Shackles of Judgment

Judgment feels heavy, how can I possibly not allow this energy to rule my life?

I often wonder what life would look like when it’s not guided by judgment. If ownership over actions, thoughts, feelings were no longer necessary. Not a free pass, but an acknowledgment of responsibility, and a true settling into self-forgiveness.

My habit is to think that there’s never enough “claiming of responsibility”. I fear that I’ve not done enough to deserve forgiveness. How wonky, to choose a cyclical guilt.

This burden isn’t a feather, more like the ACME weight from Roadrunner & Wyle E. Coyote resting on my shoulders. Judgment carries into how I view others living their lives, but it’s always comparison of my own experience, justifying guilt and blame.

I see people living their lives, driving nice cars, sleeping in fancy homes, and spending time with their beautiful families. How did they get there? Was it chance circumstances? Do they have questions plaguing their existence like my own?

This comparison turns into resignation, a simple statement: I don’t have a life worthy of that level of goodness.

There’s a cardinal sitting on the fence outside of the car I sleep in. His red is so brilliant, and his wings flutter, off he goes. I sleep and write in this car. I go to parks so my dog can play. The cardinal has freedom of movement, balanced with meeting needs, like food, nesting, and safety from predators. I guess we’re not that different, other than my perceived inability to fly.

Judgment is the chain tying me to the ground, clipping my wings. The internal “right and wrong” keeps telling me how to live, how to move.

It seems to have been around forever. What could possibly provide sufficient space for the unshackling from the prison of my own mind?

Hopelessness begins seeping in. I choose to remain aware of it’s presence so it doesn’t waterboard me with my own tears. Large emotions require me to balance on my nose, maintaining a perspective that holds the space for many sensations instead of hyperfixating on one. It’s always “yes, and”, or I most certainly will lose myself until I’m in the middle of a floundering session. Becoming aware as a flounder is unpleasant.

I could easily avoid the hopelessness, but I know this would train me to avoid discomfort. Holding this, too, as a “fake it til you make it” act of self-compassion.

As I make a slow walk to the park bathroom, I notice the internal sound of bird wings fluttering, very close to my eardrums, softening the density of hopelessness. Even deciding to share this relation I have to my internal world induces fear of psychiatric retaliation.

A small smile finds its way to my face as I realize that fear is not going to control me. Should I instead allow it to propel me forward in this process of destigmatizing my own mental illness? Maybe this sharing of the things I’ve kept hidden will allow me the freedom I’ve been silently crying out for.

I wonder if I’ve been judging myself the way psychiatry does, and that’s why the shackles feel so heavy.

It’s not the pursuit of happiness for me, but the pursuit of freedom. Maybe if I continue holding space for freedom to be true, I’ll eventually stumble upon it.

Until then, I’m comfortable writing from the car with Nova napping in the backseat.