Day 12: A judgemental, critical and suspicious mind

I have been called a judgmental person many times by my family. I have worked on this and have learned to allow people their own space to do as they choose with out being critical. As I have learned, we are all at different stages of the process we call life. How can we judge when we too had to learn or will need to learn in certain situations. For example, I use to be judgmental if someone would dress provocative. I would label them as a “slut”. I was much more conservative when I was younger. I still am but I don’t think it’s wrong to dress sexy. How much is up to the person. How can I judge how they are dressed when I too have dressed “slutty” too? My thinking changed as time went on just as everyone is at a different part of their journey. Some are ahead of others on understanding certain situations while others still need to cross that path.
Joyce says that criticisms, opinions and judgments are all relatives of each other. Being critical is seeing the wrong instead of the right. Our opinions are what are right for us from our perspective. Everyone has a different perspective. You may think eating meat is wrong because it is harming a living animal while another may think it is absolutely fine. Who is right? They are both right to themselves according to their own perspectives.
Lastly, Joyce states that judgment and criticism comes from pride. It is only the self-righteous attitude of oneself that brings us to this state. This is so true! For example, I exercise regularly and try to eat healthy to stay slim. It takes a lot of work and self-discipline. When I see others who are overweight I silently judge in my head. I don’t know their personal situation to know why they are that way. Maybe they haven’t been informed of the health benefits or don’t care how they look. I judge because I feel self-righteous in my actions to be slim. We have free will to live our lives the way we choose. This I will need to work on because it is pride which in this respect criticizes and put’s others down, separating myself from others. When I judge in this way I feel I don’t want to talk to these type of people because they are different than me and/or have different values. Instead of being prideful I need to humble myself because we are all human and we all have strengths and weaknesses.