It took me a really long time to be honest about this within myself.

I judge people.

You see, most of us don’t like to admit that we judge people.

We’ve been taught that it makes us fundamentally “bad”, flawed, or even worse “un-evolved” humans, and so we deny deny deny.

So what happens when we deny our judgement of others?

We internalize it, naturally.

We judge ourselves, and then we project these internalized self-judgments onto others – what they “should” and “shouldn’t” do, how they “should” and “shouldn’t” behave. Because we wouldn’t do those things or behave in those ways.

We are hard on ourselves so we can feel superior over others.

 

And basically that’s just a more complicated, convoluted, and shadowy form of being judgmental.

 

And if you are saying, “no, Jenn I never do that, that’s not me at all!” – that’s fine. I’m speaking entirely from my own experience.

 

I’m saying that as fact and as truth because I’m willing to be compassionate enough to be honest with myself in my own relationship to judgement.

 

I judge people. I now try to do this as openly and transparently as possible.

It’s not personal. It just is.

 

I know all about the shadowy internalized form of judgement because that’s exactly what I have lived for most of my adult life. It took some deep work around a lot of my own personal shame patterns and healing and truth to finally land on my humanity and let it all hang out.

 

Here’s a bit of a tip off though. Judgment isn’t personal. It just is.

If it feels personal, or like an attack, or something you have to fend off or defend, then there is a very good chance you are rubbing up against internalized judgment or shame patterns.

 

Here’s a really simple example that always comes to mind.

One day I was in the grocery store. In the aisle with me was a woman shopping with her very young 2-3 year old son. The child looked up at his mom and said “look mommy! that lady is fat!” as he pointed to another voluptuous woman also browsing the same supermarket aisle. The mother, horrified, scolded her son “don’t say things like that! that’s not nice! we don’t say things like that!”.

I could see the innocent confusion in this child’s eyes. He did not understand why stating what to him was a simple observation out loud was “bad” and something he should feel ashamed about. He was not judging this woman in the sense of shaming her about her body shape. He was just a child in pure, innocent, judgment. It wasn’t at all personal. He wasn’t saying that the woman was a slob, or didn’t know how to take care of herself, or was somehow “lesser” of a human because of her body shape.

This child was just stating aloud, a simple observation – this woman’s body is fat. Period. Nothing else to say.

Now, it was his mother who projected her own internalized judgements on what it means to be a fat person in our culture. She was the one who internalized all of the shame and toxic patterns around what it means  to be fat – lazy, slob, can’t control herself, pig. All of that gross shame based internalized judgment that she felt but didn’t have the honesty to say out loud because doing so would make her the bad person in that circumstance.

So instead, believing she was teaching her son a “lesson” about societal projections, she was actually just projecting her own shameful feelings onto her son.

Taking it a level deeper, it’s even more fucked up because basically the mom is making her toddler responsible for her own feelings of shame and judgment around what it means to be called “fat” by projecting her own internalized judgment onto him.

 

This is what I mean by true and honest judgement not being personal.

 

In unwinding some of my own shame patterns, it’s actually helped me to reclaim my own judgments without being hooked into the messiness of it.

I was contemplating this after last night’s surf session.

I realize I judge people – all of the time.

 

I’m especially conscious of it when I’m surfing.

At first, I really struggled with crowds and surfing with other people. Then at one point, someone taught me that it was important for me not just to observe and “read” the waves when arriving at the surf break, but also to “read the crowd”.

I was taught – it’s not only ok to judge people, but if I wanted to have a fun surf session it was necessary to judge people.

It was a game changer.

 

Now when I show up at the line up and as I surf I observe and judge people.

Again it’s not personal. I don’t think anything less or more of you if you are a kook or do kooky things.

However it’s allowed me to see who is going for all of the waves, but never actually catches them. It helps keep me safe by seeing who has control over their board, and who is likely to ditch it in front of me when a big set comes, putting my own safety at risk.

Yesterday was a really good example of my judgement towards a fellow surfer not being personal.

There was a woman – an intermediate surfer (see? I already judged her just watching her paddle and catch 1 wave! this judgement thing is awesome!) – who I observed in the first 15 minutes catching a nice wave and also crashing and falling on another.

Immediately I judged her level and skill in those first few moments. I cheered her on the wave she made as it was a really nice one – and I told her so out loud, whooping and cheering.

A bit later a big set rolled in and her and I were caught on the inside, meaning we had to take the brunt of the force of several large waves breaking on our head. I was paying attention to her because of her proximity to me and her actions she took – she panicked and clearly did not have confident control of her board. I took this information in, but just continued to observe.

We need information to make good judgments.

I saw that she ditched her board for the next 3 waves in the set (a big no-no in surf etiquette because it puts other surfers in danger), but she continued to position herself to be put in the “firing line” of the big waves.

Still taking in information, still I haven’t reached a final judgement.

After seeing her let go of her board 10 more times and seeing her board flying in the air, ready to hit other surfers when she didn’t seem to be cognizant and lacked the skills to control it, I approached her and told her that it’s not safe for her to do that.

I told her that her actions put me at risk (the first time her board came close to hitting me without her realizing it).

Here’s the thing – I “outed” her in front of her husband and group of people she was surfing with.

I also “outed” her to one of the surf guides that brought her and her group to the break.

Maybe I made her feel uncomfortable.

I don’t know.

Was I being gracious and generous with her? Up until a point.

Was it personal? No.

Neither my compliment nor my “outing” her were personal.

They were true and honest observations.

It didn’t mean anything except to bring awareness of our collective safety, over which the only control of actions I had were my own.

In the end my safety is my responsibility.

Judging others is an important part of how I chose to take action for myself.

It’s not personal.

I also didn’t take it personally that she didn’t change her behaviour and continued to position herself in the same place and ditch her board.

 

However this whole interaction illuminated something important for me.

I gave myself permission to judge.

The hilarity of how the whole scene unravelled actually had me laughing out loud!

The freedom in it!

The freedom of giving ourselves the grace and permission to be human.

 

It brings me back to the innocence of that child in the supermarket.

That lady was fat – it was as simple as that.

That didn’t make her anything else but a shape.

That kid could have shouted “that lady is wearing a blue dress!”.

It was all the same to him.

 

That was a nice wave.

You almost hit me with your board.

 

Just basic, simple facts.

It doesn’t mean anything more than that.

 

The shadowy, defensive, shame based meanings are actually a reflection of our own internal game.

They are yours.

 

Judging does not make you a bad person.

It makes you an honest person.

 

I actually feel proud of myself that I can feel and see myself judging.

It’s freeing. It’s so simple.

And it doesn’t mean anything more than what is.