It’s so easy to judge, not so natural to empathise

It’s happened more than once where I’ve been in a conversation with another man, and he trusts me enough to open up.  “Please don’t judge me when I tell you something about me.”  Then there is a characteristic pause, perhaps a big deep breath, and then the liminal space of trust in operation.

So many people feel judged before they even open their mouths.  Before they even contemplate sharing with another person, many people get incredibly anxious that they’re about to be misunderstood, criticised, judged.

Whenever we are vulnerable to another person’s acceptance, maybe it’s a part of ourselves that we are not proud of, or it could even be something nobody’s ever enquired about, the biggest barrier to sharing can be our own reticence.

Many victims of abuse suffer this way because they have never experienced anyone say to them, “I believe you.”  They’ve never had anyone simply sit with them and say, “Please trust me... allow me to hold this space for you.”  They’re more accustomed to being judged and condemned for not stopping what was out of their control than they are of experiencing the justice anybody should be able to see and empathise with.

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There are times in all our lives where we judge without having all the information at hand.  It’s called dualistic thinking, where we default to right or wrong and good or bad.  It’s because we are a mess with unconscious biases.

So we’re all capable of getting it wrong and being harsh about someone else’s experience—especially when their experience runs cross grain against ours.  The last person we empathise with is the person who’s hurt us, but perhaps we’ve also hurt them, so forgiving each other can seem a bridge too far for both.  But this isn’t about abuse, because forgiveness is not centrally important in terms of abuse; justice is.

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There’s so much fear and even dread experienced when we’re conditioned by others’ judgement.  That conditioning leaves us in a state of expectation for the worst.  Little wonder people vacillate between the extremes of rallying against the abuse done to them and self-condemnation.  And that whole process is exhausting mentally and emotionally.

One thing you don’t realise until you’re there in it is just how insidious the cycle is when you’re caught in an injustice.  Truly, you can live your whole life thinking things about “victims” and then through the twist of events, and cruel irony, you become one.  Suddenly, you’re in a place where you’re consumed by injustice when not long ago you wouldn’t be caught in “victimhood” for anything.

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The opportunity we all have if we want to grow in life is to engage our senses in the curiosity of empathy for others.  We cannot grow if we cannot give.  It’s in the giving that we receive, and only by giving without seeking to receive anything.  The more we live like this, the less we judge, and the more our own lives open up and blossom.

Empathy expands our humanity, but judgement reveals entitlement.