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

You judge yourself for being judgy. Then you judge yourself for judging your judgeme—ok, we're already exhausted.

In this episode Helen discusses how judgements are relevant to trauma work, and how to figure out what your judgy thoughts are actually trying to tell you.

Your judgment isn't the enemy. It's pointing to something. This week, follow it.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hello, I'm Helen Villows, and this is the Trauma Nerd Podcast. I'm a registered psychologist, and the other therapist, and I work exclusively with trauma. This podcast is for people who want psychologically sound explanation without sexual cuts. Toxic positivity or excuses dressed up as empathy. We'll talk about trauma, responsibility, relationships, and recovery. Back to my nuance, honesty, and of course, actual evidence. Let's get into it. Hello and welcome to the Trauma Nerd Podcast. Look, it's gonna be a quick one this week because I have been unwell. You can probably hear it in my voice. I think it's actually kind of awful. Um, I didn't want to lose my podcast streak. So I've kept going. Um, but yeah, gonna be short. But actually, after putting this script together, I'm feeling like short, sharp, and sweet might be what everybody's after, anyways. Because I think I'm just getting straight to the point today, and it's probably gonna leave you with something fairly actionable pretty quickly that's gonna help you. How good's that? So I'm gonna 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, trauma, oh, I hate the healing journey thing. Like I hate all the like, you know what I mean? Like the healing journey vibe. It is though, it is a healing journey, so whatever. If you're on a healing trauma journey, then I think um judgment is something that you need to be um very aware of. And it's interesting because I think we often chastise ourselves for judging, which is ironic because we're judging ourselves for judging. Um, 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 and a and a very, really helpful one at that. Okay, so now, first of all, I want to clarify there is a difference between what we are what I'm calling today judgments and discernments. So judgments are emotional. It's like when you're being judgy, when you're criticizing yourself or others, when you're being judgy towards yourself or someone else, okay? So 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, which is a for probably a form of judgment. Many people would argue that. Um, that is founded upon facts exclusively using the facts. And discernments are very important in our day-to-day lives, right? So if I'm about to dive in a pool, I need to make, 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, um, then maybe there's a big slide or something. He's only two. I need to make an assessment in order to discern whether that slide is appropriate for a two-year-old. Because not all of them are, right? Some of them are kind of big and they're like windy and stuff, and he, you know, it needs to be age appropriate. So we do need discernments. Like you make a discernment as well when you're um picking when to turn, like merge into traffic or, you know, do different things like that. They're not judgments. You're making a discernment based upon facts around you and data that you're taking in. So we're not talking about discernments today, because discernments are logical judgments um based upon facts. I'm talking about the emotional judgments when we're getting judgy, um, the kind we think of when we're saying that something is judgmental, or the kind we think of when we're calling ourselves judgmental or we're feeling judgy of others, right? So, my observation in doing 25 EMDR sessions a week, 25 trauma therapy sessions a week, is that judgments are frequently functioning as a defense mechanism to something painful we don't want to feel. That avoidance is likely unconscious and happening in a very automatic way that you won't notice until you go looking. Okay. Um, but often what you will find underneath judgment is off the top of my head, one of two things. Um, I might think of more later and regret saying that, but for now I can think of two off the top of my head. Um, the first thing you're likely to find is a wound, a trauma wound. So a wound from the past. Okay. Or it's not always that deep, which is why I'm making a distinction between these two. It's not always a trauma that you'll find underneath that. Sometimes it's just an uncomfortable emotional experience that we don't want to feel. Okay. So 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 mean, I want to say always, but I don't like using blanket statements because there's always exceptions, but like a lot of the time it truly is that. So 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 thought that party is gonna suck. So obviously that is super judgy, all right? But what's underneath the judgment? Where we strip the judgment away, I mean, I would wager, probably, it's defending against feelings of rejection and possibly inadequacy. Maybe there's even a history around wounds um relating to feeling rejected and inadequate, probably from childhood. That's I mean, look, I hate to say it, but it is often childhood. Um and judgment is a much more comfortable place to sit than in those really uncomfortable feelings. So it's often a similar case, and I think even more interesting when we judge ourselves. This is I 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? Or, you know, that's not good enough. But when we boil it down, these are really all actually judgmental statements. We're judging ourselves. And I can almost guarantee that if you strip those comments back, you get curious. You don't get annoyed at yourself, you don't get mad at the judgment. Instead, you use it as a compass and you go, huh. There must there's maybe something underneath that. And I'm gonna 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, right? That's what you want to work on. Um, or if it's just an uncomfortable feeling, lean into it, let yourself feel it, increase, improve your tolerance for that feeling. Okay. So, my challenge for you. Next time you notice yourself judging either yourself or someone else, ask yourself the following questions. What? And be calm about it and be nice to your judgment. Remember, you're treating it like a compass, not an enemy. This is why um I haven't really spoken much on this before. I am not a fan of these parts approaches. Um, I have done a lot of work, you know, in um different parts therapy approaches. Like, um, and I'm talking when I'm talking parts, I'm relating that to these ideas of like the inner child, the inner critic, the, you know, um, there's so many different models, but um, internal family systems use parts, structural dissociation theory uses parts, um, ego state therapy uses parts. There's all these different approaches. I'm not a fan of the parts approaches personally, though I do acknowledge the inner child. I'm not saying that that's not a real experience, it, you know, not that there's a little person literally living inside of you, but um yes, the experience of the inner child is there. We do, we do feel that, and there's a reason for that. And EMDR actually has a fantastic um conceptualization of that. Anyways, I digress. I'm losing my train of thought. Um, the questions I want you to ask yourself, sorry, coming back to that. I don't like the idea of the inner critic because it's not conducive to a positive relationship with that experience, right? If I've got an inner critic that's mean to me and I'm calling him my inner critic, you know, I don't like that person. I was about to say, I don't like that guy. Okay, but if we're thinking about it as a defense and we're just curious about it in terms of what's underneath it, then it's it's a bit more benign. And in fact, it's it's actually it's actually trying to protect you, which you're going to learn too. I want you to 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? Okay, ask yourself those questions. I think you'll be quite surprised to learn the answer. Okay. So, like I said, short one this week, that's it for me. And I hope you found that helpful. I hope this gives you a different perspective in 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, it that's the most common thing people do is they judge their judgment, which is kind of funny, really. But um, it's not helpful because then we're just getting angry at ourselves, and that just really makes a bad situation worse. Okay, so thank you so much for listening. As always, uh, leave a review, a good one, ideally. Oh my god, I'm sounding very stuffed up. I apologise, I'll wrap up. Um, thank you. Leave a review, subscribe if you like to hear what I'm talking about, and I will see you next time. Bye for now. That's it for today's episode of the Trauma Nerd Podcast. If you felt validated, yay! If you felt challenged, double yay. If you found this useful, you can follow or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. If you're interested in trauma focused therapy or resources, you can find more information at my website. Thanks for listening and bye for now.