I often tell people: leave judgment up to God. Do not judge yourself. Do not judge your neighbor. Do not judge your enemy. But this is not “try not to judge your neighbor” as a nicer attitude. Judgment is in the word itself. By the time the sentence leaves your mouth — or moves through your mind — the word has already judged. To not judge your neighbor, you must eliminate judgment from your words: the words you speak, the words you think with, the words you use to name yourself.
To change yourself, work on your words
We are made up of words and voice. So the rule of this guide is: to do something to yourself, you must do it to your words. If you would stop judging yourself, do not begin by wrestling a feeling. Begin by finding the exact words that carry the judgment. Remove the charge from the vocabulary and the inner world built from that vocabulary begins to change.
Judgment hides inside ordinary sentences
You may never say "I judge him." Instead you say, to your partner or to a friend: "He's just so difficult. He's so stubborn." In that moment you locked it in. You did not make him stubborn — you made yourself unable to see him any other way. The label arrives before the person does, every time after that.
And we do it to ourselves constantly: "I'm so stupid. I always mess this up." Part of you hears that and believes it — and notices that you, the speaker, said it. Self-judgment in speech quietly teaches you that you cannot be trusted to be kind to yourself.
Deconstruct the word
Take stubborn. Do not merely swap it for a politer sentence. Deconstruct it. What verdict is packed into this one word? What emotion rides with it? What opposite does it invent — and which side am I standing on? What in me is being disowned and placed over there, in him? That last question is shadow work at the level of language. Often the word we throw at a neighbor is carrying a part of ourselves we have not yet integrated — the ☯ turns, and the “other” is also me.
When the judgment-word is removed, what remains is simpler and more true: what actually happened, in plain words, with no verdict baked in. “He interrupted me twice” can be answered. “He’s impossible” can only be defended or attacked.
In my own words
Key lines from Wake Me Up, lightly punctuated from the transcript so they read as I spoke them:
“‘Okay, I leave judgment up to God. I’m not going to judge myself. I’m not going to judge my neighbor. I’m not going to judge my enemy. I’m going to leave that up to God.’ The way that you make that reality, the way you bring that into reality, is through your words.”
“Don’t speak about yourself in judgment. Don’t speak about your neighbor in judgment.”
“You just locked that in. You just cast a spell on him. Not on him. You didn’t make him stubborn. What you did is you made yourself think of him as stubborn. You painted that image.”
“And now next time you look at your neighbor, just like the child looking at the unique bird: you think stubborn neighbor cardinal. You no longer see the man.”
“‘I’m so stupid.’ Your subconscious hears that and believes it — and it knows that you were the one saying it. … Part of you is looking at the other part of you saying, ‘Why’d you call me stupid? I was doing my best.’”
“The more your speech is fragmented and not well aligned with reality and intentions, the more your being is fragmented and not aligned with reality and intentions.”
One small practice
Choose one judgment-word you used today — stubborn, stupid, lazy, impossible. Write the word alone. Under it, write: the emotion it carries, the opposite it creates, and what it prevents you from seeing. Then say what actually happened without using that word at all. Do not look for a kinder label. Remove the word, and watch what reality looks like without it.
← Step 1: Your voice creates your reality Next: Step 3 — Keep your word →
A gentle note: this guide shares my experience and is not medical or mental-health advice. If you are struggling, please reach out to a trusted person or professional in your life.