Ep 8. Are Your Judgy Thoughts a Defence Mechanism? (Hint: Probably)

We all judge. Ourselves, other people, the choices around us. And most of us spend a fair bit of energy chastising ourselves for it, which is ironic, because that's just more judging.

But what if judgment isn't the problem? What if it's actually a compass?

In this short episode, I share why I think judgment is one of the most useful signals to track if you're doing trauma work, and how to use it as a tool rather than something to beat yourself up about.

If you've ever caught yourself being judgy and felt bad about it, this one's a quick, actionable reframe.

Hello and welcome to the Trauma Nerd Podcast. It's going to be a quick one this week because I have been unwell. You can probably hear it in my voice. I didn't want to lose my podcast streak, so I've kept going. But yeah, going to be short.

Actually, after putting this script together, I'm feeling like short, sharp, and sweet might be what everybody's after anyway. I'm just getting straight to the point today and it's probably going to leave you with something fairly actionable pretty quickly that's going to help you. How good's that?

I'm going to give you some information about judgment today and why I think judgment is so important to track and be aware of if you are on a trauma therapy journey. Ugh, I hate the healing journey thing. Like, I hate all the healing journey vibe. It is though. It is a healing journey, so whatever.

If you're on a healing journey, then I think judgment is something that you need to be very aware of. It's interesting because I think we often chastise ourselves for judging, which is ironic, because we're judging ourselves for judging. We all do it though. But I want you to flip that on its head a bit and start using your judgment as a compass. A really helpful one at that.

The difference between judgments and discernments

First of all, I want to clarify, there is a difference between what I'm calling today judgments and discernments. Judgments are emotional. It's when you're being judgy, when you're criticising yourself or others, when you're being judgy towards yourself or someone else. It's basically when we are saying something or someone is good or bad, valuable or not valuable. It's our opinion essentially. Judgments are not facts.

This is different to discernment. Discernment is a form of judgment, many people would argue, that is founded upon facts. Exclusively using the facts. Discernments are very important in our day-to-day lives.

If I'm about to dive in a pool, I need to make an assessment to discern whether that water is deep enough for it to be safe. When I see my son playing on a playground, maybe there's a big slide or something, he's only two. I need to make an assessment to discern whether that slide is appropriate for a two-year-old, because not all of them are. Some of them are kind of big and they're windy and stuff, and he needs it to be age-appropriate.

So we do need discernments. You make a discernment when you're picking when to merge into traffic, when you're making decisions based on data around you. Those aren't judgments. You're making a discernment based on facts and the data you're taking in.

So we're not talking about discernments today, because discernments are logical judgments based on facts. I'm talking about the emotional judgments. When we're getting judgy. The kind we think of when we're saying something is judgmental, or the kind we think of when we're calling ourselves judgmental, or we're feeling judgy of others.

Why judgment is often a defence mechanism

The second reason is what I call the dust on the mirror effect. This is a Buddhist analogy I have shamelessly repurposed for clinical purposes. So thank you to whoever came up with it originally.

Here is the idea. Imagine you are grabbing a dusty mirror from your brain, the dust on the mirror being the trauma or the pain — the painful experience, whatever we're working with. When we engage with it, when we start working with it, we're making an attempt to clear it, to resolve it. So in this analogy, we're grabbing that dusty mirror. And what do we do to try to clear a dusty mirror? We go, whew. We try to blow the dust off.

And what is the first thing that will happen when you try to blow the dust off a dusty mirror? The dust is going to hit you in the face.

So in this analogy, the dust is the painful realisations and emotions that come from unravelling experiences of abuse, neglect, and mistreatment. It's the pain that arises when you see the truth clearly and sometimes for the very first time.

Using judgment as a compass, not an enemy

I actually use judgment as a tool for myself personally and when I'm working with clients, because it is almost always pointing us to something important. I want to say always, but I don't like using blanket statements, because there are always exceptions. But a lot of the time, it truly is that.

Let me give you an example. It's kind of a basic one, but it illustrates the point. Let's say all of your friends get invited to a party, a birthday party, and you don't, even though you know the person. Your reaction: fuck that guy, I don't like him anyway. And you know what, I bet that party is going to suck.

Obviously that is super judgy. But what's underneath the judgment? When we strip the judgment away, I would wager probably it's defending against feelings of rejection and possibly inadequacy. Maybe there's even a history around wounds relating to feeling rejected and inadequate, probably from childhood. I hate to say it, but it is often childhood. And judgment is a much more comfortable place to sit than in those really uncomfortable feelings.

It's often a similar case, and I think even more interesting, when we judge ourselves. A self-judgment is frequently linked to the idea of the inner critic, which is also known as the inner judge. It'll say things like: you should have known better. Why can't you be more like this person? That's not good enough.

When we boil it down, these are really all actually judgmental statements. We're judging ourselves. I can almost guarantee that if you strip those comments back, get curious, don't get annoyed at yourself, don't get mad at the judgment, instead use it as a compass and go, huh, there must be something underneath that, I'm going to get curious and check, you will find something painful that your brain is automatically avoiding.

If it's a wound, you need to be aware of that, because there's your target. That's what you want to work on. Or if it's just an uncomfortable feeling, lean into it. Let yourself feel it. Improve your tolerance for that feeling.

Why I'm not a fan of "parts" approaches and the inner critic framing

This is why I haven't really spoken much on this before. I am not a fan of parts approaches. I have done a lot of work in different parts therapy approaches. When I'm talking parts, I'm relating that to ideas like the inner child, the inner critic. There are so many different models. Internal family systems uses parts. Structural dissociation theory uses parts. Ego state therapy uses parts.

I'm not a fan of parts approaches personally, though I do acknowledge the inner child. I'm not saying that's not a real experience. Not that there's a little person literally living inside of you, but yes, the experience of the inner child is there. We do feel that, and there's reason for that. EMDR actually has a fantastic conceptualisation of that. Anyway, I digress.

I don't like the idea of the inner critic because it's not conducive to a positive relationship with that experience. If I've got an inner critic that's mean to me, and I'm calling it my inner critic, I don't like that person. But if we're thinking about it as a defence and we're just curious about it in terms of what's underneath it, it's a bit more benign. In fact, it's actually trying to protect you. Which you're going to learn too.

The three questions to ask when you notice you're judging

My challenge for you, next time you notice yourself judging, either yourself or someone else. Be calm about it and be nice to your judgment. Remember, you're treating it like a compass, not an enemy.

Ask yourself these questions:

What is this judgment trying to achieve?
What is my judgment trying to protect me from?
If I strip away this judgment, what is underneath?

Ask yourself those questions. I think you'll be quite surprised to learn the answer.

Signing off

Short one this week. That's it for me. I hope you found that helpful. I hope this gives you a different perspective on working with your judgment, and I hope it makes you see your judgment in a different light. That it's not something to judge.

Because like I said, the most common thing people do is judge their judgment, which is kind of funny really. But it's not helpful, because then we're just getting angry at ourselves, and that just makes a bad situation worse.

Thank you so much for listening. As always, leave a review, a good one ideally. Oh my god, I'm sounding very stuffed up. I apologise. I'll wrap up.

Leave a review. Subscribe if you like to hear what I'm talking about. And I will see you next time. Bye for now.