For a Happier Life, Be More Curious, Less Judgmental

For the first 20 years of my practice, before pop-psychology terms permeated ordinary language, my clients were curious to learn about themselves and their loved ones. In the subsequent 20 years, they’ve settled for labels like:

• People-pleasing
• Scapegoat
• Martyr
• Co-dependent
• Triggered
• Gaslit
• Microaggression
• Narcissist.

These are pejorative descriptions, used less to illuminate than to self-deprecate and pigeon-hole others. I urge my clients to forget the labels and focus on changing behavioral patterns in the future. No person or relationship can be understood with labels.

Human perceptions and judgments are embedded in bias. It’s the normal function of the brain to make short-cut explanations, so each bit of information isn’t processed repeatedly. Over time, our perceptions and judgments omit more information than they accurately describe. They become oversimplifications or inaccurate generalizations, if not stereotypes.

We can ameliorate the harm done by automatic judgments by examining the assumptions underlying them. (Assumptions are not as defended by ego.) If we develop the habit of consciously seeking evidence against our judgments, we'll have a chance of escaping the heavy chains of bias and projection. We'll begin to see the complexity of the people and ideas we routinely dismiss or devalue.

Interactive Dynamics

Judgmentalism, as well as the negative labels and projections it generates are most destructive in familial relationships. Children are particularly vulnerable while their identities are developing.

People who live together develop habits of relating to each other that make honest relating difficult. Eventually, even positive habits veer toward the negative. They become interactive dynamics, in which couples have the same arguments and mouth the same lines, over and over, as if in a bad play.

Negative interactive dynamics are perpetuated by blame, denial, and avoidance. Without those coping tactics, negative dynamics can’t last. With them, they can’t end.

It takes cooperation to deactivate entrenched dynamics and a commitment to regard the relationship as more important than blame, denial, or avoidance.

Temperamental Judgments

Partners tend to judge each other for their temperamental differences. High energy people blame their partners for “bringing me down,” while their partners see them as lacking the serenity to sit with contemplation. Neat people see their partners as sloppy, while their partners view them as obsessed. Introverts view their partners’ facility with small talk as superficial, while their partners judge them to be cynically depressed.

When temperaments clash, the parties cannot seem to feel good about their own temperament without devaluing the temperaments of loved ones.

Focus

Mental focus produces motivation; we’re likely to get more of whatever we focus on. So focus on what you want, not on what you don’t want.

Focus on the future breeds curiosity. Focus on the past breeds judgmentalism.

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