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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this episode of the Stable Parenting Podcast. My name's Shane Jacob, your host, formerly The Horsemanship Journey Podcast. Specifically talking to parents of kids of any age or really anybody talking about horses and humans and improving both.
So today I just want to talk about judging. So, you know, I was confused for a long time. I never really completely understood the concept of “don't judge.” Okay. And I think I hear a lot of noise about it and I think there's not a lot of clarity about it. I'm not the only one. It seems that doesn't have a whole bunch of clarity around what all this means.
So the questions are, how are we supposed to remain neutral or judgment free and still hold on to our values? You know, how do we... What about the things that we deem that are right and wrong? Is everybody, is every single thing that happens in this world supposed to be okay? We're just supposed to live in this judgment free, totally judgment free zone of everything and anything goes or what is the deal? Am I just supposed to sit back and observe and not care about things that I see that seem to be so terribly wrong or even evil?
I mean, what, what is this all about? What do you mean don't judge?
So, um, so today, if you've ever had any, if you've had a lack of clarity or you're not 100% clear on what these concepts mean or what people are talking about, I don't think most people are talking about them know what they're talking about, but I'm going to clear it all up for you today. Okay, so that you walk away with a clear sense of what to judge and what not, including the biblical principle of, you know, “judge not,” right?
So what I want to do to demonstrate the principle is to use a story of our local horse vet here in Las Vegas, Nevada. So recently there's ahorse veterinarian who, that I know, who was captured on video kicking a horse in the head. Okay.
Now whoever took the video or however it got out, somebody put it out on media and when it fit few hours, it was viral. was around the country and around the world. People were reacting to this viral video.
Now I've observed a little bit of the response to this video of this vet kicking this horse. And what I've seen over the past week, a little over a week now, I guess it's been 10 days now since the video was out… And what I've seen is basically three different types of responses. Okay.
So the first type of response, is the condemners. You shouldn't breathe there, you shouldn't breathe there, you should die. How can you live with doing yourself this, something like that? How can you live with yourself? You don't deserve to live, you don't deserve to breathe. They should take away your license, you're despicable, you blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. On and on and on. Some of them are pretty brutal. I mean, there's some pretty serious condemnation that's going on out there.
And so those are the condemners. Okay, there's a lot. I would say that's the majority of the response to this video. So why are people why do people condemn one another for the things that they do? Why do they condemn the people for things that they do? And so there's a few reasons that we, and we all have right to some degree at one time or another, we've condemned a person, right? Probably you've done that. I certainly have at a time or two.
So one of the reasons that we do something like that is that we just kind of join the mob mentality. We don't want to think like, we want to think like we're a part of something that's, that we're a part of it. And what would it mean if we weren't, right? It seems like I ought to be with those guys. There's an awful hell of lot of them, like the majority. Right. So we want to be accepted. Like, it's about us.
Watch the watch the reasons why people respond and how they respond. It all comes back to what's going on inside of here. Okay.
So number one is the mob mentality, and we also… Condemning somebody also. It reinforces a sense of, like, superiority. Okay. So, which makes me like, if I, if I don't really feel good about me, when I say how low you are, it kind of helps me feel a little bit better about me. Okay, so it's a lot easier to point the fingers to somebody else than to look at me and say, “Oh, you know, I've made similar mistakes.” Because that is kind of uncomfortable, right? That creates discomfort. Or even if you think about it enough, you can create shame around, you know, like what I've done in relation to thinking about what someone else has done.
And then, you know, rather than face the discomfort of looking at myself, it's easy to distance myself from someone or something, what somebody else has done by just, you know, lashing out and condemning other people. Harshly. It kind of helps me feel a little bit better for a minute.
So condemning other people, helps people, they feel a little bit superior or morally better. You know, which temporarily boosts yourself-worth, makes you feel a little bit better about you. I wouldn’t a done that. That's terribly wrong. You're wrong. Only bad people do that. I'm not one of them. I'm one of these that, you know, look, the condemners over here. We don't tolerate stuff like that. We're better than you.
So when somebody lacks confidence in their integrity, they want to might, they want to might, they might want to try to project a sense of righteousness, like to mask their own, our own insecurity. So it's really in a... Basically blaming other people for what they do, for their perceived wrongs. It keeps the attention away from our own imperfections. And it can help us feel better about ourselves when we feel like we're accepted into a group and that we feel like we're better than other people because they're lower and we're higher.
It's much easier to condemn than face our own potential shortcomings, right? It's just a little bit easier. So it's kind of a default. A lot of us will just kind of go there naturally if we're not living with intention, if we're not thinking about what we're thinking about.
Now, there's an old story that's been around for a couple thousand years in a book called the Bible. And here's this guy, well, this lady, and she allegedly was sleeping around. They had a committed a sin called adultery. And there's a bunch of guys there ready to pick up some rocks and they're going to throw rocks at her until she dies. Hard enough, enough of them, and enough places that they're going to stone her to death. Okay?
And this guy named Jesus comes by and he says, oh, hold on a minute, guys. Hold up for a second. Why don't, uh, he said something to the effect of, you know, whoever hasn't committed any sin go ahead and chuck that first rock, cast first stone. And pretty soon they dropped the rocks, and they walked away. Okay.
And what I think that he was saying, that Jesus was saying in this moment was, “Hey, stop condemning and take a look at yourself.”
So the question is, why? And here's some of the reasons. So the consequences of condemnation, okay, really like we said earlier, the condemner, if I'm the one that's condemning somebody, if I'm the one that's bad-mouthing somebody for what they've done, I get a little bit of a short-term boost. You know, I feel a little bit better, and it boosts my, I get a little bit of false sense of self-confidence and boosts self-esteem a little bit. I feel like I'm accepted into a group so you can see that there's some little gains there.
But we get long-term loss okay we feel better for a little while, but we don't make permanent gains on really on how we believe about ourselves. Because we know internally our mind knows that the way to build ourselves up is not by taking somebody else down. Okay? Subconsciously we know this we're not getting permanent long-term gains.
The other side of this is the condemned, not the condemner, the condemned, okay, whoever this is. In this case, the horse vet. They deal with the influence, right? What they do is their responsibility, but we influence them by doing this condemnation. In the case of the horse veterinarian, the guy I know here in Las Vegas, he's been missing now for about 10 days, and he may have committed suicide.
So the condemned, you know, is basically, needs, has the influence of the condemnation. Okay. So really the bottom line here is on condemning. There's no long-term positive gain. Period. End of story.
The second group, okay, which is almost as big of a group. Well, I really don't know, but I saw quite a number of people that know this veterinarian. And their comments, there was quite a number of them that were commenting, and their comments were things that were to the effect of, “Hey, hey you condemners, you don't know the whole backstory here. You don't know what happened before you saw this little teeny clip, it's that something looked ugly. You don't know the history, you don't have all the facts, you don't have all the information.”
So I thought, okay, and then they go on like that. And I thought, well, why are people saying… So what does that mean if I did know the backstory that, that what I saw of him kicking the horse in the head would be okay? Is that, I mean, what does the backstory make a difference on? Are you saying that if I knew that, that I would change what I think about it?
And so I call this group the justifiers. Okay, because what I, what I hear them saying is, is if you knew more about the situation, you would think that that's okay, what he did. Okay.
And so a lot of times we think that… Well, first of all, we want to be accepted, right? We want to be accepted more than considering the offender. So to protect how we feel about ourselves, we're we're kind of making little justifications that this might be okay to kind of protect ourselves if we've done something similar like that.
We, or the justifiers, we might have a personal connection to that vet or to that individual. And we find it just, our brain won't let us condemn them because we, we want to think in a positive way, even though that they might've done something that we don't agree with. And so we're just kind of making little attempts to make it not as bad. Okay, I call that the justifiers. Because we don't want to really think poorly of the guy But then it's kind of confusing because you did this so we're trying to say, you know If you knew the whole thing, it might not be as bad as you think.
So when somebody's actions Okay when someone's actions are in conflict with the positive image that we have about them then then we're trying to, it's causes discomfort in our own minds. We're trying to reduce the discomfort because we want to feel better about ourselves. We don't want to think that, you know. We don't want to think or be perceived as someone who aligns with that kind of behavior or a person who does that kind of behavior. So we're trying to make it not sound as bad. Okay, that's the way I see it.
So they might rationalize that behavior, or justify it to some degree, to align with the way that we think about that person. You know, he's like, well, he's good at heart. Okay. Cause we want to think that we're good people and we like the same kind of good people.
Really, do you see what's happening? My response to seeing this, all of it, whether I'm a condemner or a justifier in any way is based on what I think about me and what I think other people will think about me. It's where it's all coming from. Okay?
The thing about, okay... Let's just go back to the older story I was telling alongside of this one about the adulterous. Okay. So back to that story, okay.
Jesus, after these guys dropped their stones and walked away, Jesus didn't say, you know, that wasn't that bad. And by the way, nobody knew, you know, the whole story here. And if they had, then, you know, maybe they could have seen that this wasn't that. He didn't justify, he didn't condemn. He flat out told those guys and gals, whoever was there to stop the condemnation.
But he didn't do any of that. What he said was, he said, go your way and sin no more. Okay. He didn't say it was okay. He just said that she was okay. Okay? This is the big difference because here's the thing, the consequences of justification are not good. Okay? There's no justice by, making justification. It doesn't make it well.
So we can't make the whole thing, we can't make it well. And if we're not careful, we can confuse our own values by trying to make something that is wrong, seem better. Right? And we're not helping the offender. Okay. If we're trying to excuse their responsibility, we're not really helping. We're not helping them at all.
So there is, there is no long-term gain for justification. Okay. When we see something, when we see an activity that's wrong.
So I have a question. Okay? I have a question for you. Let's just use this bat kicking this horse and just say, well, let me ask you a question about it. And here's the question. How many of you listening or watching to this podcast have been, well, have never so far in your lifetime, reacted and or done something that you wish that you wouldn't have? Done something wrong, done something you're ashamed of?
Which I think is notable because this veterinarian came back and made a public apology, and he obviously had some amount of remorse for it. So he acknowledged that, you know, this is something that he shouldn't have done. It's my understanding. I didn't read the apology, but it's not important because the point here is, that all of us is the answer.
None of us have not done something that we regret, that we wish that we wouldn't have. Done something wrong in our lives to some degree, got to experience guilt and shame. Okay?
And so is condemnation gonna help us? Is justification gonna help us? And what about our kids? What about, you think they're not gonna ever do anything wrong to some degree or another? To do something, and what are they gonna do when they do something that we judge is wrong and they feel tons of shame for it? What are we gonna do? Condemn, justify? What are we to do?
Okay, because I'm here to tell you, you're going to do some bad stuff if you haven’t, and you probably have because we all have. And your children are going to do some bad things. Okay? Sometime in their life. Okay. That's just the way it is. They're going to do some things that seem wrong that people judge are wrong that you judge are wrong.
So you and us, me, all of us are going to do some things that we're going to experience guilt and shame in this lifetime. Okay?
But I want to tell you about the third group of people. Okay, because on the vet veterinarian situation, there was just a couple of people, not a lot, you know, that I saw that had a way of commenting and a different perspective on what that they saw. These people were a very small number, and they said things like, “Hey, come home to your family if you're still alive, we love you and it's going to be okay.”
Those numbers were very small, the people that were making those kind of comments, okay, that had the courage to make those kinds of comments.
So I'm gonna give you, I'm gonna clear up this judgment thing for you, okay? And I'm gonna continue to use this example of the veterinarian and I'm gonna give you the key and the answer. This hopefully will cause a lot of, clear, bring some clarity to the whole subject of judgment. And that is, ready? Here we go.
Our charge, okay, is to judge actions, not human beings. Not souls, not people, just what people do.
So in this example, we can look at that and we can condemn that type of activity, okay? But our business is not to condemn the person that did it. Okay, is to condemn that.
And we can, that doesn't mean that we accept it. It doesn't mean that we absolve them of responsibility. I mean, if we want to, we can change laws, we can enforce laws. We can see if, you know, about his medical licensing. And we can do appropriate action to not have things like that or other things that we deem wrong in society and in our personal lives. It doesn't mean that we accept it or we absolve responsibility or any of that.
What it means is that we have to make judgments all day long, every day of our lifetime. That's what guides what we do and do not do in this lifetime. So we must judge. But what we need to do, if we're going to do it right, is judge actions, not human beings.
Because the thing of it is, we're all going to do some actions that we wish we didn't, because we're imperfect souls. And condemnation and justification is not going to help us and it's not going to help the people that we're condemning. So we separate the behavior from the person, and we treat them in different ways. And that is how we do it.
And there's a reason for this, And that is one of the challenges in this lifetime for us, for us all, is to learn how to unconditionally love ourselves so that we gain the capacity to unconditionally love our fellow men, regardless of what they did. Regardless of what they did, all of them, everybody, everything. Not just our people and the people that we know and the people that we like. Everyone, okay?
So when making this world a better place, it begins with forgiving and loving ourselves. That's where it starts, right here. Okay? And that's a decision that we all get to make. We can either choose to or not to.
The consequences of unconditional love for ourselves, okay? I'm going to give you the consequences of unconditional love for ourselves.
We can more, when we unconditionally love ourselves and forgive ourselves. Here's some of the consequences. We can more easily separate actions from people. Okay, because we've done it for ourselves. We've forgiven ourselves, and we love ourselves, and we believe ourselves, and we have high self-esteem. We realize, we work on and try to improve our own worthiness and our own beliefs and our own value consistently, and we let things go that we do that are wrong. We forgive ourselves. So we can more easily do that for other people. We can more easily separate actions from human beings, okay. Acts or deeds from the soul that did them.
The next thing is, is we have less of a need to condemn, okay? We're less inclined to condemn other people or to justify the better that we feel about ourselves. Next, we gain more capacity to forgive and love other people. Of course, we have less shame. We also have the ability and the capacity to help other people move through their guilt and their shame. And we all improve and do seemingly less bad or wrong things.
We're all able to improve. We're able to help ourselves. We're able to help our neighbor. And as a result, we do less things that are bad. And as a result of that, the world improves. Starts right here.
It is okay to judge. Judge things all the way, not wrong. We need to. We need to have a strong sense of right and wrong and have values that guide our moral compass. And that guide our integrity. And that guide our actions as human beings.
And sometimes we're going to do actions that don't fit our code. And when we do, not going to, hopefully we won't condemn or justify ourselves. Hopefully we'll love and forgive ourselves so that we have the capacity that when we see things that we believe that are wrong, we have the capacity to condemn the action, but love the human being as a human being of equal value to ourselves and every other soul on this planet.
Hey, thank you so much for taking the time to be with me today. And remember, you cannot fail as long as you Don't Ever Stop Chasin It.
