Context

This exercise is a great way to help you understand when and why you make judgements throughout the day.

Furthermore, it’s a relatively straight-forward exercise, so let’s get started!

First of all, I want to start off by saying that there’s nothing necessarily wrong with making judgements.

What often happens when people do this exercise, is that they freak out at the true extent of which they’re being judgemental.

Which ironically enough, causes people to react with even more judgement and that’s exactly what we’re trying to avoid.

Sure, being excessively judgemental isn’t the best thing for your mental health, however negatively reacting to it is equally as counter-productive.

Much like with the Observe Your Senses exercise, all we really want to do is acknowledge and observe how our mind works.

We’re not trying to change our behaviour, nor condemn it in any way.

In fact, the entire purpose of this exercise is to practice our ability to observe.

And what a lot of people don’t know, is that observation itself is what brings about change.

Not focusing on raw change itself, which usually results in some form of emotional manipulation or judgement - which simply doesn’t work as an effective, nor long-term strategy.

Only once we’ve mastered observation can we then understand the true nature of effective change, which you’ll discover the more you practice observation within your own life.

One thing to keep in mind is that if you are the kind of person who generally reacts with judgement, then this will be a tough exercise for you.

In part because it means you’re stuck within your own bubble of unconscious judgement, which you may not quite realise.

But that’s okay too.

We all have to start somewhere with addressing certain aspects of our mental health, and this is a great exercise for doing just that.

Furthermore, your struggle merely becomes another reference point for you to observe. Where you can mentally say to yourself:

“Ah, so that’s what my mind does when I react to a judgement. Duely noted.”

Instructions

All we want to do with this exercise is catch ourselves and acknowledge when we’ve made a judgement.

Now, there’s really only one recommended way that you approach this, which is to acknowledge the judgement as I briefly demonstrated above.

“Ah, so that’s what my mind does. Duely noted.”

The idea behind acknowledgement is that we merely want to take note of it, without creating any further judgements.

In essence we want to remain neutral, if not because you should be neutral in all your thoughts anyway.

It’s part of what being calm and collected is all about.

In addition, take note of your feelings at the point of judgement. Did you make the judgement because you were feeling angry? Was it because you were feeling depressed?

The reason why this is important is because becoming aware of our feelings is often the easiest way to catch a judgement before it happens.

Essentially, because most judgements produce some sort of feeling in some way, so there’s usually a direct correlation between the two.

Ultimately, this is an exercise of observation, and observation is the skill we're trying to develop.

We’re not doing this to feel justified that we caught a judgement. (which funnily enough is a judgement within itself)

We’re doing this so we can learn to become more aware of ourselves through observation, and really develop this skill so we can continue to remain aware into the future.

And the sooner we can do this, the sooner we can gain control over our porn addiction.