What if the very people we fear becoming… are the ones still teaching us how to love?

In a piggyback to my last post—about what’s been coming up for me lately—I wanted to share a deeper layer that’s been revealing itself.

I realized that so much of my life has been unconsciously shaped by the desire not to be like “them.”

Not one specific group—just anyone I silently judge for being shallow, performative, unaware, or trapped in the 3D. Anyone I’ve “othered” in my mind so I could feel safer in who I am. So I could prove, through striving or depth or service, that I’m nothing like them.

But here’s what I’m seeing now:

This judgment, this silent superiority—it doesn’t protect us. It keeps our hearts closed.

It’s born of fear. A fear that if we soften toward those we judge, we might become them. That if we don’t push them away, we’ll slide into unconsciousness ourselves.

But the truth is, the more we resist these traits in others, the more we stay bound to them—because we’re still orienting around them. Still afraid of them. Still subtly defined by them.

We don’t become free by judging what we fear.

We become free by loving what we once thought we had to reject.

And that doesn’t mean excusing harmful behavior or pretending we’re all the same—it means trusting that compassion doesn’t make us weak, it makes us clear. And from that clarity, we can choose alignment without separation. We can discern without dehumanizing.

What we see playing out on the world stage—like in Israel and Palestine—is this exact pattern, amplified. The fear of becoming “like them” becomes justification for unspeakable violence. And yet, in smaller, subtler ways, many of us feed that same energy every day.

So I’m asking myself, over and over:

Where is my heart still closed in the name of discernment?

Where am I resisting a part of the world—or a part of myself—because I’ve judged it unworthy of love?

Because maybe, just maybe… the very people I fear becoming are the ones still teaching me how.