When we become critical and judgmental toward others, we do this because we are projecting our inner attitudes about ourselves that we do not want to face onto other people. Everyone will do this. It is not healthy. It causes us to have resentments toward others that imprison us. Have you ever been frustrated with someone else and then realized that what they are saying or doing reminds you of something about yourself that you have not wanted to admit?

I have known this for a long time but the other day I realized that it was something that I had not wanted to admit about myself. I found myself attending a funeral. As the young priest came out to say the funeral mass I begin to feel anger toward him, though I had never met him before or ever heard him speak. It was my own feelings about myself that I had never quite wanted to face that I had projected upon this young dedicated priest. Many years ago, I had been a priest. I always thought I had been a good priest, but I decided to leave the priesthood, received a dispensation, and got married a few years later to my wonderful wife, who died last year from cancer after we had been married for 50 years. But last week I became deeply aware of how I had projected my inner self onto this priest. It was because I had never admitted that I had wanted everyone to think I was special and holy in those days and those feelings were still with me, which I didn’t want to admit totally. It had nothing to do with this young priest. It had everything to do with me. Intellectually, I had some awareness of this, but on this particular day I became emotionally aware of it. It painfully and humbly brought me into a deeper awareness of myself.

Everyone does this at times. When we are afraid to admit something about ourselves, we will push this feeling onto other people with a judgmental attitude that we have no way, evidence or even information to justify.

When I could painfully admit this to myself, I experienced a freedom within myself that I had never realized could happen. As life goes on, these awarenesses will surface and when honestly admitted and accepted, a deeper spiritual and emotional freedom will surface and a whole new and positive attitude will surface. We have no right to judge and condemn other people, but we all do this. When we do this, we really lose inner freedom and peace. People who embrace judgments and criticisms of other people will lose inner freedom and inner peace.

The more someone else upsets me by simply being in their presence, the more there is something about myself that I am feeling about myself that I really don’t want to admit or accept about myself. As I realize this, I experience a humility and sorrow that I so often would not want to admit about myself. This profound realization and emotional acceptance last week by me about myself has been so profoundly helpful. I realize more and more that when I become condemning or judgmental in my inner attitude about others, I am stopping myself from having inner emotional and spiritual joy and freedom.

I have no right to be condemning and judgmental toward others. Whatever stops me from being kind and loving toward others is caused by me not other people. Projecting my inner critical self onto other people is never a good choice. But looking for goodness in others is always a good choice.

I am so grateful for this profound experience that happened to me last Thursday. I have discovered a part of me that needed to be admitted and accepted so that my life can bring me into an emotional and spiritual freedom and joy that I could easily have kept blocked from myself. The admission of my own projections and the awareness of this has been a profound journey into experiencing God. It has been a gift and a deeper awareness of how to live humbly and honestly.

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