05/21/2025
My family and I went out to a restaurant and we had sat down, ordered, and were waiting for our food to come out. In the few minutes between I had snagged my phone to try to catch up on a few messages, Will was catching up on a few things on his, and Liam was enjoying his kid’s page and people watching very happily. As we were sitting there, someone walked by on their way out the door and muttered, “Get off the phones. You have a kid.”
My gut instinct was guilt and embarrassment that I dare to ignore my kiddo in a public setting and create the perception that my phone was more important to me than him; but as I continued to sit and process through it, I worked my way through a few of these thoughts that I wanted to share.
First, I think many of us are way to quick to judge what we think others are doing and I firmly believe that what we think and say about others says more about ourselves than anything else. When I have a judgmental thought, I try to pause and find in myself what caused that thought. Usually when we dig down far enough, it comes from an insecurity or negative judgment about ourselves that we then try to mask and pass off onto someone else by creating a sense of superiority of ourselves.
Adding onto that thought, in our haste to judge others in a screenshot of a moment in time, whether we see it in person or online, we miss the entire context of what is actually happening in the big picture. That man had no idea that moment was the first time that day I had a chance to respond to messages because, guess what, I was playing with and watching over my kiddo in places where he could easily have gotten hurt. He didn’t know that I am so unattached to my phone I regularly leave and lose it places and am very skilled at implementing the lost mode. Ask me how stressful it was losing it in Orlando coming from the airport while I was in the middle of trying to get a horse sold. He didn’t know the fact is that my phone lives at least 75% of the time on do not disturb, and I regularly get behind on anything associated with tech because I’d much rather spend my time living in the moment. I regularly sit down to my phone when I have the chance, with the number of people trying to reach me in double digits. Sometimes, I can get through it all, and sometimes I can’t and the messages stack up for another time because my life happens off technology. We don’t know the big picture of what is going on in the life of those around us, and when we pass judgment on others we just isolate ourselves from truth, collaboration, and connection with others.
The next thought I had along the way, is while yes, we need to not be oblivious to our life around us and not live attached to devices that isolate us from the world around us and those we love the most; at the same time we can also go to the other extreme. We do not need to be the sole source of entertainment, connection, or anything else for anyone person or creature. Our children and our animals should learn to entertain, control, and self sooth themselves. Yes, they will need more help in certain times and circumstances, and the newer that experience is and the less developed they are, the more they are going to need help. However, always being the everything for any living being is not sustainable for the one we are trying to help, or ourselves. It is our job to teach those in our care how to be responsible and stable within themselves and to communicate their needs.
Liam knows and is very comfortable telling me if I’m ignoring him and he’s trying to talk to me, or if he thinks I’m being mean, or if I’m frustrating him. My goal when working with and training the horses is for them to also develop a sense of safety in expressing themselves. Knowing they can communicate and I won’t get angry at them but will hold myself accountable. I still have boundaries for both horses and humans on what is an acceptable form of communication, i.e. not yelling at or directing aggression towards me; but I look for that feedback because that IS what connection is about.
Connection is not being someone’s everything. That’s codependency. Connection is two separate and balanced beings making the choice to come together and collaborate with a sense of safety that the communication isn’t going to be weaponized against each other.
So as I worked through my meandering thoughts and understood where I am, the guilt and embarrassment I felt for a moment disappeared and I sent out a well wish into the universe to the fellow who made a passing judgment that actually helped me to see another piece of this life I love to live and thanked him for opening my thoughts to a lesson, just not the one he expressed I needed.
