Do you ever catch yourself running a repeating loop of judgmental self-talk?
Everyone I’ve ever met has some sort of self-bludgeoning tape or disk that gets set on repeat, especially when life gets stressful. It’s worse than getting a bad song stuck in your head! Most people just want to know how they can get it to shut off.
Thankfully, once you begin to own your self-judgment, freedom is just around the corner.
In previous blogs, I’ve described judgment as a noun, as a mass of energy that has been placed into imaginary bags on a double-sided scale of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ within your consciousness. Today, let’s take a look at the process of how you acquired your bags of judgment. Judging as a verb is an action.
There are different ways to judge: Judging yourself, judging other people, judging your circumstances and judging things and situations outside of yourself. Judging yourself directly creates ‘self-judgment’; judging other people, places or things creates ‘projections of judgment’.
In this blog, we’ll focus on the energetic ‘stuff’ of self-judgment, which is what happens when you judge yourself consciously.
Self-judgment typically begins with an ‘I’ statement, such as ‘I am so stupid’. Other times you will hear it in your mind as if it comes from a parent, teacher or other critical party, ‘You are so stupid’. Whether it begins with ‘I’ or ‘you’, it is very clear that it is directed inward, toward yourself.
Self-judgment is usually pretty easy to identify, once you begin to admit that you do it constantly. Before I became aware of my self-judgment, I had a running stream of judgment playing like background music inside my head every waking moment; it was like listening to an old familiar recording. I had a few different tapes that could be played, depending upon the given situation.
My ‘stupid’ track went something like, “I am so stupid! Why did I just do that?! Why didn’t I do that differently? I should have known better. I am so dumb. I am pathetic. I’m such a loser! If I had a brain I’d blow up. I cannot believe I did that. I am such an idiot! I’ll never learn. Why do I even bother? I am hopeless.” And so on.
In addition to ‘stupid’, there was one for ‘blame’, one for ‘victimization’, one for ‘failure’ and several other equally disempowering scenarios. Each tape I played in my head would create an endless loop; so if I was playing, “I am so stupid”, I might hear that loop several dozens of times within a very short period of time.
What kind of self-judgments do you have? Do you ever play any old recordings that repeat themselves frequently or occasionally in your own mind? If so, list the topics of your recurring sound tracks.
Whatever the themes of your self-judgment, it is all Ok. Remember that having judgment is the normal and natural byproduct of growing up in the fear-based right/wrong duality where everything is seen as either ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Remind yourself that by consciously bringing your judgments to your attention, you are giving yourself access to intervene and apply compassion, a powerful healing tool towards your freedom.
Own your self-judgment. Listen to your self-talk diligently and acknowledge any time you hear an old, familiar track begin to play. By recognizing the self-judgments that you’ve stored in your consciousness you’ll be well on your way towards achieving internal peace. Say, “I now own my self-judgment fully.”
Many Blessings of Joy and Vibrant Freedom
Action Step ~ Own your self-judgments.
Declaration: “I now own and accept my self-judgment fully. I’m willing to look deeply at myself and identify all of the judgments I’ve been holding against myself. Freedom from self-judgment is just around the corner.”