On Being Judgmental: Part 2

This is the next installment of my blog series on judgmentalism. I’ve encountered lots of people who believe that judging others is necessary because it’s our duty to make a clear distinction between right and wrong and to denounce what is wrong or unjust.  There is no arguing with that premise if one believes it is that simple, that black and white. But for those who have doubts about that, who are not always sure they are correct in their assessments of who is the bad guy and who is the good guy; for those who believe that the tenacity and persistence and inflexibility of that point of view is holding the human race back, the following exploration might interest you.

In the last article, I presented this definition of judgment:

A judgment is a thought form that is attached to the thinker and is held in place by emotional material.

Here’s an example from my own life of how this definition can be useful. For starters, it is just an everyday example, nothing too intense.  I live on a street in a crowded summer resort. Recently a group of tourists rented the house across the street from us. There was one very loud older man in the group whose voice was constant and I couldn’t quite hear the words only the inflection, which sounded to me like teaching, correcting, and advising the others in his group. Occasionally I would hear a shrill appeasing laugh from one of the women in the group. 

This angered me all week as I was outside gardening. And as I thought about it, I asked myself what was going on in me. I was telling myself, “What a pedantic asshole. Big know-it-all. Blowhard. No one can stand up to him. No one ever told him he was being a social bully.”  That was my thought form:  “This guy is an overbearing, domineering macho jerk”. OK.  I found the nasty thoughts that were attached to me. Only me. He might have been the nicest, kindest, most generous person, but I had him pegged as a narcissistic pain in the ass. I identified the thoughts I had been thinking.

Now I could investigate what emotional material was holding that judgment in place. In other words, what caused me to be triggered in that way? I didn’t have far to look because, in my case, I had a domineering, critical, opinionated father who allowed no dissent or independent thinking in his children.  He held that rule in place by inflicting ridicule and humiliation on any of us who would venture to say anything contrary. I have spent much of  my adult life healing the effects of that suppression. Anger simmered under my surface for years until I found ways to discharge and resolve it. 

But, not surprisingly, there are still traces of it that can be activated, as in my anger toward the man across the street. Once I figured out where my judgment of him was coming from, the whole situation no longer held my attention. It “disappeared from my experience”, to quote Seth, the entity who speaks through Jane Roberts in such books as The Nature of Personal Reality. Once we discover how our own past experiences and the beliefs and emotions associated with them are affecting our present day lives, we have a chance to be set free from our aggravation and distress over a person or event.

But what do we do when it’s not that easy? When the negative feeling remains even after we discover what’s going on with us? This question has become the focus of much of my work with people and myself. And I’d like to share a few methods that I have learned to help release long held emotional blocks. 

The first method is one I have encountered sporadically in my various studies of energy and metaphysics, and which I have built upon through my own experience and that of my clients. In this process, you help the emotional material to discharge through sound and movement; in other words, VIBRATION.  This is a proactive process in which you vibrate the negative emotions out of you and into the light. You do this privately and in a safe place.

For instance, in working out my anger towards my father I spent months bashing a big bed pillow against the walls of my room and telling my father out loud all the wrongs I remembered at his hands. I would cry and emote freely until it felt like all the emotion was wrung out of me. It was painful and temporarily upsetting, but I knew it was a good pain. And it was so worth it. That was a huge part of my healing of that festering anger. I eventually felt more tolerant and even friendly toward my father, whom I had hated for decades. For me he became more like some curmudgeonly old neighbor for whom I felt real affection despite his crabbiness. What a relief that was! What a grace that brought into my life.

I was set free and he was set free.

Many of the people I’ve worked with have tried this in different forms. I even had a mild mannered older woman who crashed dishes against her barn to work out her anger at her spouse. It was very effective for her and she was able to move forward and have more peace in that relationship. And even though it struck me as an expensive and messy method, I have to confess I would have loved to try it myself. Also, I’ve had clients who kick box their anger out of them or use a punching bag.  Often I have lined up big pillows in my studio so clients could punch them and yell out their emotions with me as a coach and a witness. It usually helps a great deal.

There’s a caveat:  Some schools of psychology don’t approve of this way of releasing emotions.  They say it can exacerbate them or escalate them to a dangerous degree. I have never once experienced that, but I don’t dismiss that opinion or take it lightly.  I advise people to exercise caution, stay safe, and only do it if you are fully aligned with it. 

However, I do believe that we must begin to find safe, effective ways to  release this pent-up emotional dynamite that millions of humans are carrying around inside.  We need to let go of all that imploded trapped energy so that it can be transformed into a love that is fierce and powerful enough to heal our world.  To release these emotions is a sacred act which we undertake with a loving intention to free ourselves and whomever we are holding in the prison of our judgment.

In my next installment I’ll share some other methods I’ve learned for clearing and transforming negative emotions. Thank you for your attention. I am grateful for this opportunity to spread the good word as it has come to me.