Judgments Archives - Kate Gegg, AM, LCSW

November 8, 2023May 2, 2024

Challenging without Invalidating

Denying someone’s experience does not have to be a part of challenging their perspective. Challenging – without invalidating – is a skill that (often) needs to be learned so we can express our disagreement while respecting our relationships.
Too often, challenging includes invalidating (and is met with defensiveness) by the receiving party and / or is avoided (due to fears of conflict) by the observing party.
Learning how to give and receive feedback is an essential life skill. Differences of opinion and disagreements are a natural part of any relationship, and are often a precondition for learning and growth.
We cannot learn or broaden our perspective if we do not receive challenges to our way of thinking or being. We are more able to receive challenges when they don’t threaten our sense of self worth, or the relational safety between us and others.
To give feedback in a manner that maximizes someone’s ability to hear you, try to find the relatable component between you and the other party, even if you fundamentally disagree with their conclusion. Often, that relatable component is a feeling.
The key is to find and communicate some shared truth, or some element of their stance you can validate, before jumping in to tell them how you see it, or how you think what they’re seeing isn’t accurate.
When you share your take on the situation, do so non-judgmentally (i.e. own it as your take, based on your interpretation of the facts / lived experiences, rather than as an “obvious” fact (even if that’s how it feels)).
For example: “I know you’re angry about this, and you care, I can see that in how passionately you speak about it. I am angry and I care too. The challenge is I don’t agree with your take on what’s happening, or why it’s happening. I think…”
It can be unintuitive to lean into connection given that disagreements are inherently disconnects between ourselves and others, and yet it is this very approach that enables both parties to listen with respect, openness, curiosity, and kindness.
When we approach with connection and without judgment, we create safety between ourselves and others. That sense of relational safety creates an environment where a willing party can receive (and hopefully integrate) an alternate perspective.

Invalidation is important to distinguish from disagreeing. Invalidating is denying the presence and validity of another’s experience. Disagreeing is acknowledging that another perspective exists (and perhaps has the right to exist), while owning our alternate perspective (and potentially trying to influence someone else to accept it). We can disagree, challenge, and discuss without invalidating, but too often invalidation is used (at times unconsciously or unintentionally) as a tactic to try and influence the outcome of a situation by trying to cause someone to doubt themselves and what they feel or believe.

There are all kinds of problematic consequences with using invalidation as a tactic in relationships (or with ourselves), which will be discussed in another post, but in short invalidation is a harmful and ineffective tactic in the long-term, even if it gets the outcome we’re looking for in the short-term.

Instead, if we are trying to engage in healthy, kind, compassionate, thoughtful, and open dialogue where we learn from and influence others, we have to start with a stance of validity ourselves. We have to work to find what is valid in what the other party is saying, even if we disagree with their conclusions. We want to try and find areas of connection, even when we feel disconnected through our disagreement. We also need to approach without judgment, and with as much curiosity as possible, to create a safe space for differences to be discussed. Ideally, we too are open to being influenced in our manner of thinking, even it we are confident our conclusions about a topic won’t change. Working to take a curious stance about how someone got to their conclusion, even if it won’t change your conclusion, is a helpful tactic in working through differing perspectives.

On the receiving end, we want to work on welcoming differences of perspective and trying to learn from them (without getting defensive towards others, or shaming ourselves). We want to remember that more than one perspective can be drawn from the same facts, and that those differing perspectives are opportunities to learn and grow. More in today’s comments to help increase effective communication.

