Finding your freedom when being judged

When we feel judged we may lose our confidence, try to prove ourselves, or maybe enter into a resistance mode of anger and agitation.

Why do we let judgment affect us so much? And how do we distance ourselves from it?

Feeling judged is the way we feel rejected, not loved, or appreciated by others.

It is an opinion of others that seems to have power over how we see ourselves.

It can even be that sometimes when people around us simply express what they need, miss or lack we take it as a judgment that enters deep into our guts.

We start and either fight them or feel pushed down and helpless.

Fighting others or trying to change ourselves for them (with resentment), are ways we entangle our power and submit it to others.

We distance ourselves from being settled within ourselves and perceive the situation without needing to be reactive and provoked by it.

It is the way we carry in us the belief and feeling that we don’t deserve being loved, as we are. We may carry the wounds of shame that distance us from accepting who we are.

Feeling judged was often the way our parents, caretakers, and teachers were trying to shape us and pass on their experiences and knowledge thinking this is what will help us survive best.

Judgments are a way of forcing an opinion or personal knowledge. Holding on to that judgment is based on fearing anything that might challenge the sense of safety the one judging has.

Often the harsh and offending judgments are a result of old fears. Painful or traumatic experience one had to survive through.

These are efforts of pushing everything that might touch one’s pain, loss, or unfulfilled and rejected sense of self.

These kinds of judgments are the ones that have offended, hurt, and imbalanced us as children. These are the wounds of rejection that have entered our hearts.

These are the places in which we carry the unresolved traumas of others. As children, we need safety and stability. Feeling rejected is frightening as a child. It is a threat to our survival. We have to find ways to attract approval and acceptance, to ensure our survival.

That meant developing a hyper-sensitivity to the opinions and judgments of others and creating that defensive response in us.

When we grow up, judgments rarely carry that threat to us. But we often still respond to them with the same fear. A response in which we disconnect from our inner power, the ability to sense our freedom. We feel we either need to fight back or cave in but in both responses, there is an old memory of helplessness that underlines and manages our reactions.

If we manage to step away from that, we can find clarity within ourselves, the ability to perceive others and where they stand, and connect to our will. We are then able to express and follow it, without needing to unnecessarily be entangled in fighting others or in proving ourselves to them.

The mastery is to create that space in which we are free from the opinions and judgments of others. A space of self, that no one else can control. A space that we are always able to find and expand. A space that does not have to be surrounded by a wall of protection. Or a wall of counter-judgments. A space that allows us to expand and keep our hearts open.

Remember being entangled in judgments, resentment, and anger about others being themselves, is the expression of our helplessness, sense of bitterness, and need to reject everything that may let our old fears and pains echo.

When you manage to free yourself, you will start to perceive how the judging person, is trapped in that judgment. Trapped in their own fear, pain, and unhealed trauma.

Let’s find that magical space in which judgments cannot affect you:

The first step is to identify what is the response we tend to have and how we create it within ourselves.

Identifying it so that we can shift it.

We must focus on our response, rather than being busy judging others and their wrongdoing in our eyes.

(Not saying that we have to agree, or not refuse)

When we start to bring our attention to our bodies, we have the chance to identify the places that are still living in fear.

Take a moment and think about which kind of judgment is often creating stress within you. It might be a specific person that creates that response within you, or it may be a subject or an aspect of yourself and life that seems to be easily responsive to judgments.

Once you zoomed in on one, feel what is the physical response in your body.

Pay attention to the areas in your body, that seem to get tensed, uncomfortable, or hold a stress reaction. It can be closing in, feeling anxiety sensation, it can be a numbing sensation, pain, a need to resist, pressure, and so on.

When you have identified that area and the sensation, remember that it is an old response, and the fear you might feel, the resistance to feeling what there is, is an old response. It is the fear of the old you who was helpless, dependent, and in some way powerless. The old memory of being trapped in the situation.

When you are attentive to the response, take the time to truly follow what is happening in you. Feel how you try to defend yourself, and what is the fear that keeps you holding those defenses: what are you trying to avoid? What do you keep repeating in your mind that could happen to you if you won’t do that?

Then try to feel and remember that you have space around you. A space that gives you a safe distance from the effect of that judgments.

Try to remember and perceive it, and then let go of that defense wall, using your breath at least a little bit.

Pay attention to your belly and breathe deeply into it, a few times. Then, tap on the belly for 30 sec. creating movements and waves inside of it.

Then stretch your body backward opening and stretching your belly and stomach while breathing into the area, stretching it from the inside.

Now, remember that person you are offended by their judgments.

When you do so, keep on opening your attention to the space around you. Make sure you are not closing yourself off or going inwards.

See that person trapped behind the wall of judgment. Keep on breathing and opening your body to the space around you, remembering that this space is a protective one, and the judgment is a wall the other person is trapped behind.

Start creating some soft movements in your body. Move and breathe, shifting your state from being a frozen, defensive, or resistant one, to an agile, free, and releasing one.

You take gently your freedom, while you perceive how the other person is trapped in that limiting judgment. In their fear and need to control.

Letting your state shift with time and expand, make sure that you are also moving your shoulders, neck, and chest.

Be aware of what pain or hurt is there within you, that is frightened of the judgment.

Choose to turn to it. Give it space. Daring to want to feel it. To tend to it. Now you are in a space where you are safe to feel it, give the time to heal it and allow the magic of your presence, vitality, and strength to be alive and connected to it and tend to it, as this pain is you. It is a part of you that was held trapped for safety. But now, you are in a space and a place that can protect you.

Move your attention to your lower belly, your legs, and your pelvis, and find the movement that is ready to land in those areas, going downwards.

Try to recognize efforts and ways of holding in the lower part of your body, and then choose to let go as much as you can. Always engaging your breath.

Remember that today you will not “die” or lose your place in the world if you let go of those old efforts.

When you let go, you will fall into the presence of who you truly are.

Then again feel how you sense your space and how you can be in it.

What is now available to you again?

Your ease? Your healthy anger and ability to refuse? Your confidence?

How do you perceive this situation now?

How do you see the other?

What are the options that are available for you?

How can you now act or express yourself?

Feel the ability to always choose to open up to the space around you. To feel it as a protective one in which you can connect to your presence, not fearing your sensation.

Remembering that that person /people is trapped in their judgments. Remembering that they are trying to control you, fearing for themselves.

When you take that freedom: through breathing, moving, through being ready to feel all emotions and all of yourself, without putting on any judgment or justification on it, you connect to freedom. The freedom to be. And in being free, you have your natural power to meet every challenge and choose what is best for you.

To completely take another moment and simply sense that space around you, expand and open into it, remembering that this is your protection. This is how you find your freedom, letting the other stay trapped in their judgment.

Enjoy the space you have, and remember to always connect to it, especially when things seem too close to you.

Yours,

Anna

Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash