4 Steps to Recognize When Your Inner Judge is Running the Show

Exploring Byron Brown’s Soul Without Shame

Mindset note: As we explore Soul Without Shame this month, we encourage you to show up rooted in a place of curiosity, rather than judgement. It may be natural or easy to begin to evaluate Brown’s ideas but we invite you to be open to them and see what comes up for you. Not everything will resonate and some things may not align with your values or beliefs. But others might, and could lead to a valuable insight. We encourage you to be curious first and look into the ideas Brown is offering.

If we consider these things to be true, then what? Have some fun and play with these ideas! Take what serves you and leave what doesn’t.

We’ve been talking a lot about the judge and today we’ll explore 4 steps for how to recognize when your own inner judge comes up. We’ll also take a look at what awareness truly means, and how it’s a powerful tool for confronting your judge.

The judge exists in the relationship we have with reality and usually shows up in the way we talk to ourselves — our inner dialogue. When we are talking to ourselves we experience self-judgement, an experience that isn’t pleasant. Brown notes that “self-judgement is perhaps the greatest source of inner suffering and discontent” (p.41). Therefore, to confront our judge, it’s beneficial to isolate this particular part of our inner process: judgements in our inner dialogue (p.41).

Brown first defines a judgement:

“a statement of evaluation that implies an assessment of one’s value or worth and is felt as a rejection of one’s present state” (p.42).

So, how do we begin to notice this? There are 4 steps we can use to begin recognizing the judgements that so naturally (and unconsciously) come up in our inner process.

Step 1: Recognize when we’re experiencing a judgement

Our judgements of ourselves are often hard to spot. It’s actually easier for other people close to us to see them than it is for us to see them ourselves. This is likely because there is a fear of recognizing the self-criticisms. It can feel like we’re exposed, that we’re confirming our “badness” by giving it attention (p.42).

The way to move past this is to turn to acceptance. We want to have self-compassion and allow ourselves to bring our attention to the judgements. This is how we move beyond the fear and identify the judgements.

Judgements come in some common forms:

• Criticism
• Condemnation
• Guideline
• Motivator
• Accusation
• Advice
• Rejection
• Suggestion
• Question
• Praise
• Are any of these forms more familiar to you and your experience with your judge than others?

You may notice that this list contains what we might call both negative and positive judgements. And it’s true! Judgements can be positive. “Negative judgements stimulate feelings of rejection, guilt, doubt, shame, and self-hatred, while positive judgements tend to arouse feelings of self-esteem, pride, excitement, self-righteousness, and superiority” (p.46). What is important is that positive judgements usually show up as defenses against negative judgement. Here’s an example of how a positive judgement shows up and how it’s in defense of a negative judgement:

Saying to myself: “I did such a good job on that presentation.”

Positive judgement: you really do have value because you did something well

Negative judgement it’s defending: you should be a better employee

Notice that this is in conflict with knowing that our own value is separate from the results of what we do — our unchanging core. Brown notes that “positive self-judgements are an important support and guide for life in the world and cannot be put aside until you discover and integrate the self-knowing for which they are a substitute” (p.47). They serve a purpose in giving us things like self-esteem and excitement (albeit a fleeting sense of it). We can only set positive judgements aside once we realize that we have an unchanging value at our core and don’t need them anymore.

Whether positive or negative, with a judgement the results are conditional, making you dependent on the judge to either reject or approve of you (p.46). They are still judgements at the end of the day and interfere with our direct contact with the present moment. This is why it is important to recognize them!

One of the most important things in this process of noticing judgements is to boil down any stories, criticisms, etc. into a single judgement statement. Brown has some clear guidelines for how to get to the heart of the judgement:

• Put the judgment statement into the second person
• Word the statement as if you were talking to someone else — “you” statements rather than “I” statements
• Many judgement statements contain “should”
• Try to make them as simple and short as possible

Step 2: Notice the energetic effect the judgement has on our body

This step involves somatic (body) awareness, which encompasses our energetic state, bodily sensations, and our capacity to function physically. This ultimately helps us understand when we are feeling judged because we’ll feel it in our body and energy, perhaps before we even notice what is going on in our mind (p.47)

Common physical experiences of judgement include (p.48):

• Loss of energy
• Agitation
• Tension
• Depression
• Anxiety
• Heat
• Weakness
• Restlessness
• Deadness
• Spaciness
• Tunnel vision
• Numbness
• What do you notice tends to happen in your body when you feel your self-judgement?

