You hear someone say something about someone else and you know straight away it doesn’t feel right. Maybe they laugh, maybe they make a comment, maybe it is said as a joke and you can feel it. But then there are other moments where you do it as well.

You see someone and something comes into your head about them. You hear something and you have already decided what you think. Those thoughts may not feel like judgement. They may feel like noticing. They may even feel like you are just being aware of what is in front of you. And that is where judgement gets missed, because it feels like your own thinking, not something you are judging.

Because the way you judge other people is not separate from you. It comes from what you already believe, what you have experienced and what you are trying to work out about yourself. I had a moment where I became really aware of this and it still sticks with me.

Someone shared a comment about another person saying they were a certain size and they clearly weren’t. People were laughing about it and I laughed too. At the time it didn’t feel like anything. It just felt like being part of the conversation. But afterwards I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Not just because it was obviously mean, but because I could see myself in it. I have done that. I have tried to persuade people of something that wasn’t true. Not really to convince them, but to convince myself. To feel like I looked different, to feel like I fitted somewhere, to feel like I was ok.

That was when I became aware of what was actually happening - when you judge someone else, it often links back to something inside of you. If you are thinking about how you look, you will notice how other people look. If you are worried about getting things right, you will notice when others don’t. If you are questioning yourself, you will question others. Your mind is constantly measuring. It is trying to work out where you fit and what is safe.

Sometimes judging someone else gives a small sense of relief. If they are getting it wrong, maybe I’m not. If they look worse, maybe I look better. If they are being judged, maybe I am safe. That doesn’t mean you want to hurt anyone. It means your brain is trying to protect you.The shift happens when you become aware of it. Not aware afterwards and beating yourself up. Just aware that it is happening.

You notice the thought, how quickly it comes in, and what it links to. When you become aware of that, it stops feeling like something that is just true and you see the judgement. Then it becomes something you can look at, something you can question. Because not every thought you have about someone else is actually about them. A lot of it is about you and how you feel about yourself.

Once you are aware of that, things begin to change without you forcing them to. You start to see patterns. You start to recognise the same types of thoughts. You start to understand where they come from. That is where choice begins. Not because you tell yourself to stop judging, but because you can see what is really going on.

If you are reading this and recognising yourself in it, this is the shift. Not fixing it, not stopping it, just becoming aware of it. Because once you can see it, you can start to question it. And once you can question it, you can start to choose something different. No blame, just awareness.

This is exactly what I do with my clients. We look at what is actually happening, not what you think should be happening and we start to break those patterns down so you can see them clearly.

If you’d like support with this, this is the kind of work we do inside the membership. It gives you a space to start noticing these patterns, understanding them and actually doing something with them instead of staying stuck in them.

You can find out more here
https://jennyfield.co.uk/accountability-group/

And next week I’ll go deeper into self judgement, because this is where it really starts to affect how you feel about yourself day to day.