How can we avoid judging ourselves?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Yes, Nataraj? How can we not judge ourselves? The word judge can have different meanings. So, it can either refer to an evaluation or it can refer to a devaluation. Yeah, that’s what I’m saying.
So, evaluation means, okay, how do I do? Devaluation means you’re beating us, you did wrong, this wrong, that wrong, you’re never going to do it. So, we all need to evaluate ourselves at times. But that evaluation, when we do it, sometimes it just becomes fodder for our negative self-talk.
So, we have this negative self-talk going with us. You can’t do this, you’re like this, you’re like that. And then when we are observing ourselves, see, you did that.
No, you’re not going to do this. You’re just like that. So, basically, if we want to avoid this devaluation when we are observing ourselves, that is what I think you mean when you say we shouldn’t judge ourselves.
We do want to know where we are at. So, the main thing in that is to learn to be kind to oneself. This all comes from unrealistic expectations.
Because when we, we may expect too much from the world, we may expect too much from ourselves. So, if we don’t accept where we are, I think I’m here, I expect to get there. But no, I’m going to take small steps, I’ll move forwards.
Gradually, I will move there, but it’s going to take time. So, this lack of self-acceptance is what leads to unrealistic expectations. And then that leads to beating ourselves up when we observe.
So, it’s good if we could become more simply objective before we become subjective. We can’t completely become subjective, that means when we are dealing with someone. So, somebody comes to us and the first thing we meet someone and say, you are so irresponsible.
That person is coming from their own world, what happened? Why are you calling me irresponsible? So, now there might be something which they were supposed to do, they are not done. And that’s why we are angry with them. But they may not, they may have forgotten it also.
Or maybe we had not communicated properly, they never got the communication, we don’t know what happened. So, there is observation, and then there is evaluation. So, usually, if we combine the two, then we begin to become judgmental.
That means there is a particular thing that happened. And based on that, I am making almost a character assessment. You are so irresponsible, you are so insensitive.
Rather than that, what was the incident in which I felt that you neglected me, you didn’t care for my emotions. Focus on the facts rather than on our inferences from the facts. So, this can help us in avoiding becoming judgmental with others also, but with ourselves also.
Okay, what exactly happened? Say, I had decided I will wake up in the morning. But then I just overslept. I am such a lazy person.
So, I wake up two hours later and say, I am such a lazy person. But then instead, okay, what exactly happened? Okay, I overslept. Why did I oversleep? At that time when I woke up, you know, I just banged the phone.
Why did I do that? Okay, I did that because I was too tired. Maybe it is that I am actually in more sleep, but I am taking less sleep. Or maybe it could be that I just kept the phone too close to myself, now kept the alarm.
I keep it a little further away. By the time I had woken up, I could have got my senses back. Or, you know, I could have kept some water nearby.
I just sprinkled my face on my water, something. What could I have done practically? Just calling myself lazy does not solve the problem. It simply perpetuates.
Okay. Usually, when we do something which we are not, which we had planned not to do, there is some reasoning that goes on inside. It is a pseudo reasoning, but it is a reasoning that goes on.
And you say, oh no, you know, you slept late yesterday. That is why you should sleep now. But did I really sleep yesterday? Yeah, I slept late yesterday, but then I slept in the daytime.
That is why I slept late yesterday. So, whatever is the reasoning that is going on over there, we need to deal with that reasoning. Rather than simply, I am such a fool, I am such a lazy person.
So, what we do is, if you could separate what exactly happened, just focus on the facts first, and then evaluate those facts. Then we can avoid judging ourselves because we can recognize actually what happened. And then decide to how well I can inform myself.
Okay, I was not able to wake up. Maybe, you know, if I have a friend, maybe I can ask my friend to call me. I can keep the phone somewhere, keep the alarm somewhere else.
Whatever practical steps I can take. So, usually, when we judge ourselves, our focus is on the wrong that we did, and the feeling that this is the wrong I am going to keep doing. But when we observe ourselves, when we evaluate ourselves, okay, this is what I did.
This is why I did it. And to prevent this from being done again, this is what I can do. That way we move towards the solution.
So, we cannot avoid evaluating ourselves. But that evaluation will not lead to devaluation if we can separate the separate the objective and the subjective parts, separate the facts from our inferences or our judgments from those facts. Does that answer your question?