Reframing Judgement into Gratitude

A few years back I had read a book that completely changed my perspective. Radical Forgiveness by Colin Tipping had come into my awareness almost 6 months before I started to read it, but it wasn’t until I was desperate that I decided to actually open it up, and take a look inside.

I was in Peru at the time, on a solo trip to do some healing and self exploration. I have a dream to own my own retreat center, and the focus of that trip, was to attend different healing workshops and retreats, to gain as much knowledge and experience as I could in those environments.

Along the way, I met a fellow traveler who at first I thought had a great personality. He seemed very upbeat and positive, very forward focused, and he seemed to know what he wanted out of life. He had many qualities I admired, and I felt very grateful for the opportunity to connect.

Travelling for me is a very magical experience in that, I always seem to manifest the right person at the right time. Sometimes the connections are great, and other times not so much. On one particular night, I had just finished writing out a list of intentions for what I wanted to manifest for the upcoming months.

I began walking home but was stopped by a man on the street. While I was initially taken aback when this person introduced himself to me, I took a second glance, and thought to myself, “well, hold on now, I just asked for some things to manifest into my life, and this person stopped me on the street to talk, maybe there’s a reason for it.”

I allowed myself to have a conversation and agreed to meet up at a later date. He seemed like a nice enough human, and I enjoy the experience of connecting with other people. Mostly.

A few days later we ended up going for a mountain hike. It was a beautiful hike, and I was happy to be getting some exercise. I’m a fairly avid hiker, so I felt comfortable exploring this mountain, even though there were some prickly bushes that we needed to keep an eye out for. The reason we were going on this hike, was because this new “friend” worked as a backpacking tour guide in Brazil, and he invited me out to share his passion with me.

It was an interesting experience to say the least. For the most part in my life (at least at that point in time) I considered myself fairly easy to get along with. I definitely would have scored high in agreeableness in the Big Five Personality Traits. For the most part I just want harmony with others, and as long as I still get to do what I want, I’m happy to let others take the lead. But on this day, even for me, the situation was getting out of hand.

I pride myself in how tough I am, how strong I am, how much of an individual I am. I’m proud of my courage and by ability to take the lead. In many ways I know there is a strong level headed leader that is inside of me. I’ve felt her take the forefront a few times before, but this was probably the day that I really started to acknowledge how strong of a presence she had within me.

This had to have been the most difficult hike my ego had ever had to endure. I was baffled. I let him take the lead at first, because this was his area of expertise after all, but the more I stood back and allowed myself to be led, the more triggered I got. I felt like I was being babied.

Any time there was a cactus or thorn he would point it out and tell me to be careful. Which on the one hand is a very considerate thing to do, but on the other hand, I know what a cactus looks like, and I didn’t need to be warned every time we crossed one. It seemed a little over protective and redundant to me, and I started to notice an annoyance building inside.

In my life I’ve worked hard to achieve a level of confidence to be able to do things on my own. Not just because I don’t want the help, but because sometimes I just like to prove to myself that I can do something. Growing up as a small girl in a family of big strong men, I’ve been very aware of my own strength in life, and it’s a value that has high importance for me. It’s something I continue to grow on a regular basis, whether physically mentally or spiritually.

As we continued to walk, I continued to get triggered by this man and the way that he was leading us. I continually felt as thought I was being spoken down to. Even when I made a suggestion of which path we should take, it was scoffed at, come to later find out, that it was the path we ended up taking.

I’ve practiced meditation a lot in my years, and I feel I have a pretty firm understanding of spirituality and how/ why we create the things we do in life. As much as I was trying to monitor my own thoughts in this situation, I was having an incredibly hard time being non- judgmental, going with the flow, and just being upbeat. “Who does this guy think he is,” I kept wondering to myself. Did he just invite me along to boss me around? Is he some kind of a narcissist? My intuition kept telling me that the way I was being spoken to wasn’t aligned for me, and that I deserved better.

Maybe it was just the language barrier, I thought to myself. Maybe it was more cultural, and he just thought he was being chivalrous. I was having quite an internal conflict, trying not to judge him, but also trying to stand my own ground. What is really going on here I thought to myself, and why am I really getting so triggered? After the hike I went home to give myself some space from the experience. I meditated, wrote in my journal, and asked my higher self for some guidance. Which is when I stumbled upon the book of Radical Forgiveness.

My mind was blown.

