Gabriel Mohr

is spreading positivity and conscious information!

On Emotional Suppression

by Leave a Comment

Quick Facts

-Many of us suppress our emotions, either consciously or subconsciously, for many different reasons.

-Suppressing our emotions doesn’t make them go away; they go into the subconscious, and they begin to control our lives until they are realized, disidentified, learned from, and (usually) transcended.

-We can heal from the pain that arises from suppressing our emotions!

Intro 

I should have written this article long ago, it’s very applicable to many of our lives but I’ve simply been on a roll with the 80+ ideas I’ve come up with!

Suppression is a silent killer in the world we live in today. I speak to America in many of my articles, however, I understand that every country in the world suffers from emotional suppression, and some on a very intense scale. What is it? Why is it terrible for us? How can we stop doing it and heal ourselves? These questions and more will be answered below 🙂

What Is Emotional Suppression?

Emotional suppression is when we consciously or subconsciously keep ourselves from feeling an emotion. We “push it down,” so to speak, into the depths of our mind so that we can ignore it and go about our daily lives.

Why Do We Do It?

Sometimes we do this automatically, like if we experience a traumatic event or live in a traumatic culture. When we do it consciously, it’s usually because we want to stay composed and keep going (IE, at a funeral or at work).

Emotions can be intense, sometimes they’re too intense for our minds to handle, especially when we were younger. It also didn’t help if we experienced something traumatic as a child and our parents tried to sush us or otherwise stop us from crying because by doing so they were encouraging us to suppress our emotions, which is a terrible idea, as we’ll see in the next paragraph. 

And, we didn’t necessarily have to witness a murder to consider an event traumatic – trauma is tightly linked with expectation, the more intense your expectation, the greater the trauma if it happens to be violated. Many children have the subconscious expectation that their parents will be around forever, so if they get momentarily lost at a carnival, they will probably remember that for the rest of their lives in a not-so-pleasant tonality.

Why Is It Bad For Us?

Okay, we like to suppress emotions – big deal, right? The brain does it automatically so it mustn’t mean too much, right?

Even though we automatically suppress emotions this line of thinking is very, very wrong and very, very dangerous. This is true because of one simple fact – suppressing an emotion doesn’t make it go away, it just pushes it into the subconscious part of your mind. It still exists, and now that it’s not conscious it seeps into our lives in ways that are subtle and, sometimes, detrimental to our wellbeing.

I can hear you out there saying, “but Gabriel, what if this is simply your belief? Don’t you know that you can create your own reality with the beliefs you hold and that they aren’t necessarily the same for everybody else?”

This is so, however, there is a difference between a psychic belief and a psychic fact – a belief is something made and acted out by us crafty humans, however, a psychic fact is a truth that exists in the psychological realm whether we believe in it or not. Case in point, I received all of my information used in this post from direct observation of myself and other people, and I can guarantee you these “other people” did not have a clue as to what emotional suppression was, let alone believed in it – but they acted it out anyway.

So let’s take anger as an example – if we suppress our anger and never let it out it continues to ball up inside of us and stay in our subconscious. But, since it isn’t going away, it expresses itself by influencing our mood, perception, beliefs, and actions. For example, “life is just terrible… There’s always something going on I don’t like” is a great example of a belief created in the spirit of repressed anger. 

Once the beliefs are created they are almost always played out, and what happens when repressed emotion is the cause for many of the beliefs most people hold? You get today’s insanity. Insanity has spread all over the world simply because we suppress our emotions in favor of other things.

How Can We Heal From It?

But of course, there is a way out! We can feel our suppressed emotions, release them, and become much happier and clear-minded in the process.

I’ve come up with some guidelines after healing from my own suppressed emotions ever since I was a teenager. They are guidelines, so I don’t follow them every time, but most of the time I find them extremely helpful:

-First, I pay attention to how I feel in the moment. If I’m thinking about letting out some suppressed emotion it’s almost always the case I feel crappy right at the moment. So I pay attention to what it looks like in my mind, and where it is in my body (chest, solar plexus, abdomen, etc).

