Is it Good Judgment or Are You Being Judgemental?

Most Thursday nights I have the pleasure and privilege of participating in our Family and Friends Education Program at NSC, in partnership with some other really great organizations, like VCU's Rams in Recovery. This program is designed to support and educate families seeking recovery for a loved one. It is an amazing group; often, someone wants an "after meeting meeting" - in order to get a bit more personal about unpacking a particular crisis or chronic problem related to the topic of the evening.

One evening we talked about the characteristics that foster change: empathy, compassion, unconditional positive regard, etc. These principles are extremely difficult to figure out how to display when confronting a loved one whose addiction leads them to lie, cheat and steal without apparent remorse. (Which, for the record, is rarely true. Most people have deep shame and remorse about the places the disease takes them.)

"Teresa, I hear what you are saying, but I just do not buy it. There is just no way in hell I can withhold judgment after all my son has done. He's a thief. He's broken all the commandments plus a few no one even thought to mention. I am ashamed of my son and I want him to be ashamed too - maybe then he will change."

Yeah, well, it turns out that shame is not a great motivational tool. It encourages hiding and secrets and isolation. It is not helpful. As I listened to this heartsick parent lament, I realized that we need to have a follow up conversation that distinguishes between being judgmental versus having good judgment.

I was NOT advocating for abandoning good judgment. Good judgment in this instance might mean that these parents not give their kid a key to their home and ask him to water the plants and feed the dog when they go on vacation. That's using poor judgment. That's not living in reality. Their son is not capable of that level of responsibility. A parent can know this without being judgmental about this tough truth. There's a difference.

One of the words I over-use on Thursdays is "tone" - our "tone" matters. When our "tone" comes from a place of radical acceptance, even if we mess up the words, our fumbling is less debilitating. When my grandmother told me to "Stay sweet and do not get stout," her "tone" was deaf, but loving. It was wrong, but not toxic. It was poor advice, but not devastating because it was just so obvious that she loved me. Now, she should not have said it and it was a super bad message to give a woman way deep into anorexia. But its effect was blunted because of the tone, the heart of her message. These sorts of problems need correcting - and, eventually I was able to share with her about my personal struggles and she never, ever repeated those words. But judgmental attitudes are hard to address and far more dangerous.

Differentiating between good judgment and being judgmental is challenging. We often need help figuring it out. That's ok, because in no judgment zones, asking for help is easy.

An Unnecessary Display of Force

For a month’s worth of posts, I (Scott) am critiquing my own past blog posts. I’m viewing this as an experiment in being willing to admit when I’m wrong, change my mind, and to do so publicly.

When we feel most out of control we are, at the same time, most likely to exert control in some other area through an unnecessary display of force.  

When we throw a tantrum over something unrelated to the core issue we rarely use the appropriate amount of force.  Houses should be cleaned periodically in order to maintain a healthy level of mental and emotional balance (the level of cleanliness needed is negotiated between the people who live in the house).  But, we don't address a lack of cleanliness with a tantrum or outburst when our core issue is cleanliness.  We simply have a respectful, adult conversation about cleanliness.  When the core issue is something else (such as grief), we unleash an ungodly amount of frustration over cleanliness simply because our body needs to unleash SOMETHING.  It'll take anything at all.  

This is what I mean by, "...an unnecessary display of force." 

Self-critique session:

I think, again, I was overcomplicating things (and still sounding like a jerk). I believe the essence of this post is: We should build some “mindfulness” time into our lives that forces us to assess what is really going on. When we do this, we can not only choose when to have crucial conversations but we can appropriately match the level of intensity to the type of conversation we’re having. If all we’re upset about is cleaning, then that should be a low intensity conversation even if we’re quite frustrated. The reason being, it’s just not a life or death issue.

If, however, we need to talk about something quite serious, we treat it seriously. We plan a time to sit down where both parties can be prepared and free of distractions. We increase the intensity- but we don’t yell to increase the intensity, we focus.

Picking the right moment to have a hard talk, and striving for the right “tone” goes a long way.