The lesson that literally changed my life!

In January of 2020, I started on a journey to become a life and health coach. This was a push that stemmed from several different things that had occurred in the last two years, but ultimately, I realized I needed to find a new way to make a difference.

I am getting certified through the Health Coach Institute, and during one of my online classes, my coach and teacher said:

The CURE for Judgement is CURIOUSITY!!

The point from a coaching standpoint is that it does not matter what our clients are telling us, we are not there to judge, we have no right to judge, and we truly don’t understand the clients until we begin to ask the questions, with an open, non-judgmental curiosity. Only then can we begin to ask the right questions and provide clients with what they need.

However, for me, this quote changed everything!!!! I have been a cop for 15 years, and in the past, I, like most cops, would jump to the defensive side whenever cops were scrutinized. I said the same things I am hearing now… “yes, there are bad cops, but we’re not all like that”. “Nobody hates a bad cop more than a good cop”. I’m sure I even said things like “all lives matter”, a thought I hate to admit I probably had. It took this simple lesson “the cure for judgement is curiosity” and a friends’ questions about where I truly stood, that helped me make sense out of all this.

Here is what I realized… when someone says, “black lives matter”, they are not saying that my life doesn’t matter, or that all lives don’t matter… they are saying that until black lives matter, all lives can’t matter. The part I think people find hard, is to acknowledge that black lives haven’t mattered for decades. It makes us uncomfortable, and therefore, we don’t want to think about it. Instead, we justify and make excuses and say things like “all lives matter” because that makes us tolerant and realistic. Here’s the thing though… when you say, “all lives matter” in response to “black lives matter”, you negate black folks whole experience. A way that made sense to me was asking how I would feel if I said, “my friend died today”, and someone said, “we all die”. While that is in fact true, it is belittling my feeling and experience about my friend who died. So, when we respond with “all lives matter” in response to “black lives matter”, we are not listening with curiosity and trying to understand someone else’s experience. In order for us to be a part of any real change, we have to acknowledge history, and that we all have different experiences. Two people can grow up in the same neighborhood, go to the same school, but they will likely have very different experiences. When we meet difference with curiosity, we can learn, grow and build bridges in order to connect those differences. So… the cure for judgement is CURIOSITY!! That for me, has made all the difference!