Most people are surprised to hear that I do not see judgment as a bad thing. In fact, I don't necessarily see it as inherently bad or good.

Judgment is something that we as humans are innately programmed to do.

Since the beginning of time, we have used judgment. If we were not this way, we would not have made it this far as a collective race.

We use judgment to determine what is or is not toxic to us (in both a literal and a figurative sense).

We use judgment to determine who to surround ourselves with and to determine what kind of activities are harmful or painful to us. We use judgment to make hundreds of decisions on any given day and thousands within any given week.

We use judgment while driving or turning right on red to decide whether or not we have enough time and space to move forward.

We also use judgment when we make our lunch choices, although sometimes those judgments end up having negative after effects… and we vow to put our heads down and keep walking past the doughnuts next time.

Nonetheless, judgment is a normal and natural phenomenon. I encourage judgment in my own life and especially encourage the practice of judgments that involve putting my wellness and emotional wellbeing first.

Judgment in dynamic, active, life scenarios should be part of life. Judgment towards others through our thoughts and narrow-minded opinions though, should not be.

The concept of judgment has devolved to a point where it is typically associated with bullying, bad energy and mean-spirited acts. This is being judgmental, not practicing best judgment.

We judge people's age based on the amount of gray on their head and wrinkles on their face. We often judge individuals based on their race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.… You name it, we as humans probably judge it.

What I now realize about judgment is that some of us are less subtle about our judgments and we make them very outspoken and apparent. While on the other hand, others of us simply harbor this terrible little voice in our heads that hosts its own daily talk show solely based on judgmental dialogue.

When this happens, the one feeling the most heaviness and hurt is us.

Judgment towards others is almost always a direct reflection of the judgments we make towards ourselves.

I think that this is where a lot of us fall off the wagon of self-awareness and become totally blindsided by our judgmental feelings and thoughts.

We become frustrated and bothered even by the ones we love most. In fact, I believe we become frustrated and bothered especially by the ones we love because we think that we can take our frustration out on them and they won't go anywhere because—they love us, right?

This is when we are preemptively pissed off or mad about somebody or something else then we come home and all our loved one had to do was look at the dog wrong and then your emotional time bomb goes off and you start to take it out on them.

And as it turns out, they weren't even looking at the dog at all. In fact, they weren't even aware they made an out-of-character face.

When we are judgmental of others, it festers within us and eats away at our happiness, peace and joy. It feels dirty, lowly, yucky, and shallow. I don't hate a lot of things but I sure do hate that feeling of resenting someone or something else because of jealousy and out of that jealousy, comes judgment because I know it's wrong and that I'm wrong and historically speaking, I'm not one who likes to be wrong. But I'm learning how to be wrong and trying not to judge myself when I am.

We are the ones who have to live with this feeling that I hate so much, not the person we are being judgmental of.

For instance, we look at the man or woman we work with and slowly (or quickly) begin to judge them based on their social media accounts, their clothes or how they look on paper. We may be jealous that they went to the university we couldn't get into, or despise the fact that they're successful in the field we want to be successful in and to beat everything else, they even have a pug and you've been wanting a pug since you were fourteen.

We then have this false impression of them and while they go about living their life and doing their work, they become a trigger for us and we feel that yucky feeling and start judging them and we don't even know them!

Then when we finally do meet them and realize they're really decent and kind people too, we judge them even more because damn it, to top everything off, they're a good person!

Imagine how much lighter you would feel and how much easier it would be to live with your thoughts if you released that judgment; if you just let it roll off of you as if you're one of those Niagara Falls-worthy, super water-repellent rain jackets and they're just the drops beading up and rolling off of your sleeve.

And with that, I leave you with this: judgment helps us, being judgmental does not.

I hope that next time it rains and you go to pick up your rain jacket, you're reminded to let those judgmental thoughts roll off of you just as the rain does.