How to Work with Judgmental Thoughts

As we begin meditating, we often encounter the whirlwind of our minds – our pleasant and unpleasant thoughts and emotions. This isn't a sign of something wrong with us or our meditation. It's simply that we're finally looking – a positive step in the long run. However, in the short term, it can be disconcerting, even stressful.

The meditation industry often portrays meditation solely as a stress-buster. While true, authentic meditation, where we train in mindful awareness and witness the rampant thinking mind, can initially cause some stress for most of us. It's the wildness of our minds that's unsettling.

However, in Buddhist thought, this is seen as a good thing. We're finally acknowledging reality. Just like with any health issue, we need to diagnose the problem before applying a solution. We can't treat what we don't acknowledge. Similarly, in meditation, we start to see the predicament of our minds in their entirety.

This awareness is ultimately positive, as long as we have practices to ground and settle ourselves. While grounding practices (like breathwork and somatic techniques) aren't the sole purpose of meditation, they're incredibly helpful along the way. They allow us to witness the chaos with more compassion.

Now, let's specifically discuss judgmental thoughts. I'd say a majority of my thoughts are somewhat judgmental. I don't act on every judgment, nor am I surprised anymore by them. In my initial meditation years, I worried – am I a bad person? Then I realized this is the nature of the confused mind. A confused mind is a judgmental mind.

This isn't to say we shouldn't work on it. We certainly should, as ultimately we suffer the most from our judgmental thoughts. However, we also don't need to beat ourselves up for it. The key is to bear witness, to watch these thoughts arise. This watching happens through mindful awareness practice.

Mindfulness, a popular term these days, is for me an aspect of a larger quality of mind – awareness. This inherent awareness is something we're all born with, but rarely access fully. It's a double knowing – knowing the content of our experience (thoughts, feelings) and the knowing itself (the act of being aware).

This awareness is a quality of mind that allows us to bear witness, to observe, and to know what's unfolding within and around us. We're aware that we're aware, hence the term "double knowing." It's a knowing of both our internal and external landscapes, coupled with the awareness of ourselves as the knower.

While I won't delve too deeply here, it's not a complex concept when we connect with it in meditation. Whether you resonate with the term "mindfulness" or not, meditation involving mindful awareness is how we cultivate the strength to observe our judgmental thinking mind.

Imagine a clear blue sky with clouds drifting by. We strive to watch our thoughts in the same way – as clouds passing through a vast expanse. Ideally, we'd be the clear sky, not getting caught up or identified with the clouds. However, most of us initially believe we are the clouds, which is why judgmental thoughts hold so much power over us.

Therefore, the first step, a kind of mid-term intention, is to cultivate watchfulness of your judgmental thinking mind. This reduces its power. We don't need to personalize these thoughts or act them out. Instead, we can simply allow them to arise and fall away. Like waves on the ocean, they don't inherently affect anything. This is a mid to long-term project, of course.

Compassion, a word with many interpretations, has a specific meaning within Buddhist thought. It's the ability to bear witness to confusion and pain, in all its forms – physical, emotional, subtle anxieties, and even judgmental thoughts themselves. Dissatisfaction, in Buddhist terms, also falls under the category of pain or discomfort.

Compassion is our willingness to meet these areas of discomfort in our lives. Some may feel too overwhelming to approach right away, and that's okay. We don't have to force ourselves. 

Holding ourselves and our thoughts, particularly judgmental ones, with compassion acknowledges the discomfort they bring. We allow ourselves to soften towards this discomfort and, as mentioned earlier, towards ourselves. It's not about feeling like a bad person, but recognizing that we're simply navigating life and trying our best.

Beyond this initial coaching, there's a deeper level of compassion where the heart opens, and a tenderness arises. This compassion also carries insight and wisdom. How you access this tenderness is a personal journey.

Whether you choose to use constructive thoughts, I highly recommend incorporating somatic practices. These practices involve dropping into the body and connecting with the feeling world – the emotions and sensations arising around the judgmental thought itself.

For example, a judgmental thought might trigger a complex set of feelings like annoyance, anger, aversion, and even shame. Our individual makeup determines this emotional response. Some might feel shame for angry thoughts, while others might experience clinging or craving followed by self-criticism or feelings of inadequacy. These are just a few examples – often, low self-worth underpins these reactions.

Therefore, compassion isn't just about the judgmental thought itself, but also the cascade of reactions it triggers. The more awareness we cultivate, the more we become aware of these diverse reactions arising around our thoughts, feelings, and emotions.

For me, compassion means meeting each moment with full awareness, or as much awareness as I can muster, and a willingness to be present. Not every moment will be uncomfortable, nor should it be. However, the capacity to be present with discomfort is crucial. We need to shift our usual attitude towards discomfort as something to be pushed away.

Hopefully, you're starting to see a shift in this framework. If this information is new to you, consider this: compassion is the essence of how we approach judgment. Judgment is the opposite of compassion – a rigid fixation on reality conforming to a specific, narrow view.

When we allow thoughts to arise and fall without judgment, there's an inherent element of compassion. Similarly, when we directly connect with and feel the emotional reactions around a judgment, there's compassion present as well.

Even the willingness to read what I'm sharing here is an act of compassion. Why are we here? Why am I writing this, and why are you reading it? It's because we care. We possess a fundamental element of compassion that motivates us to learn how to work with ourselves, and by extension, with others in the world, with more care and understanding. This ultimately fosters greater well-being for ourselves and those around us.