Getting to know myself – prompt 9 – the heart as it is

I haven’t answered one of these prompts for about two months ! That makes sense though, especially after travelling, getting married, and moving. For those who haven’t seen these yet, I have been going through a series of prompts by Onsite Workshops that help me get to know myself better ! My goal is to at least do three of these every month, so let’s move on to the next question: “How of ten do you find yourself slipping in the voice of judgment? Do you find it to be more self-facing or more directed at others? Why do you think this is?”

This is an easy one. I find myself slipping into the voice of judgment very often. At the surface, it seems to be self-facing AND directed at others. However, as I continue to learn more about myself and people, honestly most of the judgment is self-facing, even the ones directed at others. A lot of the judgment is for self-protection, and sometimes I feel justified by it. For example, the apartment we live in was initially quite dirty and so I was making up all these judgments towards the previous tenants and the landlord, which I will be frank and say that I still believe I am justified in being judgmental in this way. I am a germaphobe and I refuse to live in a biohazard, or at least things that are on their way to developing into one, and this kind of judgmental behavior is very evidently a self-facing and self-protecting one. Even though there are parts of me that can find compassion in these kinds of circumstances still (e.g., maybe the landlord/previous tenants may be going through some personal rough patches), physical disgust in terms of hygiene is quite visceral for me, so that kind of overpowers the capacity of compassion in those moments…

For more relational judgments, I think I tend to think that way because of not wanting to be present, or something about my mind is making it difficult for me to be present. Or it is pride, or it is some kind of approval that I wish I could achieve. I think the judgments also come from whatever I instinctively feel is “right”, even though it may not be, depending on the circumstance. The truth is I don’t think I can ever get rid of my judgments, but I know I can be curious about them and make sure that my emotions and actions are not driven by them.