08.What I carry with me III

The Judgment

I grew up inside a culture of judgment. A culture in which the phrase "this is not to be done" resonated like a boundary, and in which every out-of-place gesture carried with it the echo of a silent question, "What will people say?"

Words like these plant themselves early on, like invisible seeds. And they grow inside us in the form of shame, self-censorship, conditioning.
As if, as a child, instead of learning to know ourselves, we first learn to regulate ourselves to please. To the family. To society.

To the rules.
As if our worth depends on how well we manage not to make mistakes.

Shame, for me, was the hardest emotion to watch. Not because it was obvious, but because it was subtle.
Disguised as "politeness," as "common sense," as "not bothering." But shame is a silent cage.
And as Brené Brown, one of the leading scholars on the subject, says:

"Shame feeds on secrecy, silence and judgment. If we talk about shame, if we name it, if we illuminate it, it loses power."
- from I thought it was my fault

I have explored this emotion in depth. In part, I had already talked about it in the previous article, in which shame had manifested itself
in my story through my relationship with money. There, too, it was hidden under responsibility, prudence, silence.

But shame has a thousand disguises. And it comes back to speak to us in the moments when we feel "wrong." In the judgments we feel about ourselves,
but also in the ones we make on our own.

In the book I Thought It Was My Fault, Brené Brown says that shame manifests itself in the body before it does in the mind:
the stomach closes, the knot in the throat comes, the skin warms. It is not a thought. It is an impact.

It is an introjected judgment that tells us, "You are wrong." You're not doing something wrong, but you are wrong.
And that, perhaps, is the deepest wound.

But there is a way out of this:to give voice to shame,to tell what frightens us,to connect through empathy, courage, critical awareness.

As Brené Brown says again:
"Courage is our voice, and compassion is our ears. Without them there is no possibility of either empathy or connection."

Questions for you:
Where in my life do I still feel the weight of judgment?
What inner voice keeps telling me that I am not enough?
Can I try, even for a moment, to look at myself with a kinder gaze?

Sources of inspiration:
Brené Brown - I thought it was my fault
Kristin Neff - Self-Compassion
Carl Rogers - Becoming a Person
TaraBrach - Radical Compassion