-When I have a visual and a location of the feeling I have successfully brought the feeling from subconsciousness into consciousness. I have options here; I can keep my mind’s eye on it and let it play itself out to its entirety, I can “expand” my visual of it by “zooming out,” I can disidentify from the emotion, I can ask myself some questions, and/or I can physically act it out. Usually, I do a combination of these things at a time, whatever feels right for that particular emotion at that particular time, and I’ll almost always ask the questions “which underlying beliefs cause this feeling to appear and stay? Why do I believe I need this feeling?” especially if holding on to it isn’t a good idea.

-Then, when I have felt and questioned and acted it out, I enjoy bringing logic into the mix. For example, if I’m dealing with suppressed sadness, I can ask myself “why is this feeling here? What purpose does it serve?” and try to find a better, less detrimental way to be. Sometimes the reason is simple and sometimes it’s complex, sometimes there are multiple reasons for the emotion to be present, sometimes there are no reasons at all. However, once I’ve answered myself honestly I’ll have an advanced understanding of my situation.

-At this point I’ve brought my feeling into consciousness, empathized with it, and analyzed it. I understand it, why it’s there, and better ways to be in place of it. I then release it, sometimes I replace it with new beliefs and feelings, sometimes I don’t. Usually, this goes something like, “I choose to feel this feeling completely and permanently release it.” If I don’t completely understand the suppressed emotion before I make this decision it usually stays until I understand it. I could force it to leave without understanding it, but where’s the fun in that? 😉

Now, this process may be completely different for you. Perhaps you prefer to let your emotions out through physical violence or a jog on the street. Maybe your most effective way of letting out suppressed emotions is different from everyone else’s, that’s why I recommend you create your own process/processes.

Final Thoughts 

Emotional suppression is a gigantus problem. It really stunts our well-being, self-control, and general enjoyment of life as a whole, and even if you don’t feel as if you have any suppressed emotions I greatly encourage you to ask yourself if you do; you may surprise yourself!

It seems to me this is the best use of meditation, that is, to find and ultimately release suppressed emotion. Sitting still in a quiet room is a great way to build concentration and go through your process (unless you’re consciously acting out your emotions), and I encourage this reason for meditation over the lesser but growing reason; social popularity and, ironically, more suppression in the pursuit of positive emotion.

Conclusion

Thank you for reading my article! The path has been exposed, will you follow it? 😉

I’ll see you in the next post!

On Depression

by Leave a Comment

Quick Facts

-Depression can result in a vicious cycle – a nasty thought appears in your head, you believe it, it makes you feel negative, you act out the negative emotion, and reaffirm the belief.

-This process can happen subconsciously! 

-One of the best ways to break it is to ask yourself, “which beliefs are making me feel depressed?” When they appear you can write them down, ‘disidentify’ from them, and stop acting them out. Then you can create better, more positive beliefs!

Intro

I wrote a post about depression on my website already… Even though it’s helpful I want to go in a different direction with this post and leave the old one as it is, there’s another perspective I will adopt while writing about something as deep and dark as this!

The Cycle of Depression

A fundamental fact about depression is that it’s psychological and biological at the same time. Whether or not a depressed person’s depression originates from a psychological or a biological source should be analyzed on an individual basis but psychological problems breed biological problems and vice versa.

Let’s think this through – in a hypothetical scenario, I have 20 negative beliefs that I’ve completely identified with and act out. Since I’m acting out these beliefs I will probably slump my shoulders, unnecessarily tense my muscles (especially my neck and face muscles), chew my food improperly, have a sedentary lifestyle, accidentally injure myself because I’m not paying attention to where I go when I’m walking… My body definitely suffers whenever I act out detrimental beliefs, and when my body hurts more detrimental beliefs will form, and the cycle continues until something terrible happens.

Let’s go the other way – if you genuinely have a biological root for your depression (genes, a low serotonin production, etc) you will feel and act in a certain way. Feelings and actions often influence beliefs to form, and if you feel depleted or if you don’t feel good a lot of the time you may form detrimental beliefs from that state of being (although maybe not), and the cycle continues.

I have seen people who were so, so deep into the cycle. So deep you guys. Their mind was warped, their body was warped, and they were genuinely beyond repair unless the entirety of humanity came to the rescue all at once. I’ve been in a pretty bad spot myself, and I successfully climbed out of it by dealing with my detrimental psychological beliefs and by taking some physical substances!

