This episode is all about judgment: why we're so quick to hand out labels, and what happens when we stop. It started with a lightbulb moment at a family gathering that turned into a bit of a masterclass in how fast our brains reach for judgment over understanding.

We're digging into why choosing to believe that everyone — yes, even the guy who just cut you off in traffic — is doing their best can genuinely change how you move through the world. When we trade judgment for empathy, we lighten our own emotional load and make room for better relationships, too.

Grab your drink of choice and settle in — because understanding ourselves is the first step to understanding everyone else.

Takeaways:

• In a world filled with judgment, understanding that everyone is doing their best can radically transform our personal interactions and emotional well-being.
• Our brains naturally categorize actions as good or bad, but breaking free from this binary thinking can lead to more compassionate relationships.
• Being a life coach means navigating through my own judgments while helping others; it's a continuous journey of self-discovery and empathy.
• When we approach difficult interactions with understanding rather than judgment, we create an environment where everyone can thrive, including ourselves.

Links referenced in this episode:

• amandahest.ca/bookacall
• instagram.com/theamandahess

Hey, I'm Amanda Hess.

I'm a certified life coach.

But what you need to know is I'm a sensitive woman just like you, and I'm going to help you understand yourself better so that you can approach your life differently and feel really good about it.

Let's go.

Hey, my friend.

Happy August.

If you're listening to this in real time, we are in August.

We are smack dab in the middle of summer here in Canada.

And today's topic is something that came up for me when I was on my walk after spending some time with family over the past weekend.

And I think it's really going to help you change how you approach yourself and your life.

I've titled this episode Everybody Is not an Idiot, not even you.

Why changing this one belief will change your entire life for the better.

Now, I need to preface this with my brain and probably your brain.

If it's like, my brain has a tendency to be very judgmental and it likes to put things in categories of good, bad, right, wrong, and that's normal.

That's a normal human brain.

That is.

That is how they work.

That is how we approach our life, because.

But one thing that I have just really noticed this year in particular, is the polarity that exists in the world and how we are living in a time where everybody is basically calling everybody else stupid.

I notice it so much on Facebook threads when somebody is asking something that could be really very innocuous.

So I'm in a few groups.

It's for just a sport you love.

One is for water skiing.

So I am a water skier.

I grew up water skiing, and I slalom ski.

And so I'm in this.

This water skiing Facebook group.

And it is fascinating to me how somebody will post a video of themselves skiing or of their grandkids skiing or whatever, right?

And really, they're.

Unless they're like, saying, hey, I really would like some help with this.

What they're saying is like, wow, I'm just so excited to be able to share that I'm a part of this community, and people inevitably come in there and tell them everything they're doing wrong.

It's wild.

It is just a masterclass in how our primitive brain actually works that we would take something that somebody is really essentially quite proud of, and we would tell them all the negative things about that when they didn't even ask.

It is super interesting.

It's noticing that there are Facebook groups dedicated to ranting about how people don't like their communities, their neighborhoods, the people that live in them it's everywhere.

And that's, you know, just a few small, minor examples.

The reality is, is if you post anything online in particular, you can pretty much guarantee that somebody is going to have a really severe.

Have a really severe reaction.

But even think about.

I notice this when I'm driving my car.

I do a tremendous amount of driving living out here because we live basically in sort of this place where there isn't a lot around us.

Like we have our, our city.

It's about a hundred thousand people, but we're driving to Vancouver, which would be like the main city center, often for my son's basketball and other things, right.

And then we're driving also around the interior of D.C. going to our lake property, et cetera, et cetera.

Not to mention just the way that our, the, our city is set up.

We're really along the highway.

And so what we'll end up doing is, is just being in traffic.

And at this time of year, because we're a summer destination type of community, there are a lot more cars on the road.

And so it's noticing how every time somebody does something that you don't want or that you don't like, that you will consider them to be an idiot.

Now, I use idiot.

You might have a different word.

But I really noticed my brain offering, like, what is this idiot doing?

And what is that idiot doing?

And this idiot doesn't know how to drive.

And I just, I really noticed it the other day that this judgmental part of my brain shows up in traffic, which is such an interesting thing because the last time I checked, we don't have any control over other drivers.

Right?

There are the rules of the road, and the people that enforce them are police officers and not me.

And thank goodness, because I. I definitely wouldn't want that job.

But I notice that when we're dysregulated, when we're going through difficult things, when stuff is creating emotion that we don't want, what we tend to be is very judgmental.