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Comments:

Learning to how engage in topics without invalidating can be an incredibly valuable tool to help someone deepen (and maybe even change) their perspective about all kinds of topics, from a news event, to their interpretation of an interpersonal event. These tips work on a micro level (giving feedback to an individual in your life) and on a macro level (how we talk about political differences).
I mention, briefly, that the importance of this stance applies to internal and external relationships. It’s true. Invalidating ourselves makes it more difficult to regulate our emotions. Try and work on taking this same stance with yourself when you don’t like how you are feeling or thinking about something. Tips for help with this can be found on my post that covers reconciling your relationship with anger , on the post that covers what validation is and why it is important, and my post about how to make use of negative (and positive) emotions.
I talk about the need to avoid judgments for effective communication – it will hugely impact your ability to be effective in disagreements. The following links include tips on how to recognize judgments, the problems with them, and how to communicate without relying on them.
This is an important tip for you therapists out there following along on this account. Last week I guest lectured in a graduate school class on how to incorporate DBT skills (like these) into insight oriented psychotherapy, and a very astute student asked a question about how to challenge without invalidating. These methods are a useful way to help our clients feel heard and respected, while also working on helping them broaden their perspective on a topic.
In addition to avoiding judgments, try and use as much respectful curiosity as possible. This means trying to understand where someone is coming from (and why) rather than asking questions as a tactic to poke holes in someone’s argument or perspective.
Invalidating is a lot like the modern day term gas-lighting. I’m not particularly wedded to differentiating the two, because they are both psychologically damaging, but it may be helpful to recognize that invalidating is denying someone’s experience (which can cause them to doubt in their ability to accurately process the world around them), whereas gas-lighting is not only denying their experience, but trying to convince them (and perhaps others) that they had a different experience from the one they expressed. This is easier to understand with examples. Invalidating: (After Mary says “I hate my sister”): “No you don’t”; Gaslighting, “No you don’t, you love her”. To challenge without relying on either tactic, “Ok Mary, I get it, you’re upset with your sister and you’re saying you hate her, though I know in other moments you feel differently, and at other times you seem to have fun with her” (and then perhaps you move on to help Mary figure out how to handle her feelings about struggling with her sister. The key is for the adult to recognize that Mary might have intense feelings of dislike (who knows, maybe even hatred) in that moment. Those feelings need to be acknowledged rather than dismissed, in a way that will help Mary broaden her understanding of her own internal world. Mary is then challenged, rather than invalidated or gaslit by the adult, and can come to learn that she has complex and nuanced feelings about her sister (after all, we all sometimes feel strong negative feelings towards others, even people we love).
This, like all new skills, is most challenging to do when we are activated and outside our window of tolerance. You may want to brush up on the window of tolerance to gain tips on timing for difficult conversations. It may also be helpful to revisit other communication skills, like the importance of knowing our limits in communication, not relying on other harmful communication tactics, and this post on the 8 “don’ts of disagreeing” .
I mention “A willing party”, in the post when I talk about the person who we are challenging. For us to receive a challenge, even if the party challenging us does so in the most skillful manner possible, there has to be some level of willingness and openness from us to receive. More on this in another post, but the key is to recognize it isn’t just on the giver of the feedback to frame it well (though that matters), it’s also on the receiver to tolerate and be willing to receive it.
Some more examples of how to challenge without invalidating, dismissing, gaslighting, judging, or denying : “I understand you believe_____ , I have to say, I’m not sure I agree. From what I understand ____ is what’s happening.”; “I recognize she didn’t call you back, and you’re angry, and I get it. And I know this is not the first time this has happened, so there is significance to that. But, I’m not convinced this means she doesn’t care. I’m not sure what’s going on with her, I mean it’s possible she doesn’t care, but does that really otherwise seem consistent with how things are with her?”.

November 9, 2022March 27, 2023

“It’s easier for everyone else”

This kind of of thinking, that life is easier for others and more difficult for us, is tempting at a time when we are hopeless or struggling to manage. The thought is often unhelpful, un-motivating, and channels our inner sense of helplessness. Here are a few counter-thoughts to hold onto that may help you approach these moments differently:
(1) Often times when we think “it’s easier” for others what we actually mean is “it’s intuitive” for others. Intuition develops with practice, modeling, and training (over time). Seen through this lens, over time and with practice, something new (and perhaps more helpful) could become intuitive to you too.
(2) Just because someone knows how to take care of themselves doesn’t mean they’ve had an “easy” journey to that point. Instead, it simply means they’ve found what works for them. Often times people who have the ability to cope have taken a path of learning and growth from prior struggles.
- This learning often means reflecting on whether or not our chosen (or perhaps automatic) coping methods truly help us, and holding a willingness to try new ways that may not be intuitive or comfortable to us (until we practice them again and again). The more we can learn and accept what serves us (and avoid what doesn’t) the “easier” coping becomes
(3) Sometimes when we get stuck on “it’s easier for them” what we’re really stuck on is a struggle with fairness; it isn’t that they are “coping better” its that they’ve got less to cope with. When we get preoccupied with “fairness” we are often fixated on factors outside of us, and we cannot resolve our personal pain from that orientation.
- Though we can always work to make to world more fair, we have to take care of ourselves in the interim. When we can take our experiences with unfairness head on, and can focus on what a lack of fairness has meant for us on a personal level (including our losses and pain) we can work to resolve pain around “unfairness” and its impact on us.
(4) Not everyone has the same triggers and sensitivities. What floors one person may feel manageable (i.e. “easy to cope with”) to another. Remember that what we struggle with is often a reflection of our prior experiences, with unresolved experiences tending to cause more pain than ones we have been able to work through and come to terms with.
(5) We don’t all feel our feelings with the same range and intensity. Some of us have much stronger and more intense experiences of all our emotions based on how our bodies process them. This means some of us may find ourselves in deeper emotional states than those around us; this is a more intense experience in life with positives and drawbacks.
(6) We can only see what people show us. Even if we’re highly skilled at reading people, we still can’t see it all. It may look “easier” because someone is invested in it “looking” easier, which doesn’t mean it is.

Regardless of how “easy” or “hard” life is, the truth is, coping comes more intuitively to some of us than others, and life does not evenly distribute objectively difficult times. Put simply, when we think about how “hard” or “easy” life is for us (or others), we are thinking in judgmental terms (i.e. we are using statements to evaluate rather than describe what we notice and observe). I have a whole series on how judgments limit us (see comments for how to find those prior posts), but big picture, today’s post illustrates just how much information we lose about what’s actually effecting us on a personal level when we rely on judgments instead of working towards describing, owning, and understanding a topic at hand.

In today’s post I offer six different ways to challenge how we can think more descriptively through how “hard” or “easy” our lives feel, and there are infinite other ways to deconstruct the judgment of “it’s easier for others”. The less we rely on judgmental statements (which often include easy, hard, right, wrong, good, bad, should, shouldn’t) the closer we can get to understanding, working through, and addressing what’s really upsetting for us.

If you found today’s deconstructions didn’t quite fit for you, think about how else you might say “they have it easier” without using the evaluative statements listed above. Once you can get to the heart of what you’re *really* upset about, you can then address whatever that is.

Next, your job becomes to resist to the temptation to rely on that familiar stance of “it’s easier for them” at a moment when you are struggling. This means challenging ourselves to be present in a different way and pointing your thoughts and energy in the direction that helps you deconstruct the judgment rather than burrow into it.

What may be tempting (or intuitive) to you, is to stay in the familiar “it’s easier for them” mindset, but we have to be responsible for turning our focus and attention elsewhere if we want to build new ways of coping. Eventually, pulling away from the judgement and going into our experiences may become intuitive, but it takes work, practice, intentionality, and time.

Comments:

Are you realizing you might lean on judgmental thinking? Learn more about how to recognize judgmental thoughts, dive deeper into understanding how they limit us, and get guidance on deconstructing a judgment from these linked prior posts.
One of the hangups I list (about fairness) is actually a different kind of hangup all on it’s own, called a “cognitive distortion” that will someday have its own post. If you related strongly to struggling around issues of “fairness” you may find it helpful to review this article that explains what a cognitive distortion is, and how to recognize and challenge it. You may also benefit from working to challenge “shoulds” (Like it should be just as easy for me as it is for her, life should be more fair etc). Big picture, issues of fairness are incredibly complex, and, if fairness is a value we hold, we are often best served to make our decisions through the lens of that value rather than to expect the world to abide by fairness as a “rule” or “law”. This relates somewhat to another post I have on how “fairness” can effect us, which may also be helpful to dive into.
Today’s post, in addition to include the “non-judgmentally” mindfulness still, also includes applications of the “effectively” mindfulness skill and the “willing” and “Turning the Mind” distress tolerance skill from Marsha Linehans DBT Skill’s training manual (Full Citation: Linehan, M. M. (2014). DBT (R) skills training handouts and worksheets, second edition (2nd ed.). Guilford Publications.).

December 9, 2021March 27, 2023

Rethinking “Lazy”

The concept of “laziness” is an inadequate way to think about the dynamics underlying someone’s difficulty with motivation, participation, energy, and engagement.
This is because a person’s “inherent laziness” becomes our explanation for why they disengage from something we believe they “should” be able to engage with. When we use this term we steer ourselves away from curiosity that would help us dig into whatever may be causing someone’s disengagement.
Calling ourselves or others “lazy” is often a tactic we use to elicit shame or express disapproval when we don’t otherwise understand someone’s disengagement from something we (or they) believe would benefit them.
Sometimes we say it in the hopes of stirring up motivation, or in the hopes of giving ourselves permission to give up and accept (with some level of resentment) the disengagement of ourselves or others.
In all my work with my clients over the years I have yet to find a situation where “laziness” was truly an adequate explanation for the complex and addressable dynamics contributing to “laziness”.
Here are a handful of examples of what may actually be happening for someone when they fall into a pattern we might label as “laziness”. There are more possible examples today’s comments, and many more possibilities out there. See the full content of today’s post for further explanation as to why this concept is damaging and unhelpful.
- Fear can shut down motivation and energy. We can disengage with something even if (on some level) we want to participate in it if it intimidates us, or if it has the potential to embarrass us or leave us feeling like a failure. Sometimes we’re not connected to that fear, and finding the fear can take some digging.
- Hopelessness can shut any and all of us down if it gets too powerful. We don’t believe it will make a difference, or there is a point in our participation so we shut down and disengage.
- We over-use coping mechanisms like distraction or avoidance when we are overwhelmed by a topic or activity we (or others) are “supposed” to engage with (i.e. procrastination). This can often happen if we don’t have strong time management skills or realistic expectations of ourselves and our capacities.
- Sometimes we aren’t interested in the things others (or we ourselves) tell us we “should” be interested in. We can build whole lives around expectations without ever really connecting with our genuine and authentic interests and motivation. This is often the case in “extreme” laziness as someone starts to shut down and pull away from a life they don’t really want to be living.

I consider the concept and term “Lazy” to be unproductive, limiting, and damaging. When we use a term like “Laziness” about ourselves or others we attribute “the problem” to someone’s personality, often leaving them feeling helpless, ashamed, and inadequate. This way of thinking about someone’s disengagement often creates an overwhelming and insurmountable barrier to understanding and addressing the underlying dynamics that create the “lazy” behavior.

When we assign “laziness” to a person or behavior I think it’s a sign we’ve hit an empathic wall with ourselves and others; we’ve given up, gotten frustrated, and so we look for a way to say “it’s out of my hands, it’s who I am (or they are)”. In attributing problems in ourselves or others to concepts like “laziness” we inadvertently miss huge opportunities to understand and address underlying issues because we’ve given up and determined its an issue of willpower.

Often when we use this term it’s a reflection on both our struggles with the situation and our inability to understand why we or others have disengaged from something that logically feels like it makes sense to participate in. It is natural to be frustrated and angry when things don’t make sense to us, but we short-change ourselves, others, and the situation when we think of ourselves and other’s in-terms of laziness. When we assign the lack of engagement to a person’s character or “way of being”, we generally stop getting curious about internal and external factors that may be interfering with someone’s participation.

For most of us “lazy” is a wall. It’s a road to nowhere.

In moments when we are tempted to use the word “lazy”, I would instead encourage us to bring as much curiosity as we can to the situation. If we can accept that someone must have a valid reason for not engaging with a topic, then our mission becomes to search, find, understand, and address that reason. Sometimes we must be relentless in that search, and in our faith that there must be something valid underlying something that otherwise doesn’t make sense.

Comments:

I mention character assassination in the post. Read this post on fair fighting to learn more about what it is and why to avoid it.
This post taps into how our lives can be ruled by “shoulds”, To learn more about how to disempower the “shoulds” see my post on acceptance.
I think of terms like “lazy” in the same way I think of a judgment. I have a whole series on understanding the problems with, identifying and deconstructing judgments.
Continued examples to help you start getting curious about what may be under “laziness” in yourself or a loved one in your life:
1. Sometimes we don’t know how to motivate ourselves. What motivates one person may be different from what motivates another, which means even members of the same family may need to find different tactics to get themselves going on something. If you are stuck try a different motivational tactic.
2. Many of us are living day to day with histories of relational trauma that deeply effect motivation and energy. Many people with histories of relational trauma don’t know it.
3. Secondary gains are a real thing. Sometimes we are inert because action would mean making a sacrifice or losing something that we otherwise value .
4. Sometimes we aren’t listening closely enough to our limits (which are often not where we want them to be) or differentiating between our shoulds and wants.
5. Exhaustion and unrealistically high expectations shut us down and interfere with potential. Sometimes the energy or capacity we feel we “should” have is not the energy we actually have. We label ourselves as “lazy” when we don’t meet expectations we hold for ourselves, but sometimes those expectations are the problem themselves. Learn more about how change happens to help with setting realistic expectations for yourself.

April 15, 2021March 27, 2023

How to Unpack a Judgment

When we’ve used a judgment in talking or thinking through a topic that’s either 1) complex or 2) there’s disagreement or confusion those are times we want to “unpack” the judgment
To “unpack” a judgment we want to substitute the judgmental language with descriptive language. *this skill was developed by Marsha Linehan of DBT*
For many of us, judgments are hard wired in by our families or by our cultures, so they can be hidden or hard to find. Look for words like “should, shouldn’t, right, wrong, good, and bad”. There is often a judgment built in.
The new language after we’ve unpacked the judgment will often include a belief, value, preference, opinion, or potential consequence
Then, we want to try saying (or thinking) about that topic using the new language instead of the judgmental language
This will reduce conflict, increase understanding between parties that don’t share a perspective, and open up avenues for problem solving. It may also help build connection by finding shared values and concerns
When we don’t use judgments we start to take ownership of our perspective and that improves communication and relationships too. I can also reduce shame and increase motivation.
Using a judgment when the meaning behind it is understood by all parties, or everyone is on the same page, is a great use of the tool and enables more efficient communication
Judgments are not inherently bad (there’s a judgment!) but they are tool, and one we need to use judiciously, with intention, and with awareness.

Often times it makes more sense to say “The weather’s good” than “I prefer sunshine to rain, and my intuition is you do too. This warm weather is a pleasant and comfortable experience for us both”. You probably just rolled your eyes. I get it. That’s obnoxious. We can’t talk like that.

In previous posts I covered what a judgment is and how they limit us. Today, we’re covering what to when we hit one. Feel free to keep saying things like “the weather is good”, using judgmental language when the sentiments under it can be easily deduced, or when everyone is naturally on the same page saves time and energy.

We want to work on using a different approach when everyone is not on the same page (like when there is a judgment in a conflict) or when the meaning is not as easily deduced (like complex, confusing, or new topics). When we unpack the judgment (as I call it) or work to replace judgmental words with descriptive words (as DBT calls for) we can communicate more clearly, reduce conflict, decrease experiences of shame, increase motivation, increase our ability to problem solve, and

increase connection between parties even if they have different perspectives.
When instructing my clients on this I tell them they’ve got to work on finding a way to express what they are trying to communicate without using an evaluative statement (most common are should, shouldn’t, right, wrong, good, or bad – but there are others). I.e. How can you try and express exactly what you were trying to say with words that are not evaluative statements.

Having a judgment is not the same as having a belief, a preference, a value or an opinion. When we remove the judgmental language and unpack the beliefs and opinions that are under it we can get to the bottom of your experience and what may be working (or not) for you, or what may be important (or not) for you or the other person.

While judgments are not inherently bad (there’s a judgment), they are tool, and one we need to use judiciously and with awareness. We can communicate more effectively with one another by reducing our use of judgments and by building insight into the beliefs, experiences, preferences, and opinions that inform them.

Notes:

1. Substituting language is not a one for one. If you remove the word good you cannot find a single word that will replace is. You often need to find a way to re-state the whole premise.
2. I like to use the visual of a flag post when I think of judgments. Think of the flag as marking a spot you need to drill down into to find the substance under the superficial judgment.
3. Let’s take an example: “I’m not good at this”. If we’re not going to use judgmental language, we need to get to the bottom of what’s being stated. This is when it’s time to ask ourselves what we really mean. Some possible examples: Is what we really mean “this is new to me and I expected to get the hang of this quicker”? Or “this isn’t interesting enough for me to keep trying”? Or what about “I can see that others around me are better than me, and I just don’t think I’ll ever get there ” or maybe we mean “the skills required of this task are just not skills I have naturally at this point in my life”. Maybe it means “I don’t want to do this any more” or “I feel defeated”. Unlike “I’m not good at this” all of these statements have natural solutions or next steps (unlike “I’m not good at this” which is a dead-end). Maybe this means the person needs to build more skills, maybe this means they want to stop, maybe this means they need more encouragement, maybe they are struggling with comparisons and need to work more at focusing on their progress rather than others. Whatever statement (or statements) fit – and they will be person and situation specific – there is a clear next step and sense of direction which enables problem solving, support, and movement through an issue.
4. Example: “Lying is bad” I think nearly all of us can agree that lying is (typically) problematic. It misrepresents the truth, deceives others, and can violate trust which hurts relationships. I would argue that it’s far more important to communicate to someone who lies why lying is problematic to help someone understand the consequences and potentially be motivated to change their behavior than to simply leave it as “lying is bad”. We are limited by the statement “lying is bad” because it doesn’t provide enough context for someone who doesn’t understand the impact of lying on the community around them. This is a scenario where it’s more helpful to get descriptive and talk about consequences so someone understands why lying is problematic.
5. Example: “It’s wrong to play video games all day.”. So clearly the speaker is upset about the other party’s decision to spend time on video games, but there is actually a lot to unpack here. Why does this upset the speaker? Is the other person not contributing enough at home? Are they just relaxing after a long day? Is the speaker someone who has a hard time slowing down and finds themselves resentful when they see someone else slow down? Could the video game player be overwhelmed and numbing out their life? Is the person making the statement angry because they feel an imbalance in the relationship? If we don’t unpack what makes it “wrong” we can’t begin to solve and address the underlying concerns – both the possible issues within the player, and the concerns held by the person speaking the statement.
6. Example: “Don’t take away my guns. Gun control is wrong.”. Alternately, “Guns are bad. We need gun control”. (Yes. I’ve chosen a hot button topic for the sake of example. I want to be clear these are examples and are not representative of my beliefs. I am choosing this to illustrate how judgmental language can limit political discourse). We have so little information from either statement about why gun control is bad, or why guns are bad. It’s unclear if we’re talking about safety issues, self-protection issues, fear of not being able to protect oneself, an emotional attachment to ether side – you name it. It’s very hard to problem solve because the statements don’t appear to have much overlap, and we’re not talking about the actual concerns, priorities, fears, needs, and beliefs from either side. If we’re going to address the issue of guns (or other political issues) we need to be be able to clearly articulate our priorities, needs, concerns, fears, and beliefs around them. Then we can create laws that address those topics. We may also find overlap that we weren’t previously aware existed if we can move away from the judgments and get more descriptive with the concerns at hand.

7. Not sure if it’s a judgment? See this post.

April 15, 2021March 27, 2023

How Judgments Limit us

Judgements are shortcuts we use instead of taking ownership of our beliefs, values, morals, opinions and perspectives
We can use them instead of acknowledging consequences
We can also use judgments as a way to try and control ourselves or others
Sometimes we use language like “bad” or “wrong” or “shouldn’t” and we can’t articulate why or we don’t understand what we mean by it, we just feel strongly that it “is”
Judgments hugely limits our ability to talk to people who have differing values / opinions / beliefs / perspectives
Judgments also limit our ability to understand ourselves, deal with underlying concerns, and meet underlying needs
When we rely on judgments to communicate or think through something we are more prone to misunderstanding, disconnection, confusion, conflict and overall stuck-ness.
We often time can’t get anywhere productive in the conversation or in our thoughts and get hung up on the same issues again and again. If you find this happening internally or in conversation look for a judgment – it might be hidden.
This is a three part series. See previous post for clarification on how to identify a judgment. Post to come on what to do when we are stuck on a judgment.

Marsha Linehan describes judgments as short-cuts that allow us to hide our values, perspectives, preferences, beliefs, or moral stances behind absolute statements. We don’t have to take ownership when we use a judgment. Something just “is”.

We often use language like “it’s wrong” or “it’s bad” as a substitute for statements like “I don’t like this”, “it has potential consequences”, or “my values differ from this”. We say “It’s good”, but what we may really mean is that we see value in it and/or are willing to treat it as important.

Judgments can also be a way to try and control ourselves or others. After all, it’s It’s not “wrong” to run a red light, but it could be dangerous. This example may feel like a technicality – we all know running red lights is dangerous and that’s what the speaker means. However, this gets much more complicated when we rely on judgments to discuss topics that are not generally agreed upon or where the meaning behind it is not as easily deduced.

When we rely on judgments about what (to us) makes a person or situation good, bad, worthy, unworthy, right, or wrong, we often can’t articulate why we’ve labeled something the way we have. For many of us we stop when we get to a judgment. It becomes a dead end where we lose the capacity for curiosity, exploration, and understanding. We can lose our ability to communicate the reasons behind our perspective, and think through why something works or is problematic for us.

When we use judgments internally about ourselves (as we often do when we are anxious or depressed: “I’m worthless”, “I shouldn’t do that”) or externally about others (which we often do in relationships: “he should know better”, “she’s bad news”). We also end up shaming ourselves or others with negative judgments, and that can lead to intense feelings of inadequacy combined with a lack of understanding about how to change or what the actual issue is. Aka, being stuck.

Notes:

Example: Let’s take an example of how a judgment can limit us: “The Fish is Bad”. You and I both probably understand that to mean that whoever made the statement is not enjoying the fish in front of them. But imagine, that you are a server being told by a patron “the fish is bad”. As someone who is in a position to try and solve a problem for your customer, you’re limited. Does this mean the fish is rancid, too salty, under cooked, over-cooked, too cold, or any one of a number of other potential problems with food? You, as the server, have no way to know unless you dig in and ask the patron what they mean. Lucky for our server, this is probably a scenario where the patron can clearly state the problem with the fish and the server can attend the meal by re-heating, replacing, re-seasoning, etc. But sometimes we use language like “it’s bad” and we can’t articulate why or we don’t necessarily understand what we mean by it, we just feel strongly that it “is”.
Let’s look at a more nuanced example: “I’m not good at this”. I am guessing this is a thought we’ve all had at one point or another, and we are very prone to thoughts like this if we’ve ever struggled with anxiety or depression. This thought is one that’s likely to lead us to stop trying, to give up, and to believe something isn’t for us. We are likely to feel shame and inadequacy when we talk to ourselves (or others) this way. And in addition to all those problems, we aren’t left with any avenues for how to try and help ourselves improve, learn, grow, or even what we can do. We’re just stuck
Example: “Don’t take away my guns. Gun control is wrong.” Alternately, “Guns are bad. We need gun control”. (Yes. I’ve chosen a hot button topic for the sake of example. I want to be clear these are examples and are not representative of my beliefs. I am choosing this to illustrate how judgmental language can limit political discourse). We have so little information from either statement about why gun control is bad, or why guns are bad. It’s unclear if we’re talking about safety issues, self-protection issues, fear of not being able to protect oneself, an emotional attachment to ether side – you name it. Problem solving is made much more complicated because the statements don’t appear to have much overlap in terms of solutions that might address common values, priorities or concerns. ,We also can’t address the, fears, needs, and beliefs from either side. I’ll take this example back on in the next post when I explain how to more constructively communicate when judgements arise.
Positive judgments are problematic too, because they too provide little information about WHY something is good or WHAT we value. Positive judgments don’t have the same shaming effect, but they do limit our ability to clearly share our perspective, values, beliefs, etc.
Not sure how to identify a judgment? see this post.

April 15, 2021March 27, 2023

How to Identify a Judgment

Judgments: Part one. Identifying a Judgment
Why is this important? We can’t change our use of something until we can identify it. Part two and three of this series will cover how judgments limit us and when (and when not) to use them.
A judgment is an evaluative statement (i.e. a statement where we express a value).
A judgment is NOT a preference.
A judgment is NOT an opinion or belief.
A judgment is NOT a description of your perspective
A judgment is NOT an actual or anticipated consequence

Judgments are a hot topic these days, and I see a lot of confusion (and at times hurt and conflict) about what IS and ISN’T a judgment. See below for explanation and examples. A post to follow about how judgments limit us, how to get to the bottom of them, and when/when not to use them.

A judgment is an evaluative statement (i.e. a statement where we express a value). Three examples of judgments below:

(1) The fish is bad
(2) You made the right decision
(3) You shouldn’t talk to me this way

In the three examples above the statements made express judgments; a value about the fish (it’s bad), a value about the decision (it was right) a value about how to talk to me (not that way).

Below are statements or thoughts that are often accused of being judgments, but are not. You may not like it when someone says any of these things, but they are not judgments.

A judgment is NOT a preference:

(1) I don’t like the fish
(3) I don’t like being spoken to in that way

A judgment is NOT an opinion or belief.

(1) I think this fish is over-cooked
(2) I agree with how you handled that
(3) I feel/believe/think that tone is disrespectful

A judgment is NOT a description, your perspective, or your experience:

(1) This fish tastes salty
(2) That decision makes a lot of sense
(3) It sounds like you’re angry from your tone

A judgment is NOT an actual or anticipated consequence:

(1) If you eat that I think you’ll get sick
(2) I think you’ll be happier now that you’ve decided that.
(3) When you use that tone it hurts my feelings

How do morals fit in? I would argue that morals are personally or communally held beliefs. that it is wrong to ____ or right to ____ or we should _____. We are entitled to hold personal / communal morals AND we want to understand why we hold them. See the next two posts for how we can own our morals, stand by them, understand them, and effectively communicate them in a way that builds connection even if we don’t share values.

Notes:

Hints to help you find judgments in yourself or other’s thoughts or statements: words like, “Should, Shouldn’t, Right, Wrong, Good, Bad, easy, and hard” are usually judgmental. A statement doesn’t have to include these words to be a judgment.
We all use judgments more than we realize. Try going an hour without using the words “right, wrong, should, shouldn’t, easy, hard, good or bad” and you’ll come to realize how much you rely on them.