How To Fix The Psychological Part

From what I’ve observed, most of the depression in most of the people who are depressed come from psychological sources. Usually, this means acting out detrimental beliefs and the suppression of one or more emotions. 

It’s important to write down each and every detrimental belief that you hold, even if you don’t act it out. I say this but it can be easier said than done, it took me a long time to figure out each and every negative belief I picked up over the years. It doesn’t have to be all at once. 

How you figure out what you believe is you either ask yourself, pay attention to how you feel, or open your 3rd eye and see the playing out of the belief as an image or a movie. When you’re paying attention to a feeling/image/movie you can ask yourself, “Why is this here? Which belief (or beliefs) brought this into my being?” You’ll use your intuition to answer yourself and then you can write the belief(s) down.

Once you’ve written your beliefs you can begin the self-analyzation part of it. I encourage you to take one belief at a time and disidentify from it, which essentially makes it so that the belief isn’t part of your ego, or worse, possessing you. You can keep expressing that you’re letting the belief go until you feel like you can objectively criticize it.

Then, objectively criticize it. I like asking questions such as, “why did I believe this? What purpose does it serve? What are some better beliefs to believe that get me what I want in a better way?” Once I understand why the belief is there and which beliefs can replace it I go ahead and throw the old belief away and replace it with the new ones. Sometimes I won’t even replace the old belief, I’ll just throw it away.

If you do this and you still feel depressed you still have some negative beliefs that you haven’t written down and disidentified from yet. Negative beliefs have a nasty habit of hiding from you when you look for them, so a bit of searching (in my case, years of searching) and a lot of patience is the key. However, once you have truly disidentified from every one of your negative beliefs I wouldn’t be surprised if your depression simply ceases to exist!

How To Fix The Biological Part

So, what if your depression stems from a biological source? What if you’re physically suffering from depression even if it started as a psychological issue? 

This part is a lot easier to fix because we greatly value the physical world as opposed to the subjective world. You can go to any kind of doctor for any kind of pain and they will probably be able to treat you effectively, SSRIs do wonders for many people, and there are even ways to heal many chronic injuries.

I personally vouch for psychedelics, cannabis, psilocybin mushrooms, and DMT to be exact. The chemical psilocybin acts similarly to serotonin and it’s a better long-term solution than SSRIs since they tend to lose their effectiveness over time and psilocybin does not. The only reason they’re illegal is because they work, as I’ve explained before, but since they’re illegal you may have trouble finding/growing these things on a consistent basis. Thankfully, cannabis is easy to find/grow and you probably won’t have to take a whole lotta mushrooms before your biology becomes rewired for the better. DMT, of course, is a natural chemical that we produce so smoking it doesn’t do any harm to our biology whatsoever – quite the opposite.

Other Things To Know

If you’re in a depressive state I suspect that the most prominent belief looks something like, “it’s hopeless. It’ll never get better. No matter what anyone says I’m just going to suffer. Nothing works, nothing helps.”

I’ll address the last point and say that it simply isn’t true. It’s factually, objectively incorrect because even if you hold onto that belief as much as you possibly can, I know that 5 grams of psilocybin mushrooms will force you to let it go and heal anyways. Please keep in mind that just because you believe something doesn’t mean it’s necessarily an accurate reflection of reality. 

Also, bringing yourself out of your depressive slump may not be that difficult. It may be very easy! However, I write this post for those who are like I was, extremely depressed with little to no hope of recovery. I’m writing this post for my past self because this is what I needed to hear, and so I wonder if it’s what you need to hear as well.

And one last thing, you can do it. No matter if someone in your family died, you had a terrible life, you have PTSD, it doesn’t matter – you can heal yourself from your psychological bullshart and become the healthiest person you know! I recommend doing the psychological work first and starting on your physical ailments right after 🙂

Conclusion

Thank you for reading! I hope that following the steps above will work for you, and I’ll see you in the next article! 

Entertainment: The Value and Why It’s A Double-Edged Sword

by Leave a Comment

Quick Facts

-Entertainment can be good for us when consumed in healthy doses.

-We can “entertain ourselves to death” if we watch shows/play games instead of doing what we know we should be doing. Balance is key here!

