Judgment. I’ve been doing this more than I care to admit. I feel I’ve lost myself in it. Not seeing beyond the veil. Only the surface. Having been blinded by my own preconceptions & ideas. Thinking fast (or minimally) & feeling slower.

I was conversing with a friend speaking to celebrity crushes & whilst I’ve never really had a celebrity crush, I quickly passed judgement to those that do. At that moment, I literally jumped out of my body & was observing my behaviour.

There was arrogance in me. As if to say that those with crushes &/or obsessions were wrong, weak-minded & superficial. My tone was sharp, negating & distant. Something didn’t feel right about this.

I sat with my “opinion” taken as fact. It wasn’t fact & I began to reflect on my comment “I never really had crushes”. I disguised that with “well, I admire people, but don’t obsess over them, they are people”. Whilst this is true (as an adult), this wasn’t true as a child & I was hiding something here.

What was I hiding? I went into this whilst talking with my friend. I was hiding the fact that I did have celebrity crushes. As a child, I would watch TV a lot to “escape” & find refuge in adventure and fantasy. I idolised action characters & heroes. Why? To give me some reprieve from the violence, volatility & pain at home.

Why would I deny this in this conversation & not just admit that and judge others for idolising people? Because it would conveniently hide the pain of my childhood & help me forget. Ah, the coping strategies we develop as children. They keep us safe AND they don’t always serve us as adults.

I took some moments to forgive me, be humbled, take ownership of the truth, step into less judgment, more acceptance & open-minded & heartedness. We are not perfect & we are all on our own journeys. With all the “internal reflective work” I do in various expressions, I still get stuck & still need to reassess who I am.

I appreciate this kind of effort & willingness to grow. It used to be slow or not at all. These days I can catch it quicker & be surrounded by healthy individuals reflect that back to me. 

 One is glad to be of service.

STEFANOS SIFANDOS

Relational Alchemist, Speaker & Author