How You Judge Other People Is How You Judge Yourself! Let’s Find Out How You Think About Stress…

The Mirror of Judgment: Seeing Ourselves in Others’ Stress

What do you secretly inwardly think and feel when you see other people showing stress or anxiety? Think of a couple of examples of when you saw people outwardly expressing stress and remember how you felt.

I don’t mean the response that you think that you should have if you were a nicer person, but the real one underneath that you hide. The one that you secretly think 🙂 That’s our real stress prejudice.

If it’s simply compassion then brilliant, but for most people there are going to be other automatic judgments. Here are some common examples of how people might typically (secretly) respond when they see someone displaying stress:

• “Get a grip”
• “Yuck”
• “He’s blown it now – everyone has seen him panic”
• “It’s scary how out of control she is”
• “It’s not appropriate to bring that to work”
• “This is a waste of time”
• “That’s embarrassing”
• “Here we go again”
• “I never want people to see me like that”
• “I’m glad that I’m a stronger person than him”
• “I don’t know what to say to this person. This is foreign territory”
• “Get me out of here”

Have you found yourself thinking/feeling any of these about other people? Any other reactions?

How We Judge Other People Is How We Judge Ourselves

Once you have seen how you judge other people exhibiting stress symptoms, it gives you a much clearer picture of how you probably judge yourself. Those dark feelings you had towards other people’s stress show why you might try to suppress or hide your own stress rather than dealing with it in a healthy way.

In fact, many of us judge ourselves even more harshly than we do other people.

Here are some of the ways that we judge ourselves when we are stressed, and how to challenge the thinking:

“Stress is a sign of weakness”

If this sounds like you, and you have a fear of others seeing your ‘weakness’ and feel a need to be strong at all times, then remember that true strength comes from accepting that we are all vulnerable sometimes. There are no medals for just getting on with it. There are no award ceremonies for pretending to be unbreakable.

If you are burying your feelings then you are making yourself more brittle – and likely to break at some point. People who deal with their stress and emotions, those who are in touch with their inner self, are much more resilient in the long run.

“Perfect people don’t suffer stress”

If you have a need for perfection and see stress as a sign of imperfection, then it might be time to re-examine your definitions! Surely a ‘perfect person’ would recognise their own natural limitations, and take appropriate action to deal with them, rather than pretending that they don’t exist?

Resilient people don’t pretend that stress doesn’t exist or is an imperfection, they just do their best to deal with it.

“Stress is for people who can’t control themselves”

If you see stress as a messy thing that you can’t control and therefore it should simply be ignored or boxed away… you are right; it is messy. But ignore it and it just gets messier.

You can’t self-control your way out of stress. The more you try to box it in, the more it will start to leak out in other ways. If you want to feel in control, then taking action to deal with your stress will be far more effective.

Resilient people don’t expect to be able to control their stress, they build healthy de-stressing habits and thinking into their daily lives.

“Stress is shameful”

Maybe you have grown up feeling that you should keep your feelings hidden and that any display of emotion is a failing on your part? You might worry that other will judge you for having any kind of emotion, but especially messy ones like anxiety and stress.

If so, then you can practice small disclosures of your emotional state – try sharing with someone you trust how you are feeling about small things such as likes, dislikes or more positive experiences. The aim is to get used to talking about how you feel, without having to tackle the big stuff immediately.

“I shouldn’t burden others”

Remaining invisible is a lifelong endeavour for some people. They avoid being the centre of attention and impacting on other people’s time because they feel unworthy. They don’t feel that their issues are important enough to warrant someone else taking the time to listen and talk them through.

If this sounds like you, and you are worried about impacting on others, then remember how it feels when you get to help other people – it can make you feel better about yourself. It is uplifting, gives you a sense of purpose and leaves you feeling that you might have left the world a slightly better place.

That’s how other people get to feel when you let them help you.

People usually love listening to other people, so don’t be afraid to share your stress if it’s appropriate.