Judging yourself for being judgemental?

If you want to stop being judgemental, a nice first step is to stop judging the part of you that judges stuff.

Being judgemental in itself isn’t bad. It’s part of being discerning and knowing what we want, knowing what we’ll tolerate, knowing our boundaries.

We’re human, we judge stuff all the time. I like this. I don’t like this. This is worthy of my time and attention. This is not worthy of my time and attention. I like how that looks. I think this should be different. I think they should be doing things differently. That’s not how I would do things. My way is better than their way. I am better than they are.

To use myself as an example - I judge people in all these ways every day. Even the last - there’s a part of me who totally thinks I’m better than everyone, for whatever reason. And that judgey part of me gets a voice in my internal landscape, but it doesn’t get to run the show. Cool, a part of me thinks it’s better than everyone. That’s fine - that part of me gets to feel however it wants to feel about the world and everyone in it.

My judgey voice often judges things in ways the rest of me doesn’t even agree with, so it makes sense to me to take what it says with a grain of salt. Noticing that I judge stuff in ways I don’t necessarily even believe also means the part of me that’s judgemental as hell gets no say in my interactions with the world - that would lead to me getting around as a massively entitled, unbearably opinionated pain in the ass, and would mean I had no friends. And I quite like having friends.

Instead, as I’ve gotten further along my own life journey, I’ve stopped judging myself for having a judgey voice, and even started enjoying my own outlandish and ridiculous judgements. Some of them are hilarious, and if I’m not sitting here feeling bad and guilty about having such horrible thoughts and making myself seven shades of wrong for thoughts I don’t control, instead I can appreciate the complete absurdity of thinking I know better than anyone.

So if you’re judging yourself for being judgemental, here’s an invitation to stop taking your judgements so seriously. Part of you feels a way about a thing - and that’s okay. Doesn’t have to mean anything about you, or about the thing you’re judging. Doesn’t mean you have to do anything with that thought, though you may choose to.

That’s the secret to becoming more accepting of yourself and of the rest of the world. Not by getting rid of judgement, but just by letting your internal judge do its judgey thing, and taking what it says with as many grains of salt as you need.

I have space for new clients at the moment - on Zoom or in person. Sometimes finding your way out of judgement soup (or whatever other kind of challenge soup you’re in right now) is easier with someone to help you. Maybe I could be that help - if that sounds good send me a message and let’s talk :)