some people will…some people wont…

*I feel like I need to preface my posts for a while with the comment that I’m never writing anything to ‘make people feel sorry for me’ or ‘make anyone feel bad or calling anyone out’. This is my experience. These are things that I am learning. These are things I feel inspired to share. I am 100% okay if people don’t agree or have differing opinions. That’s the beauty of everyone having their own stories, we get to learn from each other, grow together, and support!

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Now I get why not a lot of people want to share their struggles and their reality. haha

Some people will be supportive of YOU, yet may not understand and you still don’t feel the judgement from them.

Some people wont be supportive at all and will make it known.

Some people will say they’re supportive and then assume and ask all kinds of questions as if you don’t know what you’re doing.

Some people will say it to your face, some people won’t.

After sharing what I did, I wasn’t sure what the response would be. All I knew is that I needed to share. I was pleasantly surprised by the response. I was doing okay for the first day after. Then a few comments here and there started to trickle in. A couple in particular stopped me in my tracks and I crumbled to my bed and bawled.

I know I know, how can I let one or two ‘not amazing’ comments get to me over all the people that reached out?! And after some really really cool conversations with those struggling themselves?!

Remember my weakness of people pleasing and doubting myself?

There comes a point when you allow yourself to share the deepest parts of you or get the courage to even share ANYTHING, that things are still a little fragile at first.  Whether it’s sharing something huge or not.

One comment was after a live video I did on my personal FB page about Love. I felt very strongly I needed to share what I have learned.

I was not connecting it directly to my marriage. I was connecting it to what I have learned over the span of the last year and a half since starting Fuel Love.

It took me THIRTY MINUTES of sitting in my chair, trying to boost up my self confidence and prayed, did some simple yoga, doused myself in oils and asked over and over to be guided to say the right thing that I would just share something that would touch someone all while feeling calm while I did so.

I about bowed out and didn’t do it. But I did. And it felt awesome.

Then I got a comment about how selfish I was being in my thoughts and actions recently.

It’s not the first time I have been called selfish since starting Fuel Love.

Right then, it was a dagger.

I immediately started questioning ever sharing anything asking over and over why why why? Why do I feel so strongly to share my story and what I’ve learned and to LIVE my passion and what I feel called to do?

Then it hit me and I remembered. I remembered who I was. I remembered WHOSE I was. I’m not saying I’m anything special. I’m not anyone more than anyone else. We each have something in us to share. We each have something to share to help someone else go through the same feelings and/or experience. I’ve fought hard to be in alignment with what I know God wants me to do/share and I can’t let one or two triggers and soft spots stop me.

If everyone did that, we wouldn’t have half the things we have today. We wouldn’t have half the people we look up today that went against the grain and kept pushing through despite all the naysayers and doubters and those that didn’t believe in them.

Ya I get that what I’m going through and what my experience is ‘not of the ”norm” but I want to mention a few cool things that I have personally experienced concerning judgement.

The second you think that they ‘didn’t think things all the way through’ or that ‘they don’t know what they’re in for’…you’re judging them.

I didn’t realize how subconsciously judgemental I was until a very dear friend pointed it out to me a few years ago. She was a deep feeler and she was going through a tough time herself. I ‘supported’ her through out it all but there was always this dis-ease when we would talk about things. I could FEEL my judgement whenever we would talk about her situation. In the back of my mind, I was always thinking… ‘Oh well it’s because she doesn’t understand this’…or ‘It’s because she’s not thinking about this or this’.

I didn’t even realize I was doing it until one day we just slowly lost contact and I reached out to her a few months after. She opened up to me about how she just had to stop having conversations with me and be connected so closely because the judgement coming from me was just too strong.

I knew exactly what she was talking about and she was right. It hurt. It hurt because it was something I knew I struggled with and also something I thought I had overcome. But also I had a hard time ‘going there’ because it was such a pained struggle for me.

Over the next year after that I wanted to REALLY understand what I was doing and HOW was I being judgemental.

