everyone is on a journey...

...and it'd be good for us all to remember that.

Myself included.

I am so guilty of judging others and I trying my hardest not to anymore. It's tough. I see people and thoughts come in to my head and lets face it, it's usually about people's appearances. But I know, in my heart, I need to stop. I wouldn't want someone to do that to me - though I am sure plenty of people have.

Well, something has been happening in my consciousness, especially since I have been going down my path. Everyone does have a struggle. Everyone is somewhere they might not want to be, might not have expected to be, or might not be able to save themselves from.

For a while I've been trying to consciously change my thinking. When I see people that are overweight I wonder if they have an endocrine disorder like I do. When I see someone with acne I wonder if they've tried certain products. When I see homeless people I wonder what path they went down to get where they are - did they lack family support, drugs? I'm trying really hard to describe people by the clothes they were wearing of their hair color or their personalities when explaining a situation to others.

I want to talk, and often do, about what I am going through. It is my hope that by doing that maybe I'll be able to help someone. That's one of the ways my change started, meeting K. Talking about my troubles with my friends led to me finding the right doctors and eventual diagnosis.

This last weekend I met someone who really got me thinking about thinking. I was at a country fest and some friends of our friends had an RV that we ventured down too. This lovely woman had some visible scars on her chest that could have been from a multitude of things. She also had a little service dog. Eventually we got to talking and I asked her what her service dog was for and she went to on explain about multiple car accident's she'd been in and the degenerative arthritis that runs in her family. I shared with her a bit of my history with arthritis and some of the PCOS. We started talking about "invisible illnesses" and how it can be to live with one. She has electrodes inside her body to help manage her back pain because it is so bad she cannot down anything (sit or stand) for longer than 30 minutes in the same place. You'd never know that by her friendly disposition. She was telling me how she often gets weird looks when she is using a motorized cart at a store or getting in or out of her car in a handicapped spot. If you looked at her, she doesn't LOOK hurt. But she is.

It really made me think about how I really want to be as non-judgemental as I can. It takes all types of people to make the word go round. It takes overweight people and hairy people and loud people and people of every color. It takes control freaks and stoners and teachers and athletes. My world isn't going to drastically change (or likely not even be affected) by the way others look or act - especially not people I am passing on the street.

The hardest part for me is when I am around others who constantly judge. Part of me wants to agree but that part that does is getting smaller and smaller. I've started to say things to try to make my people think about what they are saying. Yes - that person is overweight - let's think about how they got there. Maybe they just had a baby? Maybe they have a disorder they don't know about? Maybe they got pregnant at 15, had a baby, and worked at McDonald's to support themselves and their food was free and they gained weight because all they ate at McDonald's? DOES IT REALLY MATTER?!?! It shouldn't but for some it does and for that, I am trying to change myself and others around me.

It is my hope that when people see me they don't judge me by my big breasts or my simple hair or my size or my acne or my overbite. I know they do but I hope they don't.

Fingers crossed {that I can be judged by who I am not what I look like}.