As I think of all the cool lessons throughout my life, I remember one most important lesson. My mother used to tell me, don’t judge someone without walking a mile in their shoes.
We don’t know what someone is going through or what their experience is. We don’t know why they have made the choices that they have made. We are all very different people and we make assumptions that someone else is having the same experience in life as we do.
We don’t see all the events taking place in someone’s life. We don’t have all the information and even if two people share the same experience at the same time, the perception of that experience is perceived differently because everyone experiences life from their own perspective.
Some people will look at someone who has something they want and don’t have. It can be success, money, the perfect relationship, the perfect family or whatever. They grow jealous because that person “has it all”.
What many people don’t realize is that everyone has their burdens, their trials, their challenges, and their pain. When looking at a situation or someone else’s life, we don’t see the whole picture. We can’t see what happened on the way to the life that we see.
We think to ourselves, Dang, they are lucky. Most of the time it has nothing to do with luck and everything to do with struggle. For some, the lessons can be learned in their struggle that makes them “successful” and we can’t see all the hardship and struggles that the person is having that they don’t disclose.
It isn’t luck, good things don’t just happen to lucky people. If we pay attention, we can see that the reason that person is having success is because of their struggle. I think we spend so much time comparing ourselves to others that we fail to see the success of our own achievements out of our own struggles.
Not everyone’s success is financial. Some success is through inner growth. Growth can happen through the hard times and with the healing process. Some success could be in overcoming a physical obstacle such as poor health and even financial constraint. We don’t really know what it is like to have that exact experience from another person’s point of view.
So many people in Society want to not feel judged yet they are judgemental about everyone and everything. Everyone wants to be heard but no one is listening. I am listening. I am listening to everything that crosses my path. I can understand someone else’s perspective through my own perspective of what I am hearing and therefore I have an idea of what is going on. Because I try to keep my perspective as unbiased and open as I can, I can get a more accurate view.
People are so busy accusing others of judging them when they are actually the judge. When I meet someone, I am not judging them by the way they look or by the way they smell, or by anything they can not change. I’m listening to what you say, how you say it, your facial expressions, your body language. I am trying to figure out what it is like to walk a mile in your shoes.
No matter where you are on this journey we call life, no one is better than another person, no one is more damaged or more privileged than another human. We are all going through stuff on the inside that no one knows about. We all are affected by inner demons and the hidden parts of the shadow self.
When we apply judgment on someone based on gossip, rumors, or preconceived ideas, we are losing out on an experience with someone that could influence our life in transformational ways. We may have a chance that we are missing at what we truly and deeply want in life.
Before passing judgment on someone, try to walk a mile in their shoes. Every Witch is on a journey. Each person is in a different place on that journey and sometimes our paths cross and no matter the experience we have an opportunity to grow from it. It can be an experience that will prepare you for your destination.
When I talk to others, I try to see where they are and if nothing else, try to understand where they are. We all have our lessons in this life. These are all of the experiences we grow from. Not always painful. So, as a young child, my mother told me to find compassion for others by walking a mile in “their” shoes and it has taught me to be compassionate and it really does change my perspective once I have had the experience.
Listening to others also helps us to be prepared for what to expect if we go through something similar and maybe even help someone else by relaying the experience. Walking a mile in the shoes of those I may have judged has taught me not to judge myself so harshly and that helps me to not worry about what I think others may think when I haven’t even asked them. If I am understanding of others, I can be understanding of myself and realize that it is one’s self that is judging me and I am simply attaching it to someone else.
When you stop being judgmental you realize that others aren’t really judging you and the ones that do, also judge themselves.
Practice walking a mile in another’s shoes and you will come to understand the reason for empathy and compassion.
In Love and Light,