BECAUSE of what I have chosen, it leaves room for LOTS of judgment. Concerned people suggesting I didn’t do enough, or try enough or look hard enough at all that would happen because of my/our choice. That everything I am doing is selfish.

This is what I believe and this is what I have experienced. The second that we THINK anything about anyone elses experience that leads you to ‘Well that’s because they don’t understand this or that’ that is a judgment. The second we think ‘we know better for someone else because of our own experience’ that is a judgement.

Yes there is something to be said of ‘me, having gone through something can help others not have the same heartache or problems etc etc.’ But think of the INTENT of you sharing. Is it because you think that your struggle was ‘wrong’ and that you should have chosen something different and so you want them to, too? Or is it more along the lines of, ‘I’ll share my experience and allow you to take from it what you feel is right for you’? And then let them have their experience without being angry or bugged that they didn’t follow what you think they should have? Or taken away from your experience what you think they should have?

If you think you ‘know better’ for someone else’s life, you’re automatically judging them. Your story is not their story. Your day to day experience is not their experience. How you handle things is not the same way that they will handle things. The way they navigate things is not the same way you navigate things.

It was the best feeling to come in contact with an experience that a few years ago, I would have judged. I would have had all those little thought bubbles pop up about how it’s because they don’t understand, or they aren’t seeing it, or or or.

I was working on someone over the phone and half way through the zone, it came up that she no longer was part of the faith that she used to be. That she chose to leave. I thought it was interesting but nothing else. I continued on with the session and throughout the rest of it had the distinct impression over and over that I needed to ask her about her story. At the very end, I just simply asked her if she wouldn’t mind telling me her story.

She opened up about it and told me her story and then at the end she thanked me for asking and listening without any judgement. She told me that she can feel deeply and many times people have asked her story because they feel like they ‘have’ to but that many times she will feel the judgement directed at her.

We hung up and I started crying. Her story was something that I previously would have thrown up all the judgment. I had nothing but compassion and love for her. No subconscious judgment, nothing. I had wanted to feel that feeling for so long.

I’m not sharing this to boast that oh, look at me I don’t judge. I still find myself once in a while getting into that state of mind. Especially when I feel it AGAINST me, then I’ll catch myself having thoughts of ‘well it’s just cuz they haven’t dealt with this or this, or they’re not aware of this or that’. That my friends is judgement! I’ll have to stop myself and remind myself that they have they’re own experience and I have mine.

All that everyone wants is to be LOVED through their experiences. They just want to share their story and not feel like they have to hide.

BUT again, there’s two sides to that BECAUSE…. me wanting to hide if I FEEL judgment… is a judgment.. haha. I’m automatically judging them because of how they’re perceiving me.

So here’s the other part to that that I allowed myself to get in to.

I WANTED to control how people reacted. I wanted to badly that EVERYONE understands why I/we made the choice that we made. I wanted to hold everyone up to this ‘standard’ that they wouldn’t do or say some of the things that they have said.

I didn’t want to be told anymore that all light was gone from me and that I was being led by dark.

I didn’t want to be told that I was ruining my children’s lives.

I didn’t want to be told anymore that I was selfish.

I wanted all feedback to be, ‘Oh my gosh, I totally FEEL you and know this or that’ ‘You’re totally doing the right thing for you’. Etc.

So me getting angry or upset or hurt that the other things were said to me… is a judgement on my part.

The end all??

There’s fear and there’s love.

Judgement comes from fear. Judgment of what someone is doing or saying is your own fear or something you don’t understand yourself.

We fear what we don’t understand. We automatically go into judgment because of that fear.

The more we can look at others through the eyes of, ‘This is their story and it’s hard enough as it is. I have NO CLUE what’s really going on and I don’t need to. It’s none of my business. What I can do is send them love and light and TRUST. They’re going through what they need to to become THEM. They are going through their own refiners fire. They will come out ten times more amazing on the other side. I will be there for them when they need me and be along side of them when they need someone to lean on or someone to remind them that they’ve got whatever comes their way. I will be the one person they know they can turn to to just talk and help them through their feelings’ the more that we can release ourselves from judgment and fear and see everyone through the eyes of Love.