Intro

Entertainment is one of the most coveted things in America today – well, in most of the world today! Many of us can be found on our phones, watching our TVs, playing video games, going to theaters, doing entertaining things, etc, etc. 

Some have even ventured to say that we’re too entertained and that we should cut down a little on the phones. I’d say that entertainment is gaining more and more of a negative connotation as time goes on, and since this is happening I’ll make sure we understand the value of entertainment and why it can be a double-edged sword. 

Let’s do it to it!

What Is Entertainment?

Entertainment has taken various forms over the years but it’s always had one common goal – to make people laugh and feel good. Have you ever been watching a YouTube video and you just, feel amazing? Maybe there’s some awesome teamwork going on or someone just did an amazing backflip. If you ever laugh or feel good while in the presence of an entertainer you know they’re doing their job correctly!

There is some biology behind this as well – dopamine and serotonin are two “feel good” chemicals that are produced inside of our body. When we watch a video and start to feel good, it’s likely that we’re experiencing an increase of dopamine and/or serotonin, and it’s even more likely that the entertainer knows the psychology behind releasing these chemicals in their audience.

Making people think they’re at ease, that they’re loved, that they’re desired, that they deserve to laugh is part of the “job description,” if you will. Beliefs are thought patterns that are (usually) emotionally charged, so making an effort to make people laugh will get (at least some of) them to think, “wow he’s making an effort just for me! He’s so funny!” That’s when their body secretes those ever-so-pleasant chemicals we know and love making them feel comfortable, relaxed, entertained.

Sometimes things are entertaining without any effort on the other party’s part – I personally find other people’s road rage to be entertaining, for example. Or if a teacher is teaching a subject and their students feel entertained in the process (usually through enthusiasm). Maybe you’ve wondered, “why is this guy so entertaining?” Well now you know, it’s a combination of trust and a good time! 

The Greatness of Entertainment/Entertainers

Entertainment has one solid thing about it – it lifts people out of the drudgery of everyday life and temporarily places them in a kind of paradise. An expert entertainer knows this and consciously performs their act to create these positive feelings, usually by knowing their audience and acting accordingly. 

I feel like we take these people for granted sometimes, especially with how many of them are available through social media. I want to stress that proper entertainers are rare and that there are a lot of people who can entertain but aren’t true entertainers. These kinds of people make up 99% of the “entertainment side of the moon.”

The people who seem to benefit from this the most are people who are of the mind. The thinkers, the intelligent ones. Thinking can be fun and useful but a thinker doesn’t have a very stimulating life in general, so watching videos or going out to see a play is a great idea for those who are in their head all day long, it’s a great way to reward themselves.

Entertainment has been around since the beginning of our species and it won’t go away until we cease to exist! A true entertainer is a very valuable person and even being able to make people feel good will get you very far in life, which segways into my next headline.

It’s Not Fundamentally Bad

The negative connotation surrounding entertainment is mostly because of the addictive quality of dopamine. It’s funny how you can become addicted to endorphins that are produced by your own body, but it’s true! Dopamine addiction is a huge reason why porn is so addictive, primal parts of your brain are secreting large amounts of it whenever you switch pornstars because, in your mind, you’re finding new sexual partners to mate with. I encourage you to watch the video series on The Coolidge Effect, it’s really quite fascinating.

Discipline and balance are helpful when it comes to entertainment because, if you over-entertain yourself, you’ll find it difficult to do things that aren’t entertaining – such as work! If you’re used to 5+ hours of entertainment per day it’ll be all you’re thinking about while you’re at work, whereas if you’re only used to 1 or 2 hours you’ll be much less addicted and be able to go for the things you want with less struggle.

Entertainment isn’t fundamentally bad, but over-entertaining yourself is. 

The Potential To Over-Entertain Yourself

It happens all the time. I see it everywhere whether it be YouTube, Dish, Netflix, video games… It seems like most of us are addicted to entertainment in one form or another, and it’s fairly alarming to someone like me. It’s easy to sit on the couch and do nothing all day while your brain is busy producing dopamine, but I’m of the opinion that this should be a treat, not a lifestyle! 

Getting out of dopamine addiction is hard but very possible, I recommend exercising (for serotonin) and achieving goals that you set for yourself (self-esteem).

Being An Entertainer

Ironically enough, being an entertainer can be the opposite of being entertained – good entertainment often takes effort, talent, and skill, most of the work is behind the scenes whereas only a small portion of it feels good for the entertainer as well.

I like to think about it like this – if you play video games and post them on YouTube you want them to be entertaining for your audience to watch. So nowadays you should have a funny personality, make funny comments and jokes throughout the session. When the video’s done you should probably edit it so that it appears in funny ways. Then you post it on YouTube and figure out where to place advertisements along with the video.

Or, if you’re a band and you want to play a concert you have to set the stage up. If you’re like Rammstein and you want to do crazy stuff a lot of effort goes into making sure everything will go right and that nothing will go wrong. Not to mention the actual performance itself… And the takedown afterward. 

Being an entertainer can be a lot of work and even boring at times, depending on your profession! That’s why I want to put this disclaimer here so that you don’t make the same mistake I did – I figured “oh, being entertained is so much fun! Being an entertainer will be even more fun!” Maybe it’s that way for some people but I doubt it’s that way for many!

Finding Balance

A lot of thought should be put into how much entertainment we should give ourselves throughout the day because, if we don’t, it may very well take over our lives and always be at the forefront of our mind.

My thought is this – if you’re being entertained so much that you can’t do the things you know you should… It’s time for a change. If you’re trudging or half-assing your stuff because you’d rather be home watching Valley Girls S2E11 it’s time for a change.

However, if you’re being entertained and you have discipline, you’re getting your stuff done and you’re being mentally and emotionally healthy – go for it! 

Find your own balance in this area of life, know your goals, and stick to them so that you don’t fall into a trap that’s pretty difficult to climb out of!

Conclusion

Thank you for reading, I really appreciate it. I’m sure that I’ve helped sort this issue out and I hope you’ll share it around and be cool like that! I’ll see you in the next article!

Word Analysis Philosophy (WAP), What It Is, and How/Why It Works

by Leave a Comment

Quick Fact

-Word analysis philosophy is a technique I created to help with negative thought patterns! It works since we focus on the core words within each thought pattern and study them, thereby learning their true meaning and origin, thereby placing attention on them, thereby transcending them!

Intro

Perhaps I’m in a different position than most, but I often fall into negative thought patterns that can last for days, weeks, or months on end. These negative thought patterns are often unconscious (oh boy, how fun) and they almost always consist of words that have a negative connotation in society, such as “terrible,” “shameful,” “useless,” and the like; words that are meant to degrade my being and make sure I never get back up again.

In response to my own turmoil I’ve created a new branch of philosophy called ‘Word Analysis Philosophy.’ Its purpose is to take a particular word, break it into smaller pieces, find out exactly where it comes from, exactly what it means, how it could be said better, and what exactly the ‘it’ happens to be that I’m trying to explain.

For example, a word that’s bugging me at the moment is “useless.” I could let this word roam around in the back of my mind and leave it unchecked, but that would lead to a lot of suffering since me telling myself “I’m useless” is a bad thing, right? Maybe, but I’m not entirely convinced that this is the truth. Let’s take this word, “useless,” and analyze it a little further instead of simply taking it at face value.

The Process

If I break the word into smaller bits and pieces I find that it’s made up of two words; “use” and “less.” Just breaking the word apart sends a different message than “useless;” instead of suffering to no end I now receive the message that I should “use less” of my computer/phone since I’m on them all of the time for work and play.

Now I take the two words “use” and “less” and find their origin. After all, the cultural context they were created for at the time is everything, and if a word is created in a different context than what we’re experiencing today then it could have a completely different meaning than what we think of it to be in the present day.

A quick search from www.etymoline.com gave me this: ” use (n), c. 1200, “act of employing,” from Anglo-French and Old French us “custom, practice, usage,” from Latin usus “use, custom, practice, employment, skill, habit,” from past participle stem of uti “make use of, profit by, take advantage of.”

Also, “use (v), c. 1200, “employ for a purpose,” from Old French user “employ, make use of, practice, frequent,” from Vulgar Latin *usare “use,” frequentative form of past participle stem of Latin uti “make use of, profit by, take advantage of, enjoy, apply, consume,” in Old Latin oeti “use, employ, exercise, perform,” of uncertain origin.

This Latin root, “uti,” certainly has its place in the English language; utilize, utensil, inutile, usury, and use all come from this stem “uti.” So immediately we think of a tool, a device, something we take advantage of, etc, etc.

Looking up the word “less” I see two different definitions, the first being “Old English læs (adv.) “less, lest;” læssa (adj.) “less, smaller, fewer” (Northumbrian leassa), from Proto-Germanic *laisizan (source also of Old Saxon, Old Frisian les “less;” Middle Dutch lise “soft, gentle,” German leise “soft”), from PIE root *leis- (2) “small” (source also of Lithuanian liesas “thin”) + comparative suffix,” which is a complete mouthful for someone who is not etymologically inclined. However, the second definition made a little more sense to me;

-less, word-forming element meaning “lacking, cannot be, does not,” from Old English -leas, from leas “free (from), devoid (of), false, feigned,” from Proto-Germanic *lausaz (cognates: Dutch -loos, German -los “-less,” Old Norse lauss “loose, free, vacant, dissolute,” Middle Dutch los, German los “loose, free,” Gothic laus “empty, vain”), from PIE root *leu- “to loosen, divide, cut apart.”

If we take the first part of this definition (modern English “-less”) then we get a word that spells “useless” which generally means “lacking utility,” “cannot be taken advantage of.” If we move to the Old English root -leas then we can spell the word “useleas” (or dare I be so bold to spell it “uselease”) which means means  “devoid of advantage,” “false utility,” or even “free of use.” Moving on to the third part of this definition (the Old Norse root -lauss) we get the word “uselauss” which means “vacant utility,” “dissolute advantage,” or even “loose utility or “loosely advantageous.”

The older the root, the less sense it makes when we combine it with modern English, but right away we can see a few choices when we take another look at this word; we can choose to see the word “useless” as meaning “free from use, unable to be used,” as “lacking utility, devoid of advantage,” or even as “use less” (as in using something less than usual).

If you’re like me and this word runs through your head every now and again the first definition will most likely be the most freeing out of the three since we usually assume the second definition by default. The third way to see this word is useful if we’re doing something more than we should be. 

Now that we have the definitions out of the way we can get a little more philosophical on the matter by asking questions such as, “What exactly is the thing that is useless?” “What is the opposite of ‘using’ something?” “Why do I feel bad when this word pops up again? What does it mean for me?” The longer we ask questions about a word (or a sentence or a phrase) the sillier it becomes. If I answer the first question by saying, “Well, me! I’m useless,” then I’m forced to ask the question, “Which definition do you mean?” Then I might say, “The second definition. I am lacking utility; I am devoid of advantage; I am completely and utterly useless to society in every possible way.”

What I have done there is made the unconscious thought pattern completely conscious by forcing myself to give a straight definition as to what it is I mean exactly.

Sometimes just attending to a subconscious thought pattern is enough and you’ll start to feel much better. In this case, though, my initial assumption hasn’t left; it appears to be very, very grounded in reality.

From here I could ask a few different questions; “Is this assumption grounded or ungrounded? If so, why?” “What skillsets should I develop in order to change this reality, and why exactly?” “Why is this a core assumption that’s been in the background for so long?” “Am I doing something I shouldn’t be doing, or not doing something I should be doing?” 

I won’t type my follow-throughs for the sake of time, but in the end, it became quite clear that some of my fear, anxiety, sadness, and guilt stem from a core assumption of the feeling named shame if I conclude that I’m not being useful enough to the people around me. Of course, now I should examine the word “shame,” and I probably will after this post.

Conclusion

WAP is meant to help over-thinkers like myself calm their minds with a bit of effort and a bit of brutal honesty by accepting the thoughts as they are.

It’s not necessarily a step-by-step process because the answers will be different for you and me than they will be for everyone else. But looking into a word (or a sentence or phrase) for long enough will reveal its silliness to you, and it may reveal another secret that cannot be said… I’ll leave that one for you to figure out!

What Judgment Is, And How To Handle It

by Leave a Comment

Quick Facts

-Judgment is the process of gathering information and coming to a conclusion or decision, and usually, the end result is based on commonly accepted law and/or morality. 

-The fear of judgment goes back to our primal days – if we were negatively judged we were thrown out of the tribe, and back then, we couldn’t survive the harsh elements on our own.

-Some judgments are grounded, which means they are based on physical evidence that is obvious to others. Some judgments are ungrounded, which means they’re either false or of things that are subtle and/or the evidence is not obvious to others.

-Becoming a stellar judge yourself (not necessarily in the legal sense) is a great idea if you’d like to counteract the bad judges that are out there!

Intro

Today we’re going to dissect judgment and see it for what it really is! We’ll also be taking a look at the fear of judgment, since this is what plagues many of us today, and we’ll figure out how to resolve it! Enjoy the read!

The Beginning

Negative judgment (especially when it is subconsciously acted out) is one person (or a group of people) acknowledging another person (or a group of people) and rejecting them for one reason or another. This can be extremely hurtful for everybody involved, the judger and the judged alike, and it’s driven many people into isolation, anxious states of mind, and sometimes even suicide.

Positive judgment has some underlying problems as well; if we judge something in a positive manner that means we automatically (and often subconsciously) negatively judge its opposite. This is the same for negative judgment; if someone negatively judges something in a negative manner they automatically positively judge the opposite. With the duality exposed, we can begin to realize the truth about judgment, but it’s required to go far more in-depth than I have so far.

What Is Judgment, Exactly?

The first thing that’s important to note is that it used to have a major impact on the life of an individual when humanity was in a much earlier stage in its development. If an individual did something that was against the tribe’s well-being the tribe would judge him/her and forge a punishment for them based on whether or not they felt like they should. If an individual was exiled from their tribe they would eventually die since you needed your tribe in order to survive the harshness of the times. This fear of rejection (aka being negatively judged) seems to have carried over into the modern-day seeing as we take both happenings very seriously, more seriously than most other life events.

While the word “judgment” seems to point to a feeling that’s felt when we see the word “rejection,” and since “judgment” also doubles as an abstract concept that describes the process of one person or group of people accepting or denying another person or another group of people based on their requirements for acceptance, we already have the second thing to know about judgment; people accept or deny based on their own requirements for acceptance. You can go into an interview and absolutely crush it, but as long as the interviewer sees that you don’t meet their expectations (even if they’re hidden or unknown) you won’t get the job. This is the same with a mate, a friend, a business comrade, a family member, etc etc. 

The third thing to know about judgment is that it shouldn’t just be brushed aside. If someone rejects you or judges you in a passive or openly harsh manner that probably means there is something about you that’s negatively affecting everybody else around you. This may not be the case (we’ll talk about that in more detail below) but it’s always best to ask yourself if what they’re saying is true and to answer yourself honestly. If you find it difficult to answer yourself honestly then that may be (at least part of) the problem.

Grounded Judgment vs. Ungrounded Judgment

You may remember a previous post that discusses the differences between grounded and ungrounded anxiety/confidence. Judgment works the same way; the act of judgment itself can be either grounded or ungrounded and the feeling of rejection can also be grounded or ungrounded. Distinguishing between the two kinds of judgment is crucial if we’re going to learn how to deal with harsh judgment.

Let’s say that a couple is having a fight and one of them is sensing “defeat” coming around the corner. If the individual is immature they may throw out a random insult that has nothing to do with the subject they’re fighting about; “you know, my ex was better than you. Maybe I’ll go back to them.” This is a harsh blow to the face; Person A just made a general judgment on Person B about their entire being summed up in one single sentence. The fight would probably continue with something like that going unnoticed but this is ungrounded judgment at its finest. 

We can spot ungrounded judgment by placing any judgment we come across with this particular filter; the more a judgment is meant to serve the judger and not the judged the more of an ungrounded judgment it is. Obversely, the more a judgment is meant to serve the judged and not the judger the more grounded in reality the judgment is. 

This is where it gets tricky. Everybody is selfish and has selfish intentions (whether the intentions are realized or not), so one might be tempted to say that all judgments are ungrounded and that judgment itself is something to “awaken” from. It is important to note, however, that our long-ago ancestors were properly able to survive based on a series of judgments that distinguished poisonous from healthy, safe from dangerous, hot from cold, etc etc, and so I argue that grounded judgments in the modern day are just as important as they were when we were simply surviving as a species. Let’s take a look at this example below to see what I mean.

We have John, Linda, and Thomas, three fictional characters in a fictional scenario. John and Linda have been dating for just over a year when Linda starts noticing something strange about John; he’s becoming more aggressive, more paranoid, more controlling, and more uncaring as the relationship moves forward. She starts to become concerned with this so she goes into his room and tries to find out what’s wrong; maybe she’s expecting a prescribed medication, or maybe a booze bottle hiding in a drawer somewhere, but she didn’t expect him to be looming over the doorway when she turned around because she didn’t know that he was coming home from work early that day.

Starting to become frightened she hires a private investigator named Thomas to help her find out why John has been acting this way. Thomas looks into his life away from home and reports that John has started going to the stripper clubs in the musty part of their town. This includes sex (which he aptly pays for), drugs, (which are normally given to him for free), and lots of promises that he’ll get a lot more if he comes back next weekend. John confesses to these faults and now Linda has the capability to make a grounded judgment as to what should happen between them as a couple.

She begins by thinking that it’s over between her and John, but she suddenly remembers something about John’s past; the last time she went to visit his parents for the holidays, she noticed that his dad was an overbearing, overly strict alcoholic who could loosen up a little bit. When she asked John about it in private he said that his father was always like this and that he never gave his children any respect unless they brought him a beer.

Then she remembers the time when John broke down crying and admitted his feelings for another woman who was in his life at the time. He never went with her but the implication that Linda wasn’t enough for him stuck with her for a long time.

Finally, she remembers a time when she found a bag of cocaine in his drawer. When she brought the bag to his attention he admitted that he had been taking the drug two weeks before she found the bag and that he’ll stop using it immediately.

Each memory Linda has let her become more and more capable of a grounded judgment for the situation at hand. She decides that John obviously has a core issue with his self-worth based on what happened in the past; she decides that he’s in a lot of emotional pain and that he is somebody who needs to be helped, not hurt. Instead of a nasty breakup that has the potential to hurt John even more than she decides to break apart from John with the promise that she will help him in any possible way she can while he gets himself together as an individual.

While this may not be the best decision it certainly wasn’t the worst decision, and the reason for this is because she made it based on real-life events that happened between them while keeping John’s own well-being in mind instead of making a snap judgment that could have proven hurtful instead of helpful. 

How To Handle Judgment Properly

Now that we’re aware of the two types of judgment it’s important to note that no judgment is completely grounded and no judgment is completely ungrounded. Most judgments will be a mixture of the two, and it’s our job to take a judgment that has been thrown our way and decide if it’s more grounded than ungrounded or vice versa. In other words, learning how to handle judgment is the same as being a good judge as to whether or not the judgment was accurate or inaccurate and then taking action based on your decision. Since this is the case it’s vital to learn how to judge people/situations properly, we do this by being aware of the reality in which we live.

We don’t need to be aware of every single grain of sand on the entire planet in order to be a sound judge, but we do need to be aware of what’s happening in the situation at hand and be willing to consider the well-being of everyone involved if we’re going to be a grounded judge.

I’m certainly far from perfect in this area of life; I find myself making snap judgments and ungrounded accusations about the people around me throughout the day, and it’s something I’m in the process of changing. For those plagued by the judgment of their friends/family/acquaintances, however, it’s important to become a grounded judge and you can do this by asking the question, “Why do these people keep saying or doing the things they do? Don’t they know it’s hurting me and probably everyone else around us?”

When this question is followed through (which may require some proper investigation into your judger’s past depending on who they are) you will then have enough information and confidence to make a grounded judgment about the individual/group in question and you will have an easier time deciding if their judgment is grounded or ungrounded.

The more you are able to distinguish between grounded and ungrounded judgments (I.E., which judgments are hurtful and which judgments are helpful) the more your confidence grows. The more your confidence grows the more negative judgments tend to become “swallowed” by your confidence. The more negative judgment that’s “swallowed” by your confidence, the less you will be negatively affected by it. Then you’ll feel better about yourself in general and you’ll have an increased capacity to help others get to the same place as well.

Conclusion

Judgment can be harsh, and the solution probably wasn’t what you were expecting (I sure didn’t expect it to be like this), however it is a relatively simple solution to a pressing issue in American society. I hope this post helped you answer your question, have a great day!