Now, I think it's also worth noting, and some people listening to this might never have this experience.

But for those of us that do, I really notice that this is how my family also is.

And so having spent an extended period of time, like five days with my extended family, what I really relearned and rediscovered was how my family is very much like this.

This is how they think, this is how they talk, this is how they act.

And everybody other than themselves is an idiot.

And it showed up in so many different ways while we were all Together.

It showed up when we were talking politics, it showed up when talking about what was going on at the resort.

It showed up when talking about parenting.

And it was very much, it was a right or wrong, yes or no, black or white type of way of discussing and thinking about things.

And it really brought to light for me how when I'm in that space with those people, it's not what my normal everyday life is like.

I spend a lot of time with people that don't think like that.

Living in the coaching community the way that I do, being a life coach, having colleagues and coaching communities that I coach in, but also where I am coached, allows me to have a much more nuanced approach when it comes to these types of things.

And one thing that I was thinking about while I was away, as I was with my family and I was struggling with my very human brain, interacting with the family event that was going on, noticing that I'm not regulating the way I normally do, noticing that I wasn't coaching myself the way that I normally do, noticing that I really was just riding a lot of highs and lows throughout the whole experience.

What I realized is how easy it is to judge other people when we feel bad.

And this is the point that I really want to talk about today.

I think it's really important.

This is something that if you can change, it can have a really incredible impact on your day to day life, on your long term life, on your relationships, on everything.

And one thing that I've learned over the years that has been a very useful thing for me to think is that everybody is doing their best.

A long time ago I started to discover that the way that I could feel more compassionate and more empathetic, the more empathetic I could be towards others, the more compassionate and the more empathetic I was towards myself and the better relationship that I would have with that person.

And that when I was not perpetually arguing with the reality of the way that things were, and instead I was just moving forward with this is how things are, and it's not a problem not getting into that friction point with myself, the more that I was able to do that, the better my experience would be.

And because my experience was better, I could show up better.

And when I showed up better, everybody around me showed up better and everything was just better.

Now the kind of blowback that I get from people when I offer this to them is, well, why am I the only one that has to do it?

Why do I always have to be the bigger person?

Why Am I always the one that has to see the other side?

Why do I have to be the compassionate one?

And here's why.

Because you want to be able to improve your experience.

And I want to put you in the empowered driver's seat of your life in order to be in the empowered driver's seat of your life.

Everything cannot be everybody else's fault, and everybody can't be stupid.

You also can't be stupid.

They're not idiots, and you're not an idiot.

This is important because we are going to change the way that your brain approaches the problem.

So if I can combat it from the standpoint of everybody is trying their best, including me, it allows us to not tell a story that ultimately will create emotions that are going to be very unhelpful in this scenario.

If I think that person, my dad, my brother, my husband, my kids, my friends are not doing their best, that they, in fact, are not even trying with me, that they just are being ridiculous, let's say, being ignorant, being rude, whatever it is.

If we just assume that that is how they're being, then what happens is I am victim by that.

And how am I going to show up if I am victimized by somebody else's behavior?

Well, I'm going to show up defensive.

And as they say, defense is the first act of war.

So I don't want a war.

Typically, when we're hanging out with our family, for instance, like when I'm talking in this particular arena, we want a nice, peaceful, lovely time with our family.

Now, we can't control what our family does, what our family says, what happens inside of that environment.

We can control ourselves, right?

We can all agree upon this.

But what we can also control is what we think and how we choose to think about things.

We can control that, and that is the piece that we want to grow and we want to get better at.

If we are no longer the victim, then that means that we have to take responsibility.

And in order to take responsibility, we really are taking radical responsibility.

We're taking radical responsibility and deciding that I am going to be the person that makes this different for me and for everyone.

All right?

And therefore, I am going to be responsible for how I feel.

I am going to be responsible for what I do, and I am going to be responsible for what I think.

Now, what I think is creating how I feel.

And this is why it's so important and so powerful to look at the thoughts that we're thinking.

So if you think thoughts like they're an idiot, you are going to come to every interaction with a filter, let's call it right?

And this filter is how you're going to show up.

And other people are going to read the filter differently, but the filter is going to be there nonetheless.

You might be snappy, you might be short, you might be weird, you might be withdrawn, you might be extra joyful.

Whatever it is, you're weird.

And everybody around you is reading your weirdness and reacting off of your weird energy, okay?

And so if you want to not be weird, we need to stop carrying around resentment, frustration, all the things deciding that people need to be different than how they are.

