Self-judgement is a method I have used to get away from feeling emotion.

I have engaged in self-judgement to a fierce degree. Turning to this method to shutdown and control certain emotion I believe is ‘too hard to feel’, ‘too painful’, ‘unpleasant’.

Self judgement felt familiar, it was a preferred state over my raw emotional expression.

Sadly whatever I judged in myself I also judged in others. For a long time I told myself otherwise but it is a fact: when I judge me, I judge others too.

Judgement of myself, especially in regards to personality, nature and the beautiful parts God made, automatically affects and judges the whole soul which causes me to become disconnected from myself and creates distance between me and my soul(mate).

Self-judgement was a method I used to control my feelings and justify/explain to myself the pain that had happened to me in my life (especially as a child). I believed that self-judgement somehow would keep the pain away and I wouldn’t have to feel it. Futile, but preferred.

Judgement does not keep pain at bay. Pain must be felt and experienced to be released.

I was ill earlier this year. In brief I manifested an illness as I didn’t want to speak up and be truthful about how unloved I felt. I wanted others to see the pain I was in and stop treating me badly. My resistance (anger) made me sick.

During the illness I was very judgemental of myself which didn’t help much. My friends gave me some feedback (when I was open enough to hear it) and it really hit me how much I wanted (it was a compulsion in me) to judge myself, how I had made it a method to ‘protect’ myself and keep particular pains at arms length.

The feedback included suggestions:

• To feel the reason why I wanted to judge myself
• To find out what I believed the judgement gave me
• Reflect on why I used the method, my ‘reasons’
• To not think too much about it, but rather feel about the ‘why’ emotionally (this one was the most important).

I experimented with emotionally feeling my reasons for why I judged, and an interesting thing happened. I felt less worried, I was happier, I could see more of my issues but didn’t feel they were bad, terrible, or the end if the world. I found other methods I used to avoid emotion e.g. getting a bit hysterical, laughing when things are seriously uncomfortably (another response to explore).

The best part was that I became more sensitive to my feelings. Really small things e.g. a one word comment, a look, tiny things set me off. I felt angry, terrified, grief (and other emotions) or flowed between these feelings without any ‘effort’, the emotions all came up and as long as I let myself feel it, emotion flowed easily.

I realised that I was using judgement as a buffer to keep particular situations and things I felt I couldn’t control at arms length. Self-judgement was my ‘go to’ to explain what had happened to me in my life when I was a child e.g. to control my feelings about how my parents & others have treated me, how my parents perceived me, if I judged myself I could make up a reason and ‘understand’ their unloving treatment of me, ‘I must be the problem’ that was the explanation I gave myself. Because acceptance (as a child) that my parents didn’t want to love me felt far to painful. (As an adult I am in a different position and can leave situations that are unloving. As a child I didn’t know I had this choice and it would have been more difficult for numerous reasons).

When I stopped judging I realised that: ‘no, people choose to be unloving, people choose to be nasty, some people desire to do evil deeds and I had no control over their choices or actions’, this terrified me.

As a child I was powerless to stop the unloving treatment from adults or children in my life. I believed I could ‘manage’ my feelings and if I thought positive for long enough that bad things wouldn’t happen. I didn’t want to accept the fact that some people choose evil ways and want to. In fact scarily some people feel justified and righteousness in their nasty treatment of others. (I didn’t think about these things consciously at the time, I recognise it as I reflect upon it in hindsight).

For years I had been using judgement to avoid feeling about things I perceived I had no control about in the world.

I have not totally ridden myself of judgement yet. It keeps popping up from time to time. Judgement is spread through me and extracting it takes time as I learn all of the judgemental methods I use.

The experience of emotionally feeling about why I desired to judge myself has begun a process of recognition about when I use the method and coming to identify it for myself faster. Over time I trust that I will peel away the layers and eventually feel all of the grief and other feelings that judgement suppresses.

I still use judgement as a ‘go to’ to suppress emotion. Having had an alternative experience has provided education and faith in a new possibility and way of being. I can reflect more accurately on exactly when, in what situations and why I choose to judge. I use judgement under specific conditions to avoid specific emotions.

Note: judgement is one method to avoid emotion. The same principles (feeling why we use a certain method) can be applied to other addictive methods used to avoid feeling emotion.

Note: To find out why I used the method was an emotional process. I wanted to keep the addiction, I wanted to judge and in feeling how much I wanted to, it educated me in why I did it and what I got out of it. As I come to understand my addictions it teaches me more about myself and why I want them, what I perceive addictions help me to avoid.

The irony is that the unhealed feelings are in me already. I am not getting away from them, I am merely suppressing them further, for longer, creating more pain and prolonged suffering every time I choose addiction over letting emotion flow.

The more I feel the more I come to know about myself, others and how the universe works (Education for me about myself results when I feel and express emotion). As a natural consequence of feeling my life becomes better, happier, smoother, less to worry about, there are more opportunities to give and receive love. My life is not yet in a blissful state but one day I have faith that it will be.

God’s Truth has infinite benefits and zero disadvantages.

I will continue to experiment with and work to give up judgement and see how it turns out. So far the results of experiment ‘find out why I desire to judge myself’ have been positive.

Thanks and acknowledgement

God created a loving framework for all humanity and creatures to live within, I am grateful that He did.

Thanks to Jesus and Mary for sharing the truth about God, the secrets of the universe and for the practical demonstration of what it means to live God’s Way. I am truly grateful to have been exposed to reality and what love based normal really is (love and truth are normal). Thank you for providing education on what love actually is.

The world is far removed from real love being the norm, the worlds definition of ‘love’ is distorted and often painful. I often imagine what the world would be like if we chose to give up our addictions, demands, expectations and chose to really love rather than continue to remain the same.

Link to Assistance Groups Education in Love