Judgement and The Great Divide

The speaker discusses the topic of judgment and division in society. She shares a personal experience of witnessing two women mocking and judging others at a grocery store. She reflects on how judgment and criticism are still prevalent in society despite being in the year 2022. The speaker also talks about the impact of the pandemic on human behavior and how the brain is programmed to assimilate and process information. She emphasizes the importance of kindness and challenges the divisive mindset that exists. The speaker shares her observations on societal divisions based on race, income, and beliefs. She reflects on her own experiences growing up in a racially divided community and how she chose to reject racism. The speaker also discusses her professional life and how success and influence can change people's attitudes towards her. She questions the normalization of harmful behavior and the power of the media in shaping narratives. The speaker encourages individuals to take ownership Hi there, my name is Deanna Byrne. Welcome to Pivot to Passion. Today I want to talk about judgment. There's so much of it happening. Yesterday I was standing in the lineup at a grocery store, and this is really what triggered my thought process for today's podcast. At the end of the checkout were two white women standing there mocking people, whispering, pointing, laughing at people who possibly didn't quite look or dress the same way they did. I stood there for a moment in disbelief because I thought to myself This is 2022. How are we still here? How are we still in a world where judgment and criticism is still so incredibly profound? So I watched them for a moment and I realized who they were honing in on and I was quite upset by it and as I checked out and I was walking out of the grocery store, they were both standing there again whispering and talking to each other. And as I walked by I simply just looked at them and said, you realize you're no better than anybody else, right? And I just kept on walking. It wasn't that I wanted a confrontation or anything. It was simply put that sometimes people need to be put in their place because we must be reminded in a world full of so much hatred and divide, it takes absolutely nothing for us to be kind. And also the other thing that got me thinking was how much I've really paid attention the last couple of years throughout the pandemic looking at the human behavior, looking at the division, the hatred, the fear, the uncertainty, all of those paramount emotions that were so prevalent throughout the process and where that came from, where the narrative came from, where the message came from and understanding how the human brain works. We are programmed and I know program seems like an odd word, but the reality is that is exactly what is happening. Picture your brain as a computer microchip and it is assimilating data and it is processing data. And it is assimilating data and it is putting data that you need today in the forefront and tucking away all of the other stuff in the back library, easily accessible when you need it. And then as your brain continues to be bombarded with a specific message, whatever that message is, it could be related to the pandemic, it could be related to you, it could be related to a million scenarios. The reality is as that message is being bombarded to your brain, over time your brain creates that, it turns it into truth. It creates an absolute belief in your mind of what you are hearing. So then what happens is your subconscious mind creates habits, creates reactions, creates belief systems. Most times are limiting beliefs. And I am sure that you have heard that term limiting belief at some point in time. It is a widely used term in the coaching and neuro linguistic programming world. If you use a car accident as an example, and we have two different witnesses, and the police are interviewing the witnesses, and they are asking questions, most times the information that they receive can differ dramatically. Because your brain based on your experiences, your beliefs and your programming, sees the world differently through your lens than someone else sees their world differently through their lens. It doesn't make either individual wrong, it simply makes them unique and different. I would like to talk a little bit about my observations over the past couple of years. To paint a picture for you, because it is hard to do that when you are listening to a voice rather than somebody on a screen with a visual. I am a middle aged white lady who grew up in a poor neighborhood that was very racially divided. In those days we had blacks and whites and there was such a tremendous divide between those two people. And I could never understand it as a child, I never saw color, I never saw poverty, I never saw anything like that. As a child, as I get older, you start to see things differently. In the community that I grew up in, there were a lot, again, the have and have nots was another very strong divide, it was a fishing community. So, fishermen families were quite well off as were their children. And then there were the poorer families, like myself, who had very little. I was living in a single parent home with my mother doing everything she could to provide, pay the bills and put food on the table. It was a struggle. I didn't get the Levi's jeans and the cougar boots, I know I am dating myself here. But those were things that were huge and you would go to school and you would see them prancing around with all those in things. And you didn't have those. That sort of stuff molds you as a child. And it can motivate you as well as you are growing older into an adult. For me personally, I never wanted to lose. I always wanted to achieve my biggest dreams, to be the best I could be. To jump out of an airplane with a parachute full of silkworms hoping to guide their high achievers. That was always my mentality. And I know that mentality came from the culture and community around me growing up, absolutely, 100%. And as I grew into my adulthood and had a family and all of those wonderful things, and eventually I've always started different companies too. And you know what, you throw stuff at the wall and something works and something doesn't. And the biggest thing that I've pondered over the last couple of years is how people judge other people based on color, religion, social status, financial status, and now vaccine status. Never really thought I'd say those words but yet here we are. At one point in my adult life, I built an eight figure company, absolutely 100% at the top of my game. And I was in the 1% of the executive world in that industry, going neck and neck with many strong and powerful men. Literally was the poster girl of success, commitment, and perseverance. Let me tell you, people picked up the phone when I called. They returned my calls. They did whatever they had to do to achieve whatever I was asking. It was a whole other world. It was a completely different world. In 2019, I sold my business. A few short months later, my husband died and then we went into a global pandemic. I lost everything. The savings we had, the business we started, the future we had planned, it was all gone. And do you know what I noticed in that moment? Nobody returned your calls anymore. They look at you completely different when you are not that top executive that can possibly give them something that they need. I determined during my tenure in the corporate world that people are not your friends. For the most part, I'm not saying all of them, you do meet amazing people on your journey and you do become lifelong friends. A couple, a handful, not a whole lot. But they are there. So don't, I'm not trying to paint it as this big evil thing. That's not what it is. But for the most part, you trust few people. You