Dear R,
For the past couple of years, I have been very inauthentic with you. A couple of years ago on your Facebook page, I saw some posts that you made, and I made a judgment about you that I have held on to ever since.
I decided in that moment that you were an angry, judgmental misogynist who teaches men how to manipulate women instead of love them.
Wow, ouch.
Is it any wonder that ever since then I have been creating all kinds of evidence to support this view of you? And the more you posted hateful messages about me here and on other websites, the more I got to do my favorite thing: be right about my judgment.
I’ve been a total hypocrite because I teach people to let go of their judgments and I tell them, “if you let the judgment go, he will change.”
All the while, did I practice what I preached and let go of my judgment of you? Nope. I even pretended not to be judging you while I was still judging you. And you lived up to my judgments, time and time again.
Talk about a hamster wheel.
R, I am sorry. I have been smug, self-righteous, angry, judgmental, condescending, and hypocritical in all of my interactions with you. Even in this moment, there is a part of me that wants to be “right” about you and prove to myself that you are a bad person who hurts people.
But the truth is, I don’t really know anything about you. I don’t know anything about your method. I haven’t bothered to learn anything about it. I’ve never met you. I’ve never talked to you. Everything I think I “know” about you is just my own prejudgments, which are supported by nothing except all the evidence I built up around those prejudgments.
I have not been seeing your beautiful intentions. I have not been appreciating how much passion you must have for your work to be doing it as long as you have. I’m sure you have family and friends you love, and you are probably very loving with them. I bet you’ve already done something today that touched someone’s life and made it better. I have not been appreciating the part of you that wants to keep the world safe. I have not been appreciating the part of you that puts so much care into creating websites and coaching programs. I’ve just been hating you, and not loving you at all.
I apologize, R. It doesn’t matter if I refrained from attacking you publicly most of the time. I’ve been attacking you in my mind. I’m not “the better person” in this interaction. I’ve betrayed my own deepest values by judging you, and I’m sorry for that. I feel sad that we’ve both missed out on an opportunity to create a deeper connection and a happier world.
Sincerely,
Erika