How Do You Respond to Judgment?

Judgment is a form of control used to move someone onto our agenda.  The silent or embedded message it carries says, “Your choice is not acceptable to me, so choose something different that I’m comfortable with.”  Energetically, judgment is an attempt to control our power center, the area just above the bellybutton (3^rd chakra).  It knocks us off-center to give the judge the power position.  Or it allows them to hook into our energy and redirect it to their agenda.

Noticing how we respond to the energy of control attempts from judgments, allows us to strengthen our power by neutralizing the energy rather than getting knocked off-center by it.  Some common responses to judgment are self-inquiry, seeking approval, self-sabotage or over achievement.

Self-Inquiry – The natural first response to someone’s judgment is self-inquiry.  Is it true?  Depending on the relationship we have with the person, we may just assume it’s true. This can translate into thinking something is wrong with us.  Alternately it may be an opportunity to self-reflect, look at a dark corner in ourselves and decide if we want to keep feeding that aspect.  The key indicator here is what our body is telling us, do we feel out-of sorts; is our stomach a bit anxious?  Our body is our intuitions first barometer.

Seeking Approval – The most powerful people in our lives are the ones we love, second only to those in authority positions.  When we love someone it is natural to want their approval.  Even when we are just getting to know a person, we are determining their response to us and would like to be seen favorably.  Judgment comes from unconscious or conscious beliefs that require change of another’s behavior to in order for them to receive approval.  On the spirit level, when we alter what we know to be our truth in order to seek the approval of another, we are depleting our energy, giving a piece of ourselves away.  This is the energetic hook that can become a chronic vampire of our life-force if we continue to deny our truth in order to please others.

Self-Sabotage – Feeling judged can cause us to feel angry.  This anger is intended to show us our boundaries have been violated.  When we are act from the anger we respond one of two ways, self-sabotage or over compensation.  We may consciously say, “they are wrong.” But unconsciously believe the judgment and use our anger to propel us to some self-sabotaging behavior that proves them right.  This is an extreme example of judgment throwing us off-center.

Over Achievement – Alternately we may feel the need to prove the judge wrong by excelling our efforts toward success in the direction we’ve chosen.  This can be a form of competition energy or rebellion against the control. We have to demonstrate that we didn’t deserve the judgment through our success.

When we let judgment be the issue of the person judging by staying in our center, we retain our power.  We don’t let the outside energy influence us to think less of our self, seek approval, self-sabotage, over achieve or throw us out of balance.  We continue to be our true self rather than react in one of the other ways.

Reaction to judgment can actually be a catalyst that generates new experiences that we learn from whether through success or failure.  But if we change our course to respond to another’s judgment we are still changing course, which means we are on a less direct path to the life we want.

Being aware of the energy behind judgment and practicing mediation to stay in alignment with our truth, helps us strengthen our ability to remain centered in the face of judgment and control.  Then we are able to use the emotions we feel in response to being judged such as anger or uncertainty to set healthy boundaries, heal aspects of our self and even catapult us in a direction of our choosing.