Being Judgemental

And that was really important because, you know, let’s say you ran into a person and you were trying to decide if they should be part of your tribe or your club. And they seemed a little off. That was a really big deal back then, right? Like you didn’t want a crazy person in your tribe. It might cause problems for you. Okay? So the brain created this system for assessing whether or not someone is dangerous to you. That is why we are, are always reading subconscious cues. You are paying attention to the way someone breathes. And the way their eyes look and the tension in their body, your brain is able to pick up all of these signals that you are not even consciously processing. Okay. It’s designed to do that. And fast forward to the 21st century where someone else’s personality or behaviors rarely create a lack of safety for us that would result in death, right?

So you could be with someone who’s extremely emotional or makes extremely reckless choices in their lives. Or E even someone who’s angry, even someone who hits you. Right. Which we would all objectively say, it’s putting you in harm’s way. But now we have the tools and the support system to leave that person. Okay. And you could leave that person and, you know, in an extreme case, right. Go to a woman’s shelter and someone would take care of you and feed you until you figured something out. Okay. So there’s very, very, very few situations now where judging someone is necessary to keep you from dying. Okay. But our brain hasn’t quite caught up. So it’s still running this default programming and it feels very important to your brain to judge the people around you. Okay. You are judging other moms. You’re judging their clothes. You’re judging the way that they talk to their kids.

You’re judging, you know, their husbands. We judge so many people, right. Especially women. I don’t know if that’s actually true. I feel like that’s a question I wanna ask Jordan Peterson. Like, is it especially women? There must be. I feel like it is. So there must be a biological reason why women needed to do this more and size up humans more. But I think we can all agree that women struggle with this a lot. And I want you to just take this moment right now and just take a deep breath and recognize that is just a human emotional feeling. Judgmental is just a human emotion. It comes in your default programming. It made a lot of sense for a very long time. And it has only been for a short period of time that we didn’t need this skill. Right? Because even in the Prairie days, right. When someone was not quite right, they could cause a lot of harm to us. And then that harm could legitimately result in death. So it really has not been very long in the history of humans. That being judgmental isn’t necessary for us to survive.

So I just want you to have so much love and grace and forgiveness for yourself that you’re doing this. And this is how I feel about it now. Like when I catch myself being judgmental, instead of thinking Sterling, you’re so terrible, that’s so ugly. What’s wrong with you? Why are you thinking that? I just talk to my brain. Oh, brain, I see that you are being really judgmental right now. We don’t need to do that to survive. Is this really important? I’m not even engaged with my brain about it. This judgment that we have, is it really important? So one of the members in our community asked a question about a priest or a deacon or somebody important in a power position that we normally trust said something that I think most of us objectively would agree was just not okay. I don’t even remember what it was, but I just remember being like, yep, I agree that that is not okay.

And she was saying, so I have this judgment about this person who I wanted to know and wanted to trust and wanted to love. And I feel almost even right about the judgment, but then I go through love and compassion, just like we teach you to in masters. But then it comes right by back up when I see him again. And so I said, of course, it does. Of course, it does because you have a human brain that is designed to judge things we perceive as being unsafe. So of course, especially when there’s a person in a position of power or, or safety and they do something we perceive to be as wrong. And we want to hold that thought like we wanna continue thinking it was wrong. Like yeah, that, that thing, that person did, it was wrong. I do not agree with it.

It makes us feel unsafe because part of our brain is like, and maybe we will die. I, and so you just have to be like a brain. We will not, it is fine. So that’s the first conversation we have. And then the next step is to drop into compassion for that person. We don’t know what’s going on with that person. We don’t know what their education is. We don’t know what they’ve been taught. And this is how I feel. It’s just about all the priests be because we hear such horrible things coming. Either the priests are saying, or priests have done. And then we’re like, oh, and it gives the Catholic church such a bad name, but here’s the thing. I just genuinely believe that as soon as somebody decides to dedicate their life to the Lord, they just come under so many spiritual attacks. And so I just have so much compassion and forgiveness for, or priests in particular because I know that the pressure that they’re under, the evil that weighs in on them is beyond what I think I can imagine.

It’s probably far beyond anything I’ve ever dealt with. And I have no idea how I would deal with that kind of yuckiness in my life, that kind of darkness, that kind of testing. And so, while I don’t agree, you know, with evil behavior, I’m never gonna co-sign that and say, that’s okay. I’m always going to say, you know, abuse or lying or saying things that are untrue about the church is not okay. I can still have so much come passion for that person because I just can’t even imagine what they had to go through to get to that point.

