Did you ever consider yourself to be judgemental? I could have sworn I was not judgemental before life tossed me this curveball.
I work in a career which demands me to put all judgements aside and treat everyone as equal. I could do that quite easily with my work hat on, but on a personal level, I don’t think I was conscious of my own judgements when I sat in the court room that day. I just ‘knew‘ I was different from 99% of all the other people sitting there that day. I wasn’t like them at all! I never even thought about whether this was judgmental. It didnt even cross my mind!
This thinking continued when I went to visit at the prison. Sitting down in the sterile room with posters that say don’t bring in drugs or mobile phones while waiting to go through the scanning process, I ‘knew’ I wasn’t the same as the other women and partners visiting. Wooooh! Really!
Realising now, I don’t like that I was like that. I tried to think how could I have been like it. I think in any other setting or any other time, I may not have even thought that way. But the truth was I realised in this setting I did. I felt I had to be different. I couldn’t be like other people there because then I might not have been able to manage what I thought that said about me. I’m not someone who has a person in jail! I don’t think I could handle that challenge to the identity of who I thought I was up to now. Right then, I had to try and maintain that I was different – I had to make sure I wasn’t like the others just to survive the pain of what I was feeling.
And that meant I was judgemental.
I know now I am no different from others who wait all week for visitation time. Sure they may wear different clothing. They might have more or less tattoos than I have. They might have looked like they had had a hard night on the town last night, or be dressed so immaculately they could have walked out of a magazine. Sometimes it was obvious that one or two had different values by the language that came out in frustration at the reception desk when it was realised a visitation time was wrong.
Being judgemental however meant that I couldn’t feel comfortable in that room.. That was until I could finally be honest with myself and accept that underneath I was no different to anyone else in why I was in that room at that time on that day.
I didn’t ask everyone but I am sure that:
- None of us would have been there if the person we cared about was not there.
- All any of us wanted was to have a good visit with the person we loved.
- We all would have wanted a different life that what we were living now.
- We all were going through the impact of something we had no control over. Emotional Pain, financial cost, loss of dreams… Yes, the impact of the pain was different due to our diverse complex lives, but having someone in prison hurts no matter what.
Although we can never get away from the judgements around us, we don’t have to be a part of continuing it.
We can challenge ourselves to say hello to someone else in the waiting room and ask how their week has been.
We can try to listen to their answer with an open mind and accept it doesn’t matter what an other’s story is that brought them here, but like us they are here – just now at this time.
Finally we can change in the world by how we act and speak… one person at a time.. even in the prison waiting room.
Photo by Lane Jackman on Unsplash