About Judgement

To the question of your life, you are the only answer.

To the problems of your life, you are the only solution. --Jo Coudert

I throw temper tantrums when I'm judged in public. My emotions get the better of me. Managing my feelings when I'm judged by others is a challenge. I need to be able to name the emotion, accept the emotion, express the emotion, and take care of myself. When I'm able to manage emotions, I shall have peace in mind.

Nobody likes to be judged. On the contrary, everybody has a tendency to judge people around us.  All-or-nothing thinking is the tendency to judge things in extreme or "black-and-white" categories. It is irrational, because in reality things are never completely one way or the other. Judging others doesn't make us any better than them; it doesn't make us right and them wrong; it doesn't make us more valuable and them less valuable. All judging does is make us feel temporarily (and falsely) better about ourselves. I need to learn not to judge others. I need to learn to tolerate the distress being judged by others.

In order to manage emotions, we need to be master two skills, being effective and acting opposite to the urge. In stead of acting from the emotional self, acting on an urge, doing what feels good rather than what's good in the long run, we should act from our wise self, assessing what we can do to get our needs met. Let our reasoning self think about the fact and our wise self figure out the goal.

Acting opposite to the urge lets our wise self see what our morals and values are and what are in our best interest. Think opposite, or in a nonjudgmental way. Avoid adding fuel to the fire. In stead of calling others "mean", it is better to say something like: She betrayed my confidence, and I'm hurt and angered by her actions. Using I-messages help us express how we feel without making other fell that they are to blame. Learning to use I-messages in stead of you-messages is a simple but important way to improve our communication skills.

In Toastmasters, we learn to manage our emotions in a more proactive way. We stand up and speak up to build confident in ourselves and to help ourselves by helping others!