Even if they don’t acknowledge that they’re wrong and they’re not remorseful, I’m just like, wow, that person is still stuck in darkness. That must be so painful. And <affirmative> I want, and then the third step is, so you drop in compassion for them. You forgive them. Maybe you need to forgive yourself for feeling judgmental. Maybe you need to confess it to the Lord. Like, Lord, just forgive me for, being you Lord. Right? When we pass judgment, we are saying that we know better than the Lord, or we want to act like God. So ask for forgiveness for that. But then when you see that person again and listen for some of us, it’s like the people leading the country and we see them a lot and we feel judgment and anger. Every time we see them, right? Particularly the pro-choice politicians, there are so many of them and it makes me upset and I have a judgment every time I see them. Right, just, and so just accepting that’s probably going to keep happening and it’s not a problem to, and it doesn’t mean you’re not a bad person. It literally just means you’re not a Saint yet. And you have some more work to do on this earth.

Like what if it happens every time? And then every time we go through the steps of noticing the judgment, dropping into compassion, asking the Lord to forgive us for and moving on with peace. And you may have to do that every single time you see that person. Okay. I have that for, you know, families I know who have done contraceptive things. And it’s so hard for me because it’s been such a huge cross for my husband and me. I had to have these six kids in eight years and be open to life. Especially when, you know, there were so many moments when I did not want to get pregnant again. And our life is challenging. Like it is objectively full and busy and challenging to raise six small children.

And so the judgment I have when I see or notice families who contracept and have a lot fewer children, and I perceive their lives to be easier, right. That judgment flares up inside of me. But now instead of chewing on it or believing it, or then thinking I’m a terrible person for it, I do these things. I acknowledge the judgment like, oh brain, of course, you were doing that. You were designed to judge people to keep me safe. Other people’s family choices do not affect my safety, then compassion. I have no idea what their life is. Like. I have no idea what kind of spiritual attacks they’re under or what other challenges they’re dealing with. I don’t know what God’s plan is for their lives.

I don’t know what’s better for them. And I do know that life is 50 50, so they have the same amount of joy and pleasure and happiness as they do anger and frustration and sadness. And so I may not even be able to see all of their pain, but I know they have it right, because my brain wants to be like, it’s not fair that they only have this many kids and their life looks easier and they have more fun. And my brain wants to do this about Catholic families and non-Catholic families, right. It wants to pass judgment.

So I drop into compassion. I love those people so hard. I love those families. Oh, hard. The ones I know the ones, I don’t know. I have no idea what they’re going through. Every once in a lot of pain, compassion, then I ask the Lord for forgiveness. Lord. I did it again. I tried to do your job and it’s not my job. Please forgive me for being judgmental. And then I move on and it’s gonna come up a thousand more times in my life. And I’m okay with that. And I love myself. I’m a really kind person. I’m very generous. I love people so deeply. I believe in them. I see the goodness in them. That’s who I am. Am I am not the sum. Total of moments that my human brain offered me judgmental thoughts, cuz I get to choose not to believe them and not to continue to think them.

And so I want us to spend more time as a community, normalizing that we have a lot of judgmental thoughts and then sharing this process of how we can move through them. So if your friends are telling you, gosh, I’m just really struggling not to judge that woman’s parenting choices right. Then you can say, oh my goodness, I listen to this podcast. I’ll send it to you. You or you could just tell them the steps, which is one acceptance. Of course, you had those thoughts. You have a human brain that was designed to be judgmental. It’s not a you problem. It’s an everyone problem.

And then second let’s find compassion. You can do that with your friend. Like you were actually talking about someone else, just be like, yeah, but oh, we love them so much. They’re trying so hard. Look what they’re dealing with. And God created them. They’re on a journey with him right now. All those things we drop into compassion. Let’s pray for that person. What if every time we found ourselves being judgmental with our friends, one of us stopped and said, we need to pray for that person right now. Lord, you release them of spiritual attacks in the name of Jesus. All those demons must leave that family. Lord. We just pray for that woman. We pray for that, man. We pray for that family. We lift them up to you. Lord give them the strength and the courage that they need to do your work, to see your, our truth to make holy decisions.

