Dear Holly,
Last year,I left drinking behind, which Im proud of and grateful for.
Sobriety has been a tremendous life-giving choice.
I dont miss it and I dont envy other people who drink.
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I count other people’s drinks; I am disgusted by drunkenness.
Im judging them and their choices.
Have you felt this way?
Am I just hyper-aware of people’s alcohol consumption now that I’ve made the decision to not drink?
when it comes to something youre experiencingin recoveryis always yes.
Second:Of course I have judged drinkers.
Wealldo thisevery single one of us.
Its part of the process.
People judge, and people especially judge those who do things they once did.
Its how we separate ourselves from who we once were.
But Im getting ahead of myself.
I had just returned home from a two-month trip to Italy and was 15 months sober.
Id quit my big corporate job and was couch surfing and wrapping up my Kundalini yoga teacher training.
I was very Zen and Iknew things.
And I was certain that peopleby merely being in my presencewould know that I was very Zen andknew things.
I was consumed by it.
Totally and utterly consumed.
The second time I asked that question, he made me cry.
He made me feel like the most invisible, pathetic version of myself.
Mostly though, he made me feel like a fraud.
The thing I couldnt get over was that Id been so wrong about myself.
Id walked into that second yoga training sure of who I was and my place in this world.
I was a good person, a spiritual person, anevolvedperson.
Yet here I was, weeks into ita jealous, hateful, insecure, penetrated version of myself.
All because some yoga man didnt like me.
I tried to be the bigger person, I tried to be unbothered.
I was sure I should be pretty close to being like Jesus.
The depression broke only when I talked to my friend about it.
Or, in other words, he was my shadow, embodied.
If you are not familiar with the shadow, it is essentially the person we would rather not be.
We can’t see the shadow very well in ourselves.
But we can see it very, VERY well in other people.
The problem wasnt Richard.
And you for sure wouldnt want to change them or think you knew better than they do.
But these principleswhile all very helpful in some capacitycan do more harm than good.
Judgy Judy, you are who you are todaybecauseyou binge drank and got ridiculously drunk.
You are where you are today not despite what you did, butbecauseof what you did.
They are part of it.
A big part of it.
They are what makes you so very you, so very lovable.
It’s fertile ground for major ah-ha moments.
It follows that what we give to others we inevitably keep for ourselves.
If we give love to our brothers and sisters, then it is love that we keep for ourselves.
If we give anger, it is actually us who suffers and carries around that anger.
And if we give judgment, then we will for sure keep judgment for ourselves.
I know I can’t judge another without being subject to judgment from myself and fearing judgment from others.
You give it, you get to keep it.
What this means is that we are already in a world of hurt.
All we need to do is watch the news or theReal Housewives.
All around us people are scared and in pain.
Everything we encounter is one or the other.
And the only way to respond to either is with love.
So what may look like someone’s wrong process/decision/idea/choice/etc.
to us might actually beexactlywhat that person needs.
It is not up to us to decide.
And she’s right.
We aren’t here to decide what is right or wrong for other people.
But it does mean that your will ends where another’s will beginsand for good reason.
It raised me from depression and gave me permission to be a whole perfect mess of a human.
The book has examples and exercises and is extremely practical.
It’s gold and it will change how you judge yourself and others forever.
That all being said, most of the practices I outlined take some work and time to establish.
Judging yourself for judging others who drink keeps you stuck and in pain, and it solves nothing.
