A Meditation for Working With Our Self-Judging Voice

A guided meditation to become aware of our self-judging voice and how we relate to our flaws, so we can develop compassion and recognize our potential.

Mindfulness is about paying attention to our present moment experiences with openness, curiosity and willingness to be with what is. Mindfulness is about paying attention to the present moment with an open mind to how things really are, like how we want them to be or how they could be, or wish they were different, which we do quite a bit. It includes our uncomfortable experiences—like our fears, grief, regrets, and living with that self-judgmental voice that sometimes makes us feel so small.

Self-compassion is the belief that we can care about ourselves despite all our flaws.

Self-compassion vs. self-esteem

I want to talk about the concept of self-compassion. Self-compassion is different from self-esteem. There seems to be an epidemic of self-judgment in the world, where people are often self-critical and have a lot of self-loathing voices in their heads. Self-compassion is not a construct of self-esteem, because self-esteem constructs lead people to need a lot of external validation to feel okay. Instead, self-compassion is the idea that even with all our flaws, we can still care about ourselves, that we can make mistakes, that we can suffer, that we can have problems, but that we’re still basically a good person. We can connect with this understanding and have compassion for ourselves, even with the flaws we have.

What’s amazing about mindfulness practice is that we can use mindfulness when we have self-critical voices, and we can call that voice “judgment.” We can feel when we have these judgmental voices because we have a mindfulness practice that allows us a little more self-awareness, a greater ability to regulate emotions, and all the positive things that come with mindfulness practice. When these thoughts come, we can stay on top of them and not get so caught up.

I sometimes talk about being on a train – when you have a really powerful thought and you start thinking about it, and suddenly twenty minutes later you realize you’ve been on that train and not in the present moment. However, the moment you recognize it, you can get off the train. Or, you can recognize it early and not get on the train in the first place. You can stay on the platform and just let the thoughts go.

A meditation for working with our self-judgmental voice

1. Find your seat. Let’s start by re-aligning your body in a straight, comfortable posture but not too stiff or tight. Place your feet on the floor, hands resting in your lap, and your eyes closed. Most of us do this exercise with our eyes closed, but you don’t have to. You can keep them open but can’t see around, only down.
2. Begin to notice your breathing. Start with a few deep breaths that relax you a little. Invite the possibility of relaxation with each deep breath. For this next period, you don’t have all the worries and concerns. I hope you left them at the door. They may pop up in your mind, but you remind yourself that you don’t have to get on that train, and that you don’t have to just feel, or breathe, being present, in the present moment, feeling, or breathing.
3. Focus on where you feel the breath the most. Bring your attention to your abdomen and notice if it is tight or contracted. If it does, take a deep breath and just let it go. Notice how your hands soften, and relax them. Look at your shoulders, jaw, throat and face, and feel everything that is obvious to you, perhaps on the surface of the skin and perhaps more internally. Do this with curiosity and an eye for a little relaxation.
4. Allow yourself to be here right now in this momentand see if you can focus your attention on your breath and the breath in your body, wherever you feel your breath clear within your body. You may notice your belly rising and falling, or your chest rising and falling, expanding, contracting with your breath. You can see the friction on your nostrils as you enter and exit the air. Some people see whole torso breathing with the air moving through their body, and that’s okay too.
5. Pay attention to the sounds. Now turn your attention to the sounds around you, listening to just one sound after the next. There is a sound of silence, and sounds that come and go. Don’t get lost in a story about voices, but just listen to them.
6. Find something to anchor your attention to. Find a focus for your meditation today. It can breathe into your belly, or your chest, or your nose, or your whole body, or it can hear sounds – some of these things work fine. Go with whatever sounds most interesting to you, there is no right way to do it. If you can’t decide then just pick one, it doesn’t matter much.
7. Consider the body breathing. Notice your belly rising and falling, chest expanding and contracting, air blowing through your nose with each breath, full body breathing, or the sounds around you.
8. Stay with the sensations of the breath. We begin this mindfulness practice by attending to breath after breath, or sound after sound, feeling the breath to the best of our abilities.
9. Label your thoughts as your mind wanders. At a certain point your attention will wander, and thoughts will come into your consciousness. When you find yourself lost in thought, you can say a gentle word like “think” or “wonder,” and come back to your main focus. Keep doing this over and over again. This is emphasized for today’s exercise because we’re talking about how mindfulness can help us with self-judgment, and recognizing the kind of thinking you’re seeing and labeling it.
10. You can keep track to judge ideasand whenever you judge you can find a soft word in your mind like “judgment”, or “self-judgment”, or “criticism”, or whatever word you understand. This will help you see the way decisions are made. It’s not personal by the way. You didn’t go out to make yourself feel bad. It just happens. “That person is a better meditator than me”, or “I would never get that right”, or “Why did I do that yesterday, it was so stupid”. These are the kinds of sounds that come to mind for some of us. For others they may be rare. That’s fine too.
11. Reflect on self-critical thoughts as they arise. Use mindfulness exercises to not judge yourself, don’t judge yourself to be judgmental, and just watch the judgment. If you want to count the events you can. For example “Decision 1, Decision 2… Decision 20.” While you are looking at these ideas, you may be attracted to other kinds of ideas. If so, you can use other labels such as “planning”, “remembering”, “imagining”, and so on.
12. Invite self-compassion. As you practice this, please hold a standard of kindness toward yourself. Be curious. See how interesting your mind is without judging yourself. Maintain a spirit of kindness and inquiry.
13. Consider the quality of your meditation. For the last few minutes of this meditation, just notice how you are doing with this awareness practice, with the mindfulness of the breath, and with the way your thoughts work. You may ask yourself, “Did I ride the train?” , “Did I get off the train?” , or “Did I maybe stay on the platform once or twice?”
14. Do you experience a lot of judgmental thoughts? I am hoping that you brought a kinder attitude from yourself to the judgmental thoughts if they were present.
15. Close with grace. We’ll do a little kindness meditation to conclude. Consider how you feel, and see if you can think of someone you love, someone who makes you happy. It could be a dear friend, child, pet cat or dog. If you can’t think of someone, it can read about someone you admire.
16. Repeat kind phrases. Say these phrases, and repeat them in your head (or you can come up with your own). May you be safe and secure. May you be happy and peaceful. May you be healthy and strong. May you be at ease.
17. Send kind words to loved ones. Send these words and heartfelt sentiments to that loved one. Consider how their desires feel to them. Imagine if they send it back to you. May you be safe and secure. May you be happy and peaceful. May you be healthy and strong. Accept yourself, exactly as you are.
18. See if you can “take” kindness.. Imagine that kindness moving through your body, wherever you are. Can you bring yourself to be compassionate to where you are, to whatever is happening? I can stop it with kindness. I can stop myself from sympathizing. Take a breath and notice if it’s possible, wherever you bring the best of your abilities, however, it makes sense to you. May I live with myself exactly as I am.
19. Open your eyes. You can open your eyes when you’re ready, but take your time.