Releasing Judgment in Your Meditation Practice

Sometimes, we can be too hard on ourselves, especially those of us who are hypercritical. We tend to notice the details in everything, and that can make us exceptionally hard on ourselves above all else. I identify as this type of person, and I see these little judgments come through about myself in my meditation sometimes. And unfortunately, judgments are one of the worst things for a meditation exercise. When we judge ourselves while meditating, we stop trusting our process. We start questioning whether our experiences are valid, and we put ourselves out of the moment and in our own minds, which is the place we don’t want to be when we’re trying to live in our meditation experience. So, we need to practice the art of releasing judgement.

When I’ve found myself judging my meditation process, I’ve begun to doubt the guidance I’ve received. I’ll start to question my intuitive experiences and start to think I’m just making things up in my head. I’ll become less creative and find myself closing up and focusing on what I’m doing wrong. This quickly leads to a negative experience in meditation. At least for me, when I meditate, I’m trying to express myself, play, release tensions, and connect to my inner guidance and the world around me. I’m using it as a tool to expand my awareness and to have greater understandings than what I can have in my daily life. With those very ambitious goals in front of me, picking away at myself with judgment is the worst thing I can do for myself. So, what do I do when I need to drop judgments in my meditation?

If I’m finding it hard to quiet my thoughts, I’ve found that mindfulness is a great tool to get myself present in the moment and drop the pesky thoughts of judgment I may be having. To do this, I will meditate for five or ten minutes while focusing on my breath. I’ll feel each inhale and then feel each exhale and focus solely on that. If thoughts begin to come into my head, I will gently push them out and away. Getting in a mindful state prior to a meditation exercise helps me to lift judgments and come into the exercise with a relaxed, fresh perspective. Because of this, I’ve added a few minutes of mindfulness into my preparatory process.

Another thing that has helped me in this task has been learning to trust myself. It can be hard to realize that our higher selves know what’s best for us. When we connect to our inner guidance in meditation, it’s important to let that take over and to release all preconceived notions so you can have a genuine experience. The more we can trust ourselves with that, the easier it is to let go and be fully immersed in your exercise. The best way I’ve found to trust myself in meditation like this is to continue to meditate regularly. The more we have experiences, the more we can trust ourselves to have these experiences without our logical mind intervening or getting in the way.

Why do we have judgments? We all have judgments as they are defense mechanisms that help us to navigate safely throughout life. But when we are in a safe environment, we can drop these judgments to allow ourselves to fully experience things in a way that we maybe won’t do otherwise. And as far as I’m concerned, some of the most magical experiences I’ve had have come from moments when I’ve dropped my guard down. It can be scary sometimes to do this, but allowing ourselves to fully immerse into experiences by feeling safe can make the world of difference. So, when I set up my meditations, I ensure I’m in a space that makes me feel naturally safe and comfortable. The safer I can feel, the more comfortable I can be, the more I drop my defenses and allow myself to truly be in the experience I’m having.

Recognizing why we have judgments and that we have them to protect ourselves in life is the first step to allowing yourself to let go of them to fully immerse ourselves in meditation. I hope that if you’ve been feeling judgment in some of your meditation exercises, that my experiences can help you to drop those judgments and allow you deeper into meaningful experiences.