watch your back all the time. You always understand there is somebody there to take you down. You are swimming with the sharks and you need to be aware every moment of every single day. Every word you say. Everything you put online. How you act in public. How you dress. How you do your hair. You are literally under a microscope because somebody is desperately waiting for you to fail. It's just the way of life in that world. When I got away from it and I started looking at who she was, I didn't ever really like that woman who she became during the corporate world. She was a ruthless, angry, motivated, ladder climbing woman who literally began to see human beings as collateral damage. It was shameful who I became. Absolutely shameful. People got hurt. I had very little conscience. Wow, it feels like a lifetime ago to even say those words. To clarify, I never deliberately went set out to hurt people. That was never in my nature. The unfortunate part of business is sometimes things can go awry that are completely out of your control. In my situation, that did happen and that's a whole other podcast series that I'm planning to roll out early 2023. But today, I want to stay on topic and that is really judgment and the divide that still sits within us. This year, I really noticed such a huge change in people. How the programming and the narrative from the previous couple of years had ingrained so deeply in their brains that they could no longer think for themselves. They had to wait for guidance to know exactly what they were doing that day. They waited patiently in their homes in absolute fear, waiting for someone to tell them what to do. And a very large part of the population lived like that. The narrative was so strong and ingrained in people that it became hard to breathe. There were the V's and the non-V's. The conspiracy theorists and the non-conspiracy theorists. I could go on and on and on. But there were two very strong camps with opinions and both of those camps were very strong in judging each other. This is known as the bandwagon effect. Again, a very common psychological term based on how the human brain and the human psyche work. Google it. It's quite interesting. The bandwagon effect was extremely prevalent in the landscape the last couple of years. And even today, people who know at the depth of their soul certain things weren't right, they are so strong in their conviction of their beliefs that they will not sway. They will continue to hold grounds, to maintain position, to not allow any weakness in their armor. So they will still continue to fight the fight, argue the argument which is really a non-argument. Hate thy neighbor, report thy neighbor, judge thy neighbor. We're still there. When the world began to open up, I really thought for a moment in my silly non-wisdom that we were going to get back to normal. That there was no way that such a short period of time could reprogram the thinking of such a mass amount of human beings. That programming the subconscious would take years and years. What a wake up call that was. The reality is, it did. The reality is that a large amount of the population had their subconscious mind so rewired, they don't even realize it's rewired. And that's terrifying to me. What has happened? We normalized letting people die alone. We normalized allowing the government to make mass decisions that may not be in the best interest long term for the people that voted them in. Their constituents, those people who they are in office to serve and protect. Friendships destroyed, families destroyed, marriages destroyed, communities destroyed. All because of the narrative. I'm not a conspiracy theorist and I'm not here to discuss that. I'm here to discuss how the brain works and judgment and divide. We were like that before the pandemic. Society was always racially motivated. They would always judge others based on their income levels, the color of their skin, their religion, their beliefs. There was always a level of judgment. Because as human beings, you're taught you're better or you're not. Sad really. Going back to me growing up, again, growing up in a very racially divided community, I had two options. I could become a racist or I could not. Simple. Simple as that. It doesn't have to be any more complicated than that. I can go with the flow or I can walk against the grain. I chose to walk against the grain. I chose to love people for who they are, for how they treat me. For no other reason other than that. But now, in 2022, my life has changed. People that once picked up the phone and took my calls, don't. Friends that I had in my life who were there simply because I had something to provide, aren't. You stop and you look around and you really analyze what you want your world to look like right now. The kind of people that you want in your world. The kind of world you want to leave your children. And you continue to be the voice to hopefully forge forward and force change. To hope that one podcast, one sentence, one video, allows one human being to change their mindset, to change their thinking. To allow people, hopefully, to discover it's easy to be kind. To step back and understand words hold energy and power. And when you gossip about someone, when you make fun of someone, when you choose to destroy someone's reputation, you are vibrating at an incredibly low frequency. Trying to harm another human being, however it is, is simply wrong. And we've normalized it over the last couple of years. At mass levels. Will we get back to where we were? It takes one person at a time. It takes one person to honor and realize that your behavior, your thought patterns, the way you've treated others, was not healthy, was not something that fits within a it takes a village mentality. That you as an individual human being have the power to change your thinking. And that there are people out there that can help you do that if you so choose to do that. There are people that can help reframe your thoughts and your limiting beliefs. To help you step into your own power and your own light. And to bring forth to not only yourself and your family but your community and the world as a whole, goodness, kindness, soulfulness. There are so many people out there fighting for kindness. Fighting for inclusion. Fighting for fairness. Fighting to take away the divide. Fighting for equality. So many people who are masked, hidden, and silenced by the media. By the population. The media has always been a very powerful tool in getting a narrative out to the public. Never in my lifetime have I seen such a message so sent out at crazy levels worldwide. How one narrative had so much power. Absolutely crazy. Still hard to fathom really. But we can look at it two ways. We can choose to allow it to knock us down. To take away the wind beneath our wings. Or we can choose to continue to put one foot in front of the other knowing that some days are going to be a lot harder than others. Understanding that the people that are being brought into your life in these moments of change and shift are there for a reason. They are there to help hold each other up. To continue to move forward. To continue to fight for a world that we can be proud of for future generations. We can choose to hold our judgment. We can choose to not be racist. We can choose to simply be a good human being. That choice and that ownership lies 100% within your own individual power. Stop being a victim. Start being a powerful warrior that you are. Take your power back. Change your mindset. And just be good. Thank you so much for joining me for today's podcast. Hope you got something from it. And as always, if there is a topic that you would love me to cover, pop me an email info at DeannaByrne.com. And I would be happy to take that on. Enjoy your day beautiful people. It is wonderful to be alive. Take care.