The People We Love Most Are Often the People We Judge Most

I love being a spiritual counselor.  It’s never boring, always expansive, always healing to me personally.  It’s interesting, fulfilling and always heart-opening – what’s not to like?

Let me share something I’ve discovered in my 25 years as a spiritual counselor.

The people we love most are often the people we judge most. I know, I know. That might sting a little. But it’s not a crime, it’s not a sin, it’s an opportunity for healing, because recognizing this pattern is a pathway to profound transformation.

Think about it. With strangers, we can be polite and detached. But with family? With our BFF’s?  With the people closest to us? That’s where all our buttons get pushed. That’s where we hold the most grievances, make the most exceptions, and resist seeing the Christ most stubbornly.  It’s deeply challenging, at least it has been for me.

Why This Matters So Much

Here’s what A Course in Miracles teaches us: “What you call upon in them, you call upon in yourself.” When we judge our loved ones, we’re actually judging ourselves. When we withhold love from them, we withhold it from ourselves.

I used to get so frustrated with my family. Arguments and annoyances during vacations. Snarkiness every day. Birthday disappointments that felt SO persona (they ate my birthday cake WITHOUT ME!)

Thank God, with my spiritual practice, I came to stop taking it personally.  Now, I’m FREE and it was worth EVERYTHING I did to get here.  Now, I share that with others and it brings me Joy every day.

The Healing Opportunity

When my brother/sister/mother/father/friend acts in ways I don’t like, when THEY take things personally and blame me for how they feel, and the temptation is to reject them, to withhold Love, to blame, shame and attack them,I now ask myself: “Why would I reject myself? Why would I make myself feel unwelcome and unloved?”

I ask this not in a self-blaming way, but with genuine curiosity. Because projection happens, and what we see in others reveals what we believe about ourselves.  Let’s be curious, not judgmental.

Now I can spend 8-9 days with my family with no arguments. Not because they changed, but because I changed my mind about them. I chose to see their perfection instead of their stories.

Your Practice This Week

As the holidays approach, notice who you’re judging most. Chances are, it’s someone you love deeply. That judgment is blocking your own healing, because as the Course says, “If your brothers are part of you, will you accept them?”

This is exactly what we practice in my Masterful Living Program – and it’s what we learn about in the Quantum Counseling Training Intensive.  Dropping the projection in order to see the Christ in everyone, especially those who trigger us most. Because your healing and theirs are inseparable.

The people you love most don’t need your judgment and neither do you.

They are transformed with your recognition of their holiness. And so are you.  We heal at the level of the mind, and we bring everyone with us.

To get us there we practice a kind of sweet curiosity blended with compassion.  It brings real miracles.

In my Quantum Counseling Training Intensive, the main thing we work on is eliminating worthiness issues so that people can live their calling, help more people, be more prosperous and share their gifts and talents in ways that are profoundly healing to themselves and others.

My next Quantum Counseling Training Intensive begins Friday, October 31.

This intensive training is for you if:

• You have an interest in seeing if spiritual counseling is a possible career for you.
• You’d like to improve your counseling and compassionate listening skills.
• You’d just like to build your confidence and Self-esteem.
• You’d like to increase your intuition.
• You’d like to get continuing education or licensing units.