When Judgment Is High, Curiosity Is Low

I’ve been working with self-judgment for what feels like a lifetime, and I see it in every person I work with. It’s ubiquitous, almost epidemic, and yet most people are silent about it. We often don’t realize that the people around us are experiencing their own version of the same thing.

We are all asking:

Should I have said that?
Did I handle that wrong?
What did they think of me?
Should I have done more?
Why can’t I get this right?

Or saying:

That was stupid.
That didn’t come out right.
I should have done that better.
That wasn’t good enough.
I shouldn’t have yelled.
I’m not a good parent.
I should be handling this better by now.

For some people, judgment shows up more obviously in thoughts about others:

That person thinks they know everything.
They talk too much.
They don’t know as much as they think they do.
They are doing a bad job.
They are a bad parent.
They look ridiculous.

These thoughts are often revealing in their own way and can tell us something about ourselves. We are especially sensitive to qualities in others that touch something we judge, fear, or struggle with in ourselves.

Underneath all of this is a constant process of comparison and the question of:

Am I good enough?

Lately, I’ve been noticing how judgment—of ourselves or of others—is in opposition to curiosity.

When judgment is high, curiosity is low.

Judgment brings certainty. It tells us we already know what something means.

When we are busy judging ourselves, there is very little space to wonder what else may have been happening. When we decide someone is uninteresting, not smart enough, too loud, too needy, too whatever, we have already decided who they are. There is little room left to discover anything more.

Traditionally, I’ve worked with judgment by bringing kind attention to it—recognizing that it is happening without immediately believing everything it says. This is a very useful practice. With self-judgment in particular, self-compassion can be incredibly helpful.

Lately, I’ve also been wondering about curiosity.

Can we bring curiosity directly to the judgment?

When a self-critical thought appears, instead of stopping at:

I handled that badly.

Could we ask:

What else was going on for me?
What was I worried about?
What felt threatening or difficult in that moment?
What did I need?
Is there something here I can learn?

And when judgment is directed toward another person, could we wonder:

Who is this person beyond my first impression?
What matters to them?
What might they be carrying that I cannot see?
What might be underneath the behavior I am reacting to?

This doesn’t mean not trying to change.  But judgment tends to close down our choices.

I yelled at my kids. I’m a bad parent.

Curiosity opens things back up:

What was happening for me when I lost my temper? What tends to push me past my limit? What might help me respond differently next time? What support do I need?

Or:

I’m too old to try that. Everyone will think I’m ridiculous.

Curiosity might ask:

What am I afraid will happen? Whose judgment am I imagining? What might I discover if I let myself try? What would become possible if I didn’t need to already be good at it?

For myself and for my clients, I still believe in noticing judgment with kindness. But I’m increasingly interested in adding another question:

Can I get curious here?

Because judgment tells us we already know.

Curiosity leaves room for something new.