I’ve always found myself struggling with people whom I perceive as judgmental. Judgmental can mean a lot of different things, and it’s a relatively subjective assessment, and so depending on the season I’m in, I can end up struggling with a lot of people. In fact, given that humans by design have judgments and project them on others, I can find myself at times struggling with basically everyone.
Me, though? Such an enlightened creature, I am. Totally absent of judgment. Just pure curiosity and openness and love for all beings.
Except of course, for the very fact that my judgments of people who judge others makes me… judgmental. Maybe even more so than them.
Shit.
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The first time it really clicked that I was doing this very thing that I claimed to hate was when I watched a clip of the famous trauma and addiction physician, Gabor Mate, giving a training. A woman in the audience, a therapist herself, asked a question about my very predicament. “How do I deal with people who are critical?,” she asked earnestly. “I feel so frustrated that I can’t make them see how their criticism is hurting them.”
Mate, with his characteristic even tone and piercing eye contact, responded without missing a beat. He asked her to consider how she herself was being critical of the very people she was describing.
It took her a second, and I could feel the workings of her mind as she sorted this inside her. I imagined the parts of her that work so hard to not be or be seen as critical putting up a defense. But that’s not me! I’m the one who HATES the criticism. Who works so hard to be accepting. Who does all this meditation and therapy and tries to rise above it…
The woman’s face slowly broke into a knowing smile. I felt that knowing smile in my own body, as I imagined the rest of it rolling out.
…Who is afraid to criticize because I was scared of the critical people I knew growing up. Who stays flexible and compliant and appeasing. Who has built an image on NOT being critical.
“I see it,” she said simply.
Her own critical part – a part that was absolutely normal and human and in fact helpful at times – had been so wholly disowned that when she encountered others that led with their own critical parts, she got activated. In fact, she got critical.
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And boy, how we all get caught in these exact same dynamics.
It’s a fundamental psychological law that our stuff will get most stirred up in the presence of others who represent what’s been most buried. Said another way, when we are faced with, in another human, the parts of us that we learned to disown, we will have the strongest reactions. It’s almost like a younger part of us is screaming, “Wait, why do they get to be that thing! No fair!”
But part of what our egos do is work extraordinarily hard to protect us from that awareness. They are invested in us seeing ourselves as different from that thing. They distance us from it – make it that person’s issue. So instead of “No fair!” we say, “How can they possibly think that’s okay?”
You might hear this idea described as what happens when we encounter our shadow. The shadow is a Jungian term that refers to the aspects of our personality that we dislike so much that we keep them hidden from even ourselves. They often stay there until something blows up in our face to make us look at them, or we do some kind of conscious work to uncover them.
Personally, I find it nice when it can be the latter, though we obviously don’t always get to choose this path. But when we can do this consciousness-raising work, it can be an illuminating – even if extremely uncomfortable – experience.
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A simple way to start finding your shadows can be to think of a person whose behavior gets you particularly worked up. If you are doing this right now, you don’t have to choose the person who has caused you the greatest pain in your life, and I might recommend you don’t. I’d suggest starting with someone who causes general irritation – maybe some more mild anger, annoyance, or hurt.
With that person in your mind, write out a couple sentences about what they do or who you think they are that you find most activating.
My partner never picks up my prescription when he’s at the store. He always forgets about me and is only thinking of himself.
My coworker takes all the credit for the work we do together. She thinks she’s perfect and doesn’t think to acknowledge others.
My son is such a slob. He doesn’t even care about his environment. He’s not learning how to take care of himself.
Keep in mind as you are writing that the behavior is all that you can actually know and observe. Anything else – like your interpretation of what that behavior means about them – is actually just a story. Still write it down, but we’ll just keep that awareness in mind.
Now the invitation is to do what Byron Katie in her famous coaching process of The Work calls the “turnaround.” I’ll be the first to admit that it can feel awkward, agitating, and even nauseating. But it can often bring you to awareness and freedom you wouldn’t otherwise find.
Take whatever the statement was and turn it around to say something about yourself. This often looks like simply replacing the pronouns with “I” or “me.”
I always forget about myself.
I think I’m perfect and don’t remember to acknowledge others.
I’m not learning how to take care of myself.
There are actually a lot of different ways to turn around the statements, so play with them in various forms until something strikes a chord. If it’s hard to find resonance, try thinking about a younger, smaller version of you. Was this ever true of you? When were you forgetful, self-absorbed, or messy? If your mind tells you “never,” get curious about why you never could be these things.
It’s possible nothing will strike a chord. That’s sometimes the case when we are still feeling stuck in the feeling (hurt, anger, etc.) and that part of us doesn’t quite want to see other perspectives yet. If that’s where you are, that’s okay. We see if we can soften into it a bit by slowing our breath or relaxing our muscles. We can come back to it another day where we might have a wider lens.
If we do find a turnaround that resonates, something that’s about us rather than the other person, then our next step is to look for a few examples of how this is the case.
I forget myself when I don’t tell him how upset it makes me and I just seethe.
I think I’m perfect when I judge her for that very behavior.
I’m not learning to care for myself when I’m not cleaning up the room of my own mind, and I keep spiraling about being a bad mother when I’m not.
Again, we might find some internal resistance. But if we commit ourselves to finding some examples, I promise they are there for us to discover. Because who among us at times doesn’t become invisible to ourselves or doesn’t get self-righteous or is never selfish or impatient or irritable. No one I’ve met.
The examples may be wildly different than the way that the trait shows up in the person who agitated us. At this point, you can honestly forget about them. This is about us now. It’s about doing our own work to look at the parts of us that we feel most unsavory.
This is not about finding the things that we’ve been working on forever – those are the things we’ve already allowed into our consciousness. This is about finding the things that feel new to examine.
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What this type of work is not about is giving ourselves more ammunition to be hard on ourselves.
There is nothing to fear or hate about what we find. We saw it in someone else. Maybe we tell ourselves theirs was a much more extreme version. Or they are always this way. Resist these stories if you can. They won’t get you closer to yourself.
We expected or hoped this other person could change this thing. Maybe we start to recognize that it’s not as easy as we thought – we’ve clearly been doing it too. Maybe we start to see that it’s profoundly human.
When we can start to approach our shadows, we are invited into a new level of personal work. It’s a work that, once revealed, can let us start to ask things like, “When did I learn that this part of me wasn’t acceptable?” or “What are the ways that I’ve worked so hard to not be this thing I fear that I’ve actually created pain in other ways?” We can often go deeper into it with the support of a therapist or coach.
And here’s the beautiful thing about doing this type of brave work – the work of seeing the shadows. We get to focus back on the only being on this planet that we can actually change. We get to let go of the fantasy that we can control our partner or boss or parent or child or extremist neighbor. While that can feel scary or disheartening at first, it ultimately feels like freedom. It’s how we get out of the drama triangle. It’s how we do the only thing we can.
