Context

A lot of people find this exercise super useful, because it can help us identify our biases much easier than trying to identify those biases directly without abstraction.

It’s a great observational exercise which makes you realise how well optimised our minds truly are when it comes to filtering information in our day-to-day lives.

For starters, it can help to understand that judgement by function is conditional.

Which is to say that we discover some sort of condition (perhaps someone says something which offends us etc.) which triggers us to react in a certain way (with anger, frustration etc.)

And it’s both this condition and reaction we’re trying to identify with this exercise.

For a lot of people, these conditions and reactions have become so ingrained into who we are, that it’s an aspect of our personality that we can no longer distinguish as being developed.

Instead, these behaviours assume into the continuum of everyday life, and these conditions and reactions becomes the primary means through which we understand the world around us.

Whereby you have a condition, and a reaction, and that condition dictates how you will respond without fail everytime.

Well, we’re here to put an end to that.

What we’re here to do is better understand this false dichotomy of condition and reaction, not only as a self-destructive way of thinking that takes power away from your ability to react independently of the world around us.

But as a way of thinking that is entirely unnecessary for our productive functioning as human beings.

And like all change, it begins with awareness.

However, we’re going to take a slightly different angle with this exercise.

Instead, of identifying our judgements, we’re instead going to be bringing to our attention the things which you don’t make you feel compelled to be judgemental.

Which for a lot people, is a lot simpler than trying to identify the things which they feel passionately judgemental about.

Instructions

This exercise is simple.

Your task is to think about the things you don’t feel judgemental about.

Things which you couldn’t possibly care about, which don’t evoke any kind of reaction, and which you don’t feel maintain any kind of condition.

Then once you’ve identified these things, I want you to ask yourself why those particular subjects don’t evoke a feeling.

Why are you not attached to that particular subject or idea?

For example, I personally have no condition or reaction in regards to medical surgeons.

Why?

Well, I guess because I don’t actually know any medical surgeons, and it’s simply not a subject which ever enters my conscious mind.

The key with this exercise is to progressively try to find subjects which you’re not judgemental about, yet may be related to the things you may feel judgement for.

For example, you may feel judgemental about celebrities or politicians, but feel significantly less judgement about popular sporting figures.

Try and discover some common themes. Perhaps you may discover something. Perhaps you may not.

We’re all here to learn more about how our individual minds work, through the process of self-discovery.