I vow not to gossip about others’ faults, but to be understanding and sympathetic.
In general, we make things grow when we focus our attention on them. So if we decide to focus on mistakes, we will make them grow. For example, if we see that someone is noisy and complain about it, we will call that person loud. Next, we and all people who perceive that person as loud will unconsciously expect that person to behave that way because otherwise it would not fit the cognitive schema. This puts pressure on that person to conform to this more or less conscious expectation.
When we fill people with our bad energy, we poison them. Let’s go back to our example. Someone may not think about a person who is loud. But if we keep repeating that, the person may internalize that belief and start using it as their own judgment.
Most of the time we are irritated by our own things that we see in others. We can see and recognize them because we have them ourselves. If we did not have them, we would not be able to recognize them. We feel better when we prove that another person is loud. This makes us feel less loud. In this way, we try to get rid of unpleasant feelings. In psychology, this is called projection, and it is a defense mechanism.
There is another defense mechanism, projective identification. It occurs when we unconsciously convince someone to act in a certain way. To stay with our example: We might get someone to be loud and then complain about it. I know it sounds incredible, but it is possible and very common. We can make someone angry. People who are upset and irritated tend to get louder. So it’s easily doable. There is no magic required.
We are all on the path – just trying our best. It’s better to support the kindness of others and our own kindness to build up our resources. Judging is not helpful.
However, sometimes we need to speak our mind. If someone does something harmful, we need to check with others to see if they see it. Sometimes we need to consult on how to deal with it. The main difference is whether we are guided by concern or anger.
