One of the things that has been absolutely critical to my healing and recovery from trauma has been the suspension of judgment, a task that is much easier said than done.  As human beings living within various judgmental structures, from family to school to work to culture and society, we are subject to a wide variety of mostly subconscious judgments that keep us in conformity with the status quo.  These subjugating influences are extremely damaging to the human psyche, and we are beginning to be aware of that as well as of the collective damage that occurs when large portions of the population are suppressed.

I came up against these varying layers of judgment as I progressed through processing my emotional baggage.  Each time I encountered a psychological conundrum that required analyzing, I found myself locked in an internal struggle between what I knew I was supposed to be doing or feeling, and what I was actually doing and feeling.  I had to spend time analyzing the motivations of my behaviors, which caused me to analyze the source of these motivations.

It turned out that my own psyche was typically not the driver of my psychological motivations, it was the external judgments of other people and institutions that had been imposed upon me over the years that drove all of my behaviors, thoughts, and feelings.  Family, of course, was the biggest source of externally imposed judgments that I had to deal with.  Our culture was probably the next biggest source that I had to contend with, which is inextricably intertwined with religion, politics, and society.

I was flabbergasted at just how affected I was by all of these external influences that I consciously did not agree with, because I didn’t.  It certainly explained a lot of my inner conflict regarding how I wanted to be in contrast to how I really was.  Now I was left with the problem of how to disentangle myself from all of this judgment.  It wasn’t enough to merely be aware of the problem, I had to figure out what to put in place of judgment, because it served a purpose.  Just not a very healthy one.

This is actually a core concept of a lot of trauma work.  People such as myself have a lot of maladaptive behaviors to the trauma in our lives that make us behave, think, and feel the way we do, and when one examines these maladaptations it’s apparent that they’re all protective mechanisms of one form or another.  They may not be particularly constructive or helpful protective mechanisms, but that’s why they exist.  Analyzing them to determine why precisely they exist enables finding something healthier that fulfills the same role.

I’ve also found this to be a critical tactic in addressing my own maladaptive behaviors.  I can’t just remove a negative behavior, I have to have something positive ready to put in place that serves the same role.  If I don’t, then the instant a trigger comes along, I’ll fall back into the negative behavior.

In the case of baggage fueled by judgment, which was almost all of it, I had to defuse the judgment and replace it with other things, namely kindness, compassion, and understanding.  This was extremely difficult, as those three things are almost diametrically opposed to the condemnatory kind of judgment that we are subject to in our society.  I had decades of training for self-depreciation, just like everyone else, and I had to unlearn that.

Learning may be a generally difficult task for many, but unlearning?  That’s fucking hard.  Combine it with the necessary follow-up or simultaneous task of learning something new, and it’s no surprise why so many people are daunted by the prospect of tackling their baggage in therapy or on their own.  It’s exhausting.

It’s also humbling, which is why the suspension of judgment is so important.  Picking through one’s baggage reveals all of one’s so-called “flaws”, which itself is a judgmental term.  If one goes through this process with a condemnatory lens, they’ll encounter a great deal of internal resistance and frustration.  Going through the process with a compassionate lens that offers understanding of why one does, thinks, or feels a certain thing makes the process so much easier and rewarding.

As I said, this process is much easier said than done.  It’s taken me concerted effort over at least a year or more to chip away at my tendency to be judgmental of myself and my thoughts, behaviors, and feelings, and probably a year or more before that of merely being aware of how judgmental I was being.  During that time, I spent a lot of time being judgmental of my judgment, which I imagine is normal on some level, but is incredibly counterproductive from a self-worth standpoint.  That’s how deeply ingrained the tendency to be judgmental was for me.

Now when I become aware of myself being inappropriately judgmental, I don’t judge the judgment, I simply say to myself, “Judgment.”  Sometimes I also mentally say the words “put down the stick”, because I visualize judging myself as hitting myself with a stick.  My psychic back is covered with self-inflicted scars, but they’re healing, and I seldom add a new one anymore.

This practice has had an interesting side effect I wasn’t intending on, nor did I expect: I don’t hate myself quite as much as I used to.  Nor do I feel bad for saying so anymore, because at one point I did, so harsh was my self-judgment.  As if it were saying, “how dare you like yourself?”  I once envisioned judgment as a Screeching Harpy with huge talons digging into my shoulder, and her ugly beak would peck at my face whenever she perceived I had done something wrong, which was all the time.

Now the Screeching Harpy is a tiny Screech Owl with small feet that still sits on my shoulder, but much more politely and simply tugs at my hair when she feels she needs attention.  Because judgment as a concept is necessary in life.  Living in the absence of judgment is stupid and dangerous.  It’s condemnation that’s bad, and our society is full of that.  We are condemned for the homes we live in, the cars we drive, the clothes we wear, the food we eat, the jobs we hold, the friends we have, and the families we are a part of.

Shedding the chains of inappropriate judgment means a life with a lot more room to move around and breathe.  The release of self-loathing means the ability to do that moving and breathing without worrying so much about what other people think about it, which is critical in not letting those inappropriate judgments settle back in.  And people will definitely try to judge a person who is shedding society’s standard condemnations.  Such people are seen as threats to a stable order.  Whether that order is healthy or not is irrelevant, it’s the one that everyone is used to.

We’re seeing this on a collective level at the moment in our society as large portions of it band together to individually and collectively shed centuries of family, cultural, political, classist, and religious oppression that has benefited a relatively small portion of the population.  This oppression has been driven by all manner of judgments against people of all kinds, but particularly women, minorities, and the impoverished.  People are no longer tolerating this, generating great conflict between the oppressors and the oppressed.

Healing the damage of judgment on an individual level and healing the damage of judgment on a collective level go hand in hand.  As more become aware of judgment’s damaging effects and do the personal work necessary to address those effects, our society will become more and more filled with kind, compassionate, and understanding people.  While this will cause conflict with the established order, over time the collective sentiment and energy will shift to one of less judgment and condemnation and the conflict will abate.  There will probably always be those who cling to judgment as their primary tool of control over others, but this control will slip over time as there are fewer and fewer people prone to this kind of judgment.

As much as I despair at the state of the world sometimes, other times I recognize that there is an inexorable shift towards inclusion and equanimity in our world.  I try to maintain faith in this shift and remember that I am a small but important part of it.  Each of us lends our energy to the greater currents that affect us individually and collectively, and I try to do my part by suspending personal judgment, knowing that also shifts the world away from judgment, even if only a tiny bit.  In times such as these, I feel strongly that every little bit helps and that self-kindness isn’t just a preference, it’s a duty, to myself and to the world.