160. “Opt out” of Judgment

The Mindful Healers Podcast with Dr. Jessie Mahoney and Dr. Ni-Cheng Liang

Judgment of ourselves and others causes a lot of unnecessary pain, shame, blame and guilt.

Judgment gets in the way of learning, growth, performance, productivity, connection, and peace.

Most of us, especially physicians, move through the world judging.

Once you notice and acknowledge your "judgment habit" you can make a choice.

The liberation begins with noticing.

Notice where you judge yourself and others and try "opting out."

What is Needed to Move Beyond Judgment

• Noticing

• Kindness

• Self compassion and compassion

• Acceptance

• Curiosity

• Love

• A Commitment to:

• • change

  • a better way

  • energy conservation

  • trust

How many times a day do you judge yourself ?

Do you think you are a problem or to blame?

Do you think you don’t measure up?

Do you use criticism and judgment to push yourself to do more?

Do you judge others?

What would it be like if you opted out of judgment?

What would it be like if you showed up with hands wide open? Curious? Asking I wonder why? How Interesting or I don't know why.

Maitri is benevolent kindness and unconditional friendliness.

What if you dropped your hypervigilance and showed up in the world with maitri instead.

Judgment is rampant in medicine

Medical culture (and society) teaches us constant hypervigilance and judgment about our performance is necessary to make sure we are measuring up.

Patient satisfaction scores, HEDIS measures, chart completion and peer review are all also used as a way to judge us as good doctors.

We judge patient complaints, diagnosis, compliance, post-op recovery time and many other things.

Our feedback and evaluation sessions, peer review, and M&M are full of judgment and blame.

What if we brought caring, Maitri, love of each other, our patients and the practice of medicine to the conversation.

What if we honored growth and learning?

What if we gave strength-based feedback in medicine?

What if we set an intention for our evaluations -specifically how we hope learners and colleagues would feel after?

What if our intentions were that they felt believed in, inspired, and hopeful?

What would happen if we stopped judging our colleagues and med students and instead partnered with them as teammates?

What if the focus in medicine was on “caring” well- for ourselves and others?

What if peer review were about learning, growing and evolving rather than blaming- finding the systemic or human fault and issuing scores= form of judgment

Are you willing to stop judging your colleagues and learners?

What would it be like if you opted out of judgment in patient care?

What would it be like if you showed up with hands wide open?

Coach with Jessie to learn how to opt out of judgment yourself and/or arrange a retreat or coaching for your team to change the culture at your work into a truly caring culture. https://www.jessiemahoneymd.com/team-coaching-retreats

Join one of Jessie’s retreats as an individual to do this work in nature while caring for yourself and nourishing yourself. www.jessiemahoneymd.com/retreats

Hire Jessie to speak to share some of these messages in an effective way with your leadership and teams. www.jessiemahoneymd.com/speaking

If you want to develop a mindfulness practice or a speaker for your group, reach out to Dr. Liang www.awakenbreath.org

*Nothing in this episode should be considered medical advice.