I have a belief that anything that shows up in my life that is a trigger for me, has shown up as something for me to heal. I’ve recognized in my own growth, that taking the perspective that X is happening to me, is a victim mindset, and that I’m disempowering myself by viewing triggering situations in this way. I recognized that I had created the situation, but I had yet to discover why, and why it was so upsetting for me. One line in the book helped me see the bigger picture, and it started to make more sense.

The book said “You only get upset when someone resonates in you something about you that you have denied, repressed and projected onto them, and that what is upsetting you about the other person represents a part of you that is crying out to be loved and accepted.”

So I asked myself, how exactly does this apply to this situation. What were the judgments I was making, and what specifically was triggering me?

1. I was judging him for his leadership skills. As I’ve mentioned, I view myself to be a leader and have taken on his role several times in my past. But in this particular moment I wasn’t taking on that role. I was allowing myself to be led, and in a way that didn’t align with my values of camaraderie and shared interests. As I reflected on this, I remembered times when I was struggling to lead compassionately, and in a way that allowed others to feel empowered. I was being triggered by him because I wasn’t honouring the leader in me. He was doing the thing that my soul had a desire to do, and so I was criticizing him for the way he was choosing to lead. In a way I admired the qualities he had. The confidence, the impression of being self assured. It just so happened to anger me at the same time.

2. I was getting triggered because I didn’t actually speak up for myself. In part because I didn’t really know this person, and I didn’t know how he would react, or if he was really saying what I thought he was saying. I didn’t bother to explain how I actually go hiking all the time, and I’m really not afraid of getting a scratch. I never said that I’d love to lead for a bit, and that I have full confidence that we will find the right path. My intuition knew the right way to go, but I didn’t speak up. Which is really where the anger came from. I was judging how he was expressing himself, because I wasn’t willing to do the same and speak from a clear and confident space.

3. I was judging him for being over protective, or treating me like a delicate flower. I viewed him as seeing himself as having a feeling of superiority because he was bigger than I was, or more confident in his field of expertise. When he would get triggered and tell me (in a tone that I perceived to be speaking down to me) that he knows what he’s talking about because this is his job. It felt to me like a power struggle. Though this one came from society. In my life I’ve seen many men taking the lead. The project couldn’t start until the big strong man showed up. But I always felt within me the desire to be able to do the thing, regardless of what it was.

Mind you, when I was younger I had put myself in a position of lesser power because I was a girl from time to time. I would allow other people to do the heavy lifting because I was told I would get hurt. I would wait for the “expert” to show up because I didn’t know how to use the tools properly.

This repressed anger was being triggered in this situation because again, I wanted to be the expert. I wanted to have the position of power. I wanted to be seen and acknowledged for the ways I was contributing, and strong and able bodied.

The kicker, however, is that it’s no one’s job to recognize me for these things, except me. It’s my job to acknowledge my own power and strength and to use it accordingly. I and me alone, am responsible for how I feel in any given moment. It is my choice to be in a certain emotional state (even thought it doesn’t always feel like it).

When I take the time to acknowledge that no one else can make me feel a certain way, I regain my own power. I can then ask myself. Okay, what is it that I’m doing to trigger myself, and how can I do it differently. How can I show up more powerfully? How can I act in greater alignment with my values, needs and wants.

People will do what they’ve always done, and often times we aren’t aware of our own patterns until we have them reflected back to us. In this situation, this new “friend” wasn’t doing anything to me that I wasn’t doing to myself. Which is why it was so triggering for me.

Taking this perspective helped me to change my victim mindset. He wasn’t harming me, he was just showing up in a way that helped me to see what I was doing, and what I really wanted. It was from this perspective that I actually felt gratitude, because if I didn’t have this discomfort, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to reflect on how I was showing up, and more importantly, how I wanted to be showing up.

It can be easy sometimes to blame others for our own discomfort. I can’t count the number of times the words “they won’t let me” or “they made me feel…” has come out of my own mouth. Trust me, I’ve definitely played the victim a time or two in my life, largely unconsciously. In that moment however, I feel incredibly grateful for the perspective shift, and the recognition that I do create my own reality, and have the power to create the outcome that I want.

In this situation I really just wanted to lead. To speak up, and by recognized for what I was bringing to the table. This situation, with this particular person, however painful it was at the time, helped me to recognize just how important these values are for me. It was from this point forward that I took the steps to become a leader in my daily life. To speak up for myself when I feel it is warranted and to be more forthcoming with the accomplishments I have achieved in my life.

Our greatest challenges can sometimes be our greatest gifts, but all it really takes to move forward, is a change in perspective, gratitude, and some radical forgiveness.

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