this to where they’re judged, right to where they’re, like, everything that happens, everything that you do, there’s always something that they have to say about it, right? And it’s, it feels like, it’s always more than just an opinion, you know because everybody’s entitled to have their own opinions, right? And you are entitled, whether you want to care about those opinions or not, it depends on the person that depends on the situation, but it’s up to you. And this is where you kind of get your power back, it’s up to you. 

As far as whether you take stock in that opinion, whether you actually let that opinion sink into you or sway you in some way. Because opinions are really just the reflection of somebody else. But then like judgment becomes when that becomes a projection upon you, right? Because everybody can have an opinion. And even opinions could go in the opposite direction. I said judgment is a heavier word for opinion, like a heavier synonym, I would say that advice or counsel could be a lighter word for opinion, where it’s used in a positive aspect of it. But today, we’re gonna talk about the negative, and what you can do about this, especially when you’re on the receiving end of this. But also, if you’re a person that’s doing this, it’s time to, like, throw a mirror up in front of your face and take a look at these things. Because we’re going to talk about judgment specifically today. Right? And judgment. I’m not talking about whether you’re determining something is right or wrong for you, or whether you’re just analyzing a situation benignly, meaning you have like no emotion attached to it whatsoever, you’re not taking it personal judgment is a lot of times very personal. It’s when you take something personally, that you probably shouldn’t. And when you’re on the receiving end of it, I’m gonna tell you, it sucks. I feel you, 

I’ve been on the receiving end of it my entire life in a lot of different scenarios, especially when it comes to my intentions. And that’s one thing we’re going to talk about today. Because I hope you’re like this, right, where you have the best intentions and pretty much everything that you do, right, and maybe you’re active like me to where I have to make snap decisions very frequently. You know, I may, I don’t even know how many decisions I make in a single day, I actually had an episode that just released a little bit ago, go back and listen to it about how to minimize the number of decisions you can make in a day so that you can save your decision making power for something else, go back and listen to that episode is even all the way down to the clothes that you wear, which is a big thing for me and how I removed a decision from my life so that I can be empowered and save my decision energy for other areas. So I’m not talking about judgments in that positive aspect. I’m talking about judgments and the negative aspect, especially when it’s regarding your intentions, and you’re on the receiving end of that. Or if you’re on the giving end of that. There are really only three reasons why something comes up that way. So on the negative end, this is the phrase that my friend Dave said, judgments or an opinion, based on all the wrong things that you hear that judgment, or an opinion, based off of all the wrong things. And we’re gonna go through three of the things that are those wrong things right now. Okay, the first wrong thing that judgment is based on is ignorance. 

Now, let’s explain what that is. Because of ignorance, I’ve heard I actually misunderstood the word back in my childhood, right? I almost thought it meant like, You’re stupid. No ignorance is just simply that you don’t know, right? You don’t have the knowledge, you haven’t been exposed to a reason you don’t understand. You know, that’s a lack of understanding. And the only way to gain the understanding or the knowledge is to actually ask, so if you’re on the receiving end of this, just understand that that person, probably when they’re making that judgment. I mean, this is just a fact. They don’t know the details. But yet they’re gonna do this anyways. And now that’s been projected upon you, that part sucks, but you can, you can turn it back around and be like, hey, there might be some things here that you just don’t know are going on. What’s really driving this and you start to ask them questions and be interested in what’s going on with it. And hopefully, they can, they can actually simmer down enough to where they can stop or to explain the emotions because judgments are like a snap thing, that in the negative sense, especially when it’s based upon ignorance, this, it’s actually emotional immaturity. It really sucks to observe something like this and somebody else because ignorance is one of the wrong reasons that the judgment is made just the intentions are not being assumed good from you.

And if you’re a good person, right, generally speaking, you probably have good intentions a lot of times. And there are just some details in this situation that that person who’s casting that judgment on, you just don’t know. So a question to ask us, like, how do you really know? And for those who are doing this, if you catch yourself doing this, please, please, please grab awareness around this, when this comes to you start to recognize when you do this, especially if you do it often, because you can get into this pattern, and you will start not to trust anybody. And it’s only based on your own ignorance. It’s a stupid way to go in life. Because if you really don’t know, right, and you don’t have any proof, and you’re letting your mind run away from your, as coaches put it, you’re creating a story. And it’s based on ignorance, fucking ask some questions. Come on now. Because if you really don’t know, open the lines of communication with that person 99% of the time, it’s not going to be what you think. And at that moment, you can just ask a clarifying question like, could you tell me a little bit more about that, please? Or how did that come to be? Or where’s your head out on this? You know, just any kind of question or, you know, did something happen today? Or what happened today, you can ask questions, because it’ll provide that knowledge, it’ll give you that clarity, it’ll give you that understanding.