Overall, when we experience judgement, our awareness decreases. We lose sight of our environment, options for how to respond, and our sense of who we are. We lose capacity, clarity, and even our sense of humor (p.48).

Step 3: Identify the emotional reaction to judgements

While the energetic effects limit our physical functioning, the emotional ones usually result in pain and suffering (p.48). This can bring up feelings of sadness, isolation, humiliation, and helplessness—to name a few (p.50).

The feelings themselves are unpleasant and if we look deeper, they are usually connected to beliefs we have about the negative feelings. We dislike ourselves for having those feelings and that can lead to self-rejection. Notice what this means: We dislike and reject ourselves for having certain feelings (p.50). There is an assumption that there is something wrong with having negative feelings. We forget that feelings are just feelings — they don’t define who we are.

• What would it be like to give yourself permission to feel negative feelings?

Step 4: Pinpoint how your judge intentionally makes you feel a certain way, and what belief it connects to

Judgements make us see ourselves as the problem: “When you feel judged, you believe you have to change yourself because something is wrong with you” (p.52). A judgement points to a part of us that we are not comfortable with and we have a hard time responding to the judgement because we are seeing ourselves — not the judgement — as the problem.

Judgments tend to land in places that are the most tender. “A judgement always touches on something you believe is true about you,” and we think it implies something about our worth (p.57). The hardest thing about this is that our belief may be unconscious. “The clue to recognizing your hidden belief is that you are hooked by the judgemental statement” and it “pushes one of your buttons — it hits a sore spot” (p.58).

• What part of yourself does your judge point to? What does that make you believe is true about yourself & your worth?

To recap:

1. Recognize when we’re experiencing a judgement
2. Notice the energetic effect the judgement has on our body
3. Identify the emotional reaction to judgements
4. Pinpoint how your judge intentionally makes you feel a certain way, and what belief it connects to

Going through this process is important because judgement is the main thing that gets in the way of our transformation — our growth & expansion (p.41–42). “It prevents you from simply resting in yourself from moment to moment” (p.42). It blocks our awareness.

Awareness

We hear about awareness a lot today, but what does it actually mean? According to Brown, “Awareness is what allows you to perceive reality and be in touch with your experience, whether physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual” (p.65).

Our senses are some of our most powerful tools when accessing awareness. We use our senses all the time, but we aren’t always conscious of it. “Without awareness, perception is mechanical and lacks the aliveness and presence of the soul” (p.65). For example, we walk around all day and see things, but we don’t really see what is in front of us — we just mechanically take it in. To move towards awareness, we must be conscious of our perception — really notice what is going on around us.

Awareness turns up the volume of conscious perception. “Awareness includes not only perceptions themselves but the process of attending to them.” Here’s what happens internally: “the physical senses register and transmit sensations to the brain, but awareness is what allows those perceptions to become a part of your consciousness” (p.65). Awareness develops as we consciously notice what we are aware of (p.65–66).

The judge comes into play in this process of developing awareness. It limits our awareness and wants us to instead focus on what it determines is important, and tries to tell us what it means. When this happens, our perception becomes partial — we aren’t sensing and attending to everything (p.66).

In fact, we aren’t even really rooted in the here and now. “The judge gets all its juice from directing your attention toward the past and the future, so the practice [of awareness] will help to locate you in the present moment in your body” (p.67). We want to move away from getting distracted by the judge. “Instead of accepting [the judge’s] authority about what is happening and what is important, you will be discovering these things for yourself” (p.67). To do this, we want to keep some attention reserved for being aware of our body as we look and listen around us (p.67).

Once we can do that, we experience awareness. Brown describes it like this:

“Awareness has a sense of no boundaries, an openness from which nothing is excluded and in which things are not separate. It has no opinions, priorities, or values about what it is aware of. When you are aware, you feel awake, attentive and attuned, clear and spacious” (p.68).

Try to become fully aware in this moment—really seeing, hearing, and feeling & bringing that into consciousness. Root down into this moment right here, right now.

• What do you notice?
• What does your experience feel like? What’s going on in your body?
• If you could give your state of awareness a color, what color would it be?