How powerful would it be if we became women like that, right? Drop into compassion, ask for forgiveness. And if we’re with friends, pray for those people. Let us be women who look different to the world. Even among Catholic friends or among non-Catholic friends, right? Like I wanna build an army of made for greatness. Moms who know they belong to the Lord and are fighting the culture. They are fighting this pressure to pass judgment, to cancel people, to say negative things about others, to pretend that we know what someone’s life is like. That is God’s business. It is not our business, but I also wanna create an army of women who know that they were made in the likeness of God and the image of God that God lives within them. And they are so worthy of love, no matter how many judgmental thoughts they have. And, and they know how to speak to themselves with kindness and they know how to lift each other up, they know how to speak, love to their friends and about their friends. Let us be women like that.

All right, ladies, this is my podcast. And I’m being judgmental. Had to come out, had to share it with you. Please share it with your friends. I wanted to say the ones that are judgmental, but we all are <laugh> so you should share, share it with all of your friends. And then I just wanna ask today in particular if you love this podcast, leave us a review we’re growing, but we could grow a lot faster. And I think what it’s gonna take is more reviews cuz then iTunes shows, you know, your podcast to more people and just sharing it with your friends. So you can go into your app. You can load up made for greatness. And when you click on made for greatness, there are three dots at the top that allow you, to share the whole podcast. Instead of just an episode, I mean, feel free to share, share an episode. If there’s one that’s great and touches your heart. But I just wanna invite everybody today to share the podcast with a friend, just like hit that, share button, send it to someone. We believe this podcast is really, really powerful.

And then it can help Catholic moms heal themselves of wounds and learn how to manage their thinking so that they can hear God’s voice more clearly and go out and do what he wants them to do. That is the mission here. And then the last thing I might wanna tell you for those of you that are listening to this in real-time in January of 2022, we are gonna do love your husband challenge. And it’s gonna be February 1st through the 14th. So 14 days. And it’s very simple. You sign up and all it is is an email. You’re gonna get an email every day for 14 days and it’s gonna have a prayer for your husband, a challenge. We’re gonna challenge you to do something with your husband or about your husband. And then we have some example messages that you can send. And some of them are sweet and some of them are a little spicy y’all, which was very vulnerable of our team to put together not gonna lie, but we were like, we’re gonna do it. We’re gonna write down these sexy texts. And so you can either text them or email them, however, you message your husband. And we gave you several choices.

I feel like there’s one more thing. Anyway. It’s just an amazing email <affirmative> and you’re gonna get one every day for 14 days to help you love your husband more deeply. And if you’re not in a great place in your marriage right now, cuz I always wanna think of those of us who have difficult marriages. I want you to sign up anyway and I want you, your job is gonna be to pay attention to what your brain tells you when you see the challenges and you just feel like someone punches you in the stomach and you’re like, I will not do that. And then I want you to ask your brain, why, what is it thinking that is your work? Your work is just to explore your thoughts because your relationship with someone is just the sum of your thoughts about them. Okay? And I’m sure it’s one of the very first episodes of the podcast where we talk about the model.

I will link it up in the show notes because basically you just wanna run a model on those thoughts to see how you’re thinking is creating more of those results in your marriage. But a lot of you have pretty good marriages. They’re just kind of hanging out and you want them to feel a little more Sparky, a little more sparkly, more fun. You just want some new ideas and we will give you so many ideas. We worked hard to just really come up with lots of very different ways that you could love your husband more deeply because in the end, God picked this guy out for you and God is not wrong. And our husbands are pretty great. At the end of the day, they really are. They’re just trying hard to, and the more we can see them that way, the more we look at our husbands through, I love you glasses. The more we’re gonna see our marriages spiral up. So go to our website, made for greatness.co. There will be a link to the challenge on the homepage. It’s free and it’s for everyone. So send it

To everyone and we would love it. If you would post it in your favorite Catholic mom’s Facebook group, because if Lorissa or I do that, we get kicked out of the group cause you’re not even allowed to promote something you do. So we really, really rely on you guys to post that stuff for us. And they’re just hundreds and hundreds of Facebook groups. So just pick one or two, grab that link, and go put it in there and say, come do this challenge because you know, the devil is fighting. Catholic marriage is

Hard and we will not let him win. He cannot have my marriage and I will not let little annoying things that my husband does allow me to wear. I don’t like you glasses. I’m gonna take those glasses off and I’m gonna wear them, I love that guy glasses. And I’m gonna challenge myself to do the things in these 14-day emails. All right. I love you guys. I’m always praying for you. Thank you for being here and remember that you were Made for Greatness.