In those moments where you don’t have to let your mind run away with you. Now, people are people, and everybody’s human. Okay? So when you catch yourself in the moment, thinking that direction, that’s just something, you don’t have to act on it. You don’t have to become emotional. Because likely again, like what I said, it’s probably not what you think it is. That’s why you ask the questions. So solve your own ignorance by finding out and then that could be the end of it. But this requires emotional maturity. This requires self-awareness. This is one of the biggest areas of growth that you probably need. I know it was for me. I mean, years ago, I know it was for me, and you know what, I’m still not perfect. It still crops up with me, I still have those thoughts. And that’s okay, it’s normal to have those thoughts. It’s not normal to continue to let yourself do it. Do you follow me on that? It’s normal to have those crazy negative thoughts. But it’s not okay. To dive into it, and to continue to let that go. Your behavior has to change the way you act has to change for yourself. Because you’re putting yourself in a scenario where it’s just not healthy, you are putting undue stress upon yourself, because you are not living in reality, you’re living in a story, solve your ignorance by asking questions, and that will squash the judgment.

The second wrong reason is that this takes place in doubt. Right. And doubt really comes in a form like it’s rooted in trauma, there’s probably something that happened early in your childhood, or in your teen years, or even in your adult life. And this happens with relationships all the time, all the time, I’m talking romantic relationships with partners, this happens all the time. Because something happened and there was a pattern when you were a kid that you witnessed probably in your own parents, that planted those seeds of doubt in you for whatever thing it might be for whatever situation that might be. So as soon as you see something that might resemble that, or a situation that looks like that sort of, but not really, but sort of all of a sudden that doubt starts to creep back up. And it’s another way of creating one of those stories. I had a coach that would also use the phrase, playing a movie in your mind. Because it’s almost like you can visualize what that person is doing. But it’s actually not real. It’s only in your mind. They’re actually really not doing that. But it’s the doubt that you have and this really has nothing to do with follow through because, I mean, you can doubt all the way right you can look at people’s behaviors and patterns and kind of think that they’re going to continue that way. You know, that’s like extrapolation. That’s not what I’m talking about right here. What I’m talking about is when you have that doubt that causes you to create that judgment. That doubt is almost always something that isn’t even happening or won’t even happen at all in the future.

Sure, it’s not reality, take the person at face value because what they’re telling you is going on, and what they’re telling you how you feel, and what they’re telling you, in their communication is probably the truth. And now you just have to believe. So when you catch that, right, and this is what I’m saying, like, there’s an old phrase with this one, too, it’s like people would know the truth of it was smacked him in the face. That’s true of some people. But that’s because of the pattern. Maybe you’re one of those people. That’s because of the pattern that you’ve seen. Since you were a kid. Well, you know what, you’re not a kid. You’re not that anymore. That’s not how the world works. The world works exactly how it is right now. And the person that you’re engaging with, the person that you’re interacting with the person that you have a relationship with, is not those people that you observed when you were a kid. There’s no reason to have doubt right now because all of the circumstances are different. It was the reality back then. It’s not reality, right? Now, there’s a new reality today. Because literally, everything around you changed. Everything around you changes, including the person you’re interacting with doubt another one of the wrong reasons.

The last reason that judgments or an opinion are based on the last wrong reason is fear. It’s fairly simple. It’s fear. And fear. I’ve talked about this in a previous episode, you should go back and look at this, listen to this, I’ve said this on stage, it’s impossible to be scared of anything that’s already happened, or anything that you think will happen. Because if it’s already happened, it’s done. And actually, if you went through it, you actually know what the outcome might look like. So you can actually adjust, which means that the same thing won’t happen again. Because you’ve already learned from that experience, the same thing won’t happen again. Especially if it’s with different people, especially if it’s in a different environment, especially if you have evidence that is opposite and consistent, consistently opposite of what you saw before. Did you hear me on that? It will be different, it will be different because you have evidence, consistent evidence that that individual, that environment, that situation, especially that person is acting differently than what you had observed before, and what you probably had every reason to be scared of before when it happened. But today, there’s no reason to be scared. 

One is because you don’t know the future. Nobody does. And even if that other individual is Tanya, well, you know what this is going to happen. They don’t know either. So if they’re enticing, that fear, lifting that fear up inside of you, and that causes you to make a judgment of whatever’s going on. They are feeding you bullshit, they are gaslighting you, and you should not tolerate it. Say, I’m sorry, I’m really not. But you don’t really know either. Because it hasn’t happened. That’s how you squash that. Write that in there. And there’s no reason to make a judgment unless that situation is actually happening right there before your eyes, not a story, but it’s reality. And it’s something that is tangible, right there, you have no reason to have fear, you have every reason to be strong because you can behave differently. You have learned from situations in the past, now you know how to handle it. You are strong, which means there is no reason to have fear, especially if that fear is being lifted inside of you or really projected on you or gaslighting you trying to alter your chant your sense of reality because it’s not actually happening. That person doesn’t even know either. Especially when it’s about something in the future. They don’t know either.

So when you look at that person, just be like bro, dude, girl, chick, whatever. You don’t know. You do not know. Because what they’re probably stuck in is some kind of judgment themselves over one of those previous two things, ignorance, and doubt. And now it’s feeding into this loop. Because if you allow yourself to get into that loop with another person, hear me on this loud and clear replay and if you have to, if you allow yourself to get into that loop with another person, especially in a relationship, that’s not love. That’s fucking codependency. That’s direct. That’s reality. That’s fact judgments or an opinion base on all the wrong things. ignorance, doubt, and fear. And I’ve given you many ways today to squash those so that you don’t have to live in any of those anymore. You can be free. You can have what you want and desire in life and you don’t have to be under the thumb of anybody else.

Go ALL IN.