Beyond the Judge and the Victim

“Your heart is a magical kitchen. Open your heart. Open your magical kitchen and refuse to walk around the world begging for love. In your heart is all the love you need. Your heart can create any amount of love, not just for yourself, but for the whole world. You can give your love with no conditions; you can be generous with your love because you have a magical kitchen in your heart. Then all those starving people who believe the heart is closed will always want to be near you for your love. What makes you happy is love coming out of you. And if you are generous with your love, everyone is going to love you. You are never going to be alone if you are generous. If you are selfish, you are always going to be alone, and there is no one to blame but you. Your generosity will open all the doors, not your selfishness.” ~ Don Miguel Ruiz, “The Mastery of Love”

Some days, I am swallowed up in the battle inside of myself between the Judge and the Victim. I spend all my time navel-gazing, sorting through all the beliefs I have about how I'm not good enough in this way or that, and then feeling like shit when that message penetrates me to the core. No matter what I do, nothing is ever good enough for the voice of the Judge. And no matter what evidence there might be to the contrary, the Victim in me believes the Judge, and collapses into despair. The Judge hates everything. There is not a single thing I can do to argue my case against this vicious voice. It is loud, it is aggressive, it is angry and frustrated, it is very convincing, and seems very logical and rational in its approach. What can I do in the face of this? Well, I suppose there are many reactions I might have as the Victim. I might get angry and rebellious and tell it – and everyone – to fuck off. I might get scared, and cower in fear, hoping to hide and not be seen. I might just numb out, and just start walking away, filled with apathy. Or I might collapse in sorrow, overcome with despair. One thing is certain – there is no joy and gladness possible in this dynamic.

Where did this voice – the Judge - come from? It seems like my very own much of the time, even though I know in my depths that it is not the truth. It is the voice that has kept me from taking chances in my life – telling me that I will fail and look like a fool. It is the voice that has made me afraid of failure and looking like a fool, as if these are things that exist independent of my belief in them. Is it possible to look like a fool if I don't care what other people think? Is it possible to feel like a failure if I don't have any external standard – set by someone else – by which I must measure myself? Why do I care so much about what other people think about me? This voice tells me that I will never be beautiful enough – there are so many women that are more perfect than me, more beautiful faces, more sensuous voices, more gentle presences, more attractive bodies, more brilliant minds – and it goes on and on. This voice convinces me that I will never stand a chance in meeting a man who will love me for all that I am, and I may as well give up now. That even if I do manage to connect with a man who seems to be interested in connecting with me, that I shouldn't trust him. He probably just wants to use me, to take what he wants from me and then walk away – that no man in his right mind would actually choose to love me for real.

This voice – the Judge - tells me that nothing that I am, and nothing that I do, will ever be good enough for me to live here in this world and be happy. This voice tells me that what I want is not possible, that I don't deserve it, that I am not worth it. I am not worthy of love and companionship – and if I do happen to find something that seems like those very things, it is an illusion, and I might as well see it for the lie it is. I am not worthy of a place in this world – I do not belong, I am worthless, I am not worth the very skin and bones that I inhabit – and if I don't work really, really hard and do as much stuff as possible to validate myself, then I will be destroyed. Slowly or quickly, it doesn't matter – I will be destroyed. I will never experience happiness, or feel a sense of belonging in this world.

As I am sitting here, listening to this internal argument, I am struck by how close I feel to the other voice – the voice of the Victim. I feel less close to the voice of the Judge, and feel inclined to call it by “he” as if it weren't coming from within me. That's very interesting to me. I wonder if that's because the voice of the Judge was instilled within me from outside – from “the Dream” as Don Miguel Ruiz calls it – and that the voice of the Victim is cultivated from within, in response to the abuse of the Judge. That makes sense, really. I mean, I don't need to cultivate a defense until there has been some experience of attack. “We learn to deny ourselves and reject ourselves. We are never good enough, or right enough, or clean enough, or healthy enough, according to all those beliefs we have. There is always something the Judge can never accept or forgive. That is why we reject our own humanity; that is why we never deserve to be happy; that is why we are searching for someone who abuses us, someone who will punish us. We have a very high level of self-abuse because of that image of perfection. When we reject ourselves, and judge ourselves, and find ourselves guilty and punish ourselves so much, it looks like there is no love. It looks like there is only punishment, only suffering, only judgment in this world.” (Ruiz)

The voice of the Judge is learned, and the voice of the Victim is a response to the Judge. No wonder the Victim feels closer to me – it is weak, collapsed, sad, hurt, and powerless, but it is also born of the belief that all the beliefs of the Judge aren't fair, that something better is possible, even if unlikely. The Judge is powerful, demanding, harsh, cruel, and hell-bent on misery. The voice of the Victim believes that something is really wrong here, that things feel really bad, that I deserve something better, but can't find a way around the vicious attack from the Judge. The Judge's lies keep the Victim