So a lot of times people will say to me, yes, well, I guess it is what it is.

And I'm like, only if you say that in a way that has no emotional weight.

Otherwise it has such heavy emotional weight, because it's like, it is how it is.

I guess she's just a bitch.

You know what I mean?

Like, that's how we're going to be approaching it.

We don't want to approach it that way.

We want to approach it from the standpoint of there are reasons why you show up the way you show up.

And if I believed you were doing the best you could, it allows me to understand how that could be true for you.

So maybe you show up and you're not kind, and maybe you show up and you make some really disparaging comments about me or my kids or, you know, something to that effect.

Right?

Maybe you do that.

But if I think you're doing the best you can, then I can start to understand that this is coming from a place in you where you don't love yourself.

You have been taught a way of being here that actually really doesn't serve you, and that's unfortunate for you.

And I can understand where that is coming from.

Now, that doesn't make it okay.

It doesn't make it, oh, I'm just going to let that happen.

It's just I don't want to be internalizing that dynamic.

I don't want to be internalizing that conversation.

It allows me to think differently about it.

Because a lot of times people will say to me, well, Amanda, but what do I say in that scenario?

And I don't know what you should say in that scenario.

But I do know that if you think that person is an idiot or being purposefully harmful or is an asshole or any version of that, that you are going to have a hard time coming up with a response that isn't going to be inflammatory for you.

Or for them versus if you decide they are doing their best, it's okay that it's not good enough for you, that you don't want to be a part of that, that that's not something that you feel supported by.

But we want to understand like this is their best and can I let that be enough for them and do I need to internalize that?

If that's their best and that's not something I need to fix or change for you, that's something you'll figure out all on your own, then I can step back into my own lane and I can worry about how I'm thinking, how I'm feeling, what I'm going to do moving forward.

So if I'm feeling insecure in that moment, I'm.

I need to fix my own insecurity, right?

I need to figure out how to not feel insecure around X person.

What do I need to think about myself?

What do I need to believe about myself?

How do I need to shift my self belief, my self concepts so that when that person shows up in that way it's not affecting me because it's got everything to do with them and nothing to do with me.

This is what we're really talking about.

So they're not an idiot.

But then we also have to understand that we're also not an idiot.

So where I see this going wrong for so many of my clients is that they will come to me and say, well, I'm doing this and they're saying I'm doing that and I'm doing this and I'm doing that and I can't seem to figure this out and I'm a terrible person and blah blah, blah.

And that is where they end up.

And that is putting you in a position where you feel so much overwhelm.

That is putting you in a situation where you are trying to perpetually fix who and how you are.

And when doing that, what happens?

Well, you feel a lot less confidence, right?

You feel a lot more insecurity.

It starts to eat away at you like acid.

And so then you are more judgmental of you and inevitably you will be more judgmental of everyone around you.

So you deciding that you're an idiot also doesn't work.

I want to pull the judgment away from all of this.

They're not an idiot, you're not an idiot.

Nobody is an idiot.

They're not stupid, you're not stupid.

Nobody's stupid.

This isn't about being right or being wrong.

This is about having an impact.

This is about moving forward.

This is about creating a new scenario, creating a new way of being, a new way of interacting.

The way that you've been doing it has been creating the results that you have right now.

So if you keep doing more of it, it will just create more of it.

What I'm talking about is creating something very different.

So really looking at how do I impact this ecosystem and where do I want to come in and change it, and knowing that there's only certain pieces that I can change, I can change my attitude, right?

And I can change my thoughts.

These are things I can do.

And I can also take responsibility for my own emotions.

So if somebody says something triggering to me, I have to understand that's my trigger.

So, for instance, when I was with my family this past weekend, there was a lot of discussion about weight.

Not my weight.

Nobody talked about my weight in any way, shape, or form.

But we talked about my dog's weight.

We talked about all of their weight.

We talked about how they feel fat, how they are fat, how they're losing the fat, et cetera, et cetera.

It went on.

It happened in many different conversations.

It happened often.

And for me, it was very triggering because this is work that I have been working on for a long time of not having those kinds of conversations in my life.

These are not conversations I like to participate in.

They are talking about things that I literally don't agree with.

They are framing things in such a way that I think are toxic and that are problematic.

But if I wasn't triggered by it, I would be able to just go through that experience and be like, huh, this conversation's definitely not for me.

And I would just be able to either say that or exit the conversation.

It wouldn't have any emotional weight.

But because.

Because it was triggering, it had a lot of emotional weight.

And what is so fascinating about that is having the ability to notice that and then go deal with your own emotions.

Go and allow and process and understand that it's not their job to make you more emotionally comfortable.

Okay?

And that's a pep talk that I had to have with myself.

Now I couldn't even have it in the moment.

I had to have it later.

I had it when I got home, which is not a problem.

I think, for a lot of us.

What we think is that if I can't get it right in the moment, that there's no value in the reflection.

And that is just not the truth.

Too many of you are believing that because it happened, the ship has sailed, and it's Over.

That's not true.

There is so much benefit in rehashing something in your own brain or with help with a coach and letting them help you reframe it so that you can start really approaching it differently the more that you hear, oh, those are my emotions that I needed to take care of, and this is how I can do that in a healthy and strong way.

And, oh, this is my thoughts about this and this is the way that I need to change it.

Right?

Like in this scenario, just noticing, oh, that had so much more emotional weight when we were talking about that, which is what made it so difficult for me.

So I had to go deal with the emotion piece so that then I could really look at and go, okay, I don't agree, but it's not a problem and they are doing their best and I'm doing my best.

And nobody is an idiot and nobody is stupid and nobody is purposefully creating harm here.

Now, I know that it can sound like maybe then what I'm saying is we don't stand up for ourselves.

We don't advocate for what we need.

I'm not saying that.

I am saying that when you are around a group of people like your extended family, that changing what they think and believe could be very challenging.

Okay, you can stand up and talk about it.

And I think that there is a benefit in it.

How you do it is going to have a really big impact.

Because if you're having that conversation from a place of groundedness where you are certain that you understand your core beliefs and that it's okay for other people to disagree with you, even your family, the way that conversation is going to go is just going to be vastly different from if you come in hot and triggered because they've touched on something that has created emotion for you that brings up your upbring and the next thing you know, you want to explode.

And what I've learned is that when we can start reflecting on these things after the fact, it makes the next time easier.

Because when this happens again, you have more context.

But when we go back to what I was originally talking about, we just want to look at Nobody's an idiot, not even you, right?

So they're not idiots.

They have different viewpoints, they have different ideas about things.

They have different ways that they approach things.

We don't need to judge that.

We could be curious.

I wonder where that comes from for them.

I wonder why they believe that.

Why is that so ingrained in him or her.

How could I have empathy and compassion for that?

One of the things that I told myself this past weekend that I thought was very, very effective was, how can I be kind?

How can I be kind even when I'm triggered?

How can I be kind even when I'm feeling a lot of negative emotion?

How can I be now, did I succeed at that?

100%, No.

And I don't expect that you will either, because the point is not to be perfect.

The point is to come at these situations and really look at how could I be softer?

How could I handle this in a way that supports what I want?

How can I handle this in a way that supports what I need?

Learning how to take radical responsibility while believing something completely different about the people that are surrounding you can completely change your entire life.

It will create the peace you've always been looking for.

It will create the inner peace that you are searching for.

It will decrease your anxiety a hundred percent.

It will allow you to have relationships with people that are quote, unquote difficult.

It will give you the opportunity to not wall off from everybody and start really starting to just engage in a way that works for you.

Now, I'm not talking about abuse or harm here.

If somebody is being abusive, if somebody is purposefully saying words that are mean and cutting you down, we need to boundary up there.

We need to pull out of that situation.

This is not what I'm talking about.

But when it comes to the comings and goings and all the things that people are doing on the road, in your family, in your friendships, softening, creating a place where you can bring kindness, understanding that they're not an idiot, that you're not an idiot, that we all are doing our best.

These types of thoughts give you access to a whole different line of communication, a whole different way of being, and it will do nothing but make your life better.

All right, my friends, if this is something that speaks to you, as always, I want you to know you can follow this podcast if you haven't already.

That way you get all the episodes.

If you would like to hear more from me, you can come over to Instagram to theamandahess.

You can also sign up for a free discovery call.

If you go to amandahest Ca Bookacall, we can talk about how coaching could really support you.

And it's a conversation that I think everyone should have.

But at the end of the day, it's gonna give you the ability to discover where you also can be empowered.

All right, my friends, have a beautiful day.

I'll talk to you next time.

Bye.

Thanks so much for listening today.

If this podcast is helping you, please follow wherever you listen and consider leaving a review.

It truly helps this community grow and allows me to support more women like you.

I'm excited to see you back here next week with a brand new episode.

Until then, take care friend.