Judgement

This week is all about letting go of judgement.  {cue bitter laugh}

You'd think that having growing up in a world where everything I did and was would keep me from continuing that destructive view in the present.  Instead I find that I don't know any other way to see.  It has been a painstakingly slow process to learn how to see others differently and I'll admit that if anyone ever heard the shit that goes through my brain, but never makes it out of my mouth, I'd be horrified and friendless. I'm good at judgement.  I excel at it.  More than shame which is something others have put on me, or lies that I tell myself which stem from unhealed wounds.  Judgement is woven into the fibre of my very being.  I breathe judgement.

Of all my character defects this is the one where I am most powerless.  I've started to learn over the past three years about mercy and grace.  I've been learning to extend that to others, to choke back my judgemental thoughts and to beg God to please show me how you see this person because all I can see are the ways to shred them to pieces with my words.  I know that judging others was a form of self-protection for a long time.  I needed ammunition and I got good at attacking before anyone even knew to duck. I did to others what had always been done to me.

I am learning to live my amends - to extend grace and mercy before they are even needed.  I am learning to live at peace with others, to create spaces that are free from judgement.  It's hard work.  It's necessary work.  It's sacred work.

This Lent seems to be all about next steps and this next step is a doozy.  I don't know how to turn off the constant stream of self-judgement that runs through my brain 24/7.  Every thing I do, think, speak, or feel is judged.  That judgement is held over my head, beating me back down to my supposed rightful place any time I dare to be breathe.  There's been some shifts, because the punishment that comes along with the judgement is no longer there.  I no longer have to pay for my existence with blood and bruises.  I'm grateful for that.

Yet I still see myself as too much - too broken, needy, desperate, silent, loud, clumsy, awkward, weird.  I feel my walls up this week.  I know that they are there because I am scared that you will see me and judge me as lacking, not good enough.  My heart can't take any more harsh judgements and so I've built a wall of my own self-judgement to keep yours from ever getting to me.  Any external judgement just increases the strength of my walls because you are simply agreeing with how I already deem myself to be.

This is the ugly truth, the aftermath of years of emotional and verbal abuse.  This is what happens when you demand constant perfection from your children.  This is what I learned.  I don't know anything different thanks to you.

I don't know what this week is going to look like.  It's going to be challenging that's for sure.  Here goes nothing.