Dear Joe:

April 6 this year you  posted: “I feel like I am constantly judging people.. Judging them on the basis of their looks, social life, intelligence, wittiness, confidence.. I’m really good at finding the little bad things about people”.

Fast forward five months later, you feel better about how you look but you feel sorry for other people, imagining that they feel bad about how they look: “I feel like they must be going through the same pain and insecurity as me but 10 times worse.. I often feel very anxious and sorry for them… I feel like they are experiencing the same anxiety and un-calmness I felt”.

My input: humans are social animals and because of that we all get confused sometimes. We think that other people at this or that exact moment are thinking what we are thinking, that they feel what we are feeling (or what we remember thinking and feeling before). We even imagine that we can almost read their minds, as if their brain was our brain.

Back in April you were focused on your perceived faults, rejecting yourself for those, and you rejected others for their faults. Fast forward, you accept yourself more, with less judgment, and you accept others more. The good news, you accept yourself better- good job!

As far as the excess empathy (feeling too badly for others) and imagining what may not at  all be true for them at this or that moment- repeat to yourself that you don’t really know what they are thinking and feeling at any particular moment (unless they tell you and are honest), you are assuming based on your experience.

Thing is that we humans are very much alike, almost everyone feels insecure about their looks and imagine other faults about themselves. So you are not wrong about others feeling badly about their perceived faults. What you are probably wrong about is that you imagine that at this or that particular time they think this or that or feel this or that.

Better than reading other people’s brains, listen to what they say/ read what they type, ask them a question or two, listen for their answers.

Does this make sense to you?

anita