Gunhild Archer, counselor

The post you’re about to read is not one of those stories that will bring you hope, encouragement, or leave you with a feeling of resolve. In fact, I suspect it might leave you in suspense. I’m inviting you to follow along as I tell you about the most recent part of my journey. You’re going to get a glimpse into how I process. You will also see more of me.

Let me start at the beginning. I have recently gone through my fourth relationship conflict in two weeks. My initial motivation for making this post was to write about incompatibility, and how you sometimes have to let go. I could feel the underlying resentment as I started thinking about how I wanted to structure the post. Realizing that, I decided to look deeper at what was going on. I wrote my morning pages. That barely scratched the surface. It did make it clear that I was dealing with judgement. Two layers in fact: I held judgement towards a friend, and I also judged my own judgement.

You see… When I first wanted to write this post, I was coming from a place of “I have figured out what I need. I’m ready to stand up for myself!”. It was an aggressive stance. I feel like this is an important reminder: I thought I had connected to myself, yet I hadn’t. You have no idea how often I find myself in that position. I kind of tune in, but I don’t really connect. I don’t really listen.

As I ventured out for my morning walk, I made the decision to genuinely connect. Not pretend-connect. I committed to treat my walk as a session. Me time. I headed towards my favorite trail past the barley fields, while pondering my two layers of judgement, the relationship between them, and my relationship to both of them.

Depending on what I’m observing, or being present with, I either have more or less awareness. It’s easier to connect the more awareness I have, and increasingly more challenging the less awareness I have. The amount of awareness I had in regard to the current dynamic was definitively on the “less” side. When that’s the case I try to make it easier for myself by going into one aspect at the time. Why?

One: It helps me to ensure I attune.

Two: It gives me a chance to discharge some of the emotional charge.

Three: It helps me to avoid confusion (clarity comes when I let myself feel more deeply).

I told myself I would orient the parts towards each other (and towards me) when I felt a sense of emotional clarity. To further help myself, I decided to do the old gestalt chair-trick and assigned the parts to different sections of the road. Left side of the road: The judgement towards my friend. Right side: The one who judged the judgement. Middle of the road: My center self.

As I walked down the left side of the path, I quickly got in touch with the judgement. I judged my friend for staying in an on-and-off relationship with her partner, I judged her for not choosing someone who could fully meet her needs, I judged her for giving birth to her third child, knowing she was already exhausted caring for the two she already had. I didn’t understand the choices she had made. The discrepancy between word and action frustrated me. Despite all the judgement, I felt like I was absolutely wrong to judge. I felt pressure to be “good”, to not judge, to be accepting, to have unconditional acceptance, to respect my friends’ journey. When I felt into the source of the “shoulds”, I realized they were coming from the opposing part.

Irony is not lost; I had judgement towards my own judgement.

I moved to the right side of the path and got into the perspective of the part that judged the judgement. She had a sharp feeling in her chest. It almost felt like rage, but not quite. I looked towards the part that judged, and instantly felt like a horribly bad person. Deep shame. It felt awful to disapprove of my friends’ choices. What I should have, was compassion for her struggles. How could I look at someone who was on and off with her partner, raising three kids by herself, and struggling with chronic illness, and feel disdain? I wanted to kill off the judgement. Annihilate. Eviscerate. That was what the sharp feeling in my chest was.

I decided to step into the middle of the road, to give myself a chance to take in what I had just felt. I lingered on the sharp feeling of wanting to annihilate my judgement. “What was that about?”, I asked myself, while observing the full picture: my friend, the judgement I had towards her, and the sharp desire to eviscerate the judgement. Interestingly enough, two things came up:

• Getting my own needs met: Get rid of the judgement in order to feel, and act, compassionate. Feel compassionate so that I can give my friend what she needs. Give my friend what she needs so that she can spend time with me.
• Power dynamic: As long as my friend kept adding to her plate, she set herself up for support. It was a smart way to create boundaries. “I’m tired, I was with the kids all day, I can’t do x, y, and z”. She created valid reasons to enforce boundaries. If I were to question her priorities, I would be the bad guy. If I wanted to be seen as good, I would accept (succumb) to my friends’ boundaries. Step into victimhood by suppressing my power and be “good” or remain in my power and be bad.

The part about getting my needs felt accurate. The victim dynamic on the other hand… I didn’t know what to make of it. Did it allude to a dynamic between my friend and me? Was it internal remnants from a dynamic I had participated in during my childhood? Maybe it was both.

My commitment was to attune to, not to embark on a mental journey, so I decided to put my questions aside. I felt called to returned to the sharp feeling, the one that wanted to annihilate my judgement. I stepped onto the right side of the road and invited the sharpness to take up more space in my body. I felt torn between wanting to let my sharpness out, and to hide it by walk away. My former therapist would have led me in the direction of: “if the feeling could come out, how would it express itself?”. I thought about going there, but something told me to invite the feeling to express inside my own body. I had barely finished the thought before I observed myself setting myself on fire. In that moment I understood. The feeling was self-hate. It’s hard to describe the intensity in which I wanted to punish myself. I could not stand the fact that I was judging my friend, nor could I stand the fact that I judged my judgement. Why I couldn’t be ok with people as they were was beyond me. Every relationship that didn’t work out due to me not being ok, that was on me. I wasn’t able to be ok.

I stepped back into the middle of the road. Adult perspective. I felt sad witnessing the part on my right. She had set herself on fire to avoid expressing her feelings and thus hurt others. I must not be used to having my pain and having the other person too. Looking to the left side of the road to get in touch with the judgment made me feel soft. She couldn’t help how she felt.

An hour and fifteen minutes. My morning walk had come to an end, I was home. I decided to give myself a break. I was ok feeling softer and more accepting, but without a clear direction forward. The only direction I had was more questions. What is judgement? Is it possible not to judge? What does it mean for the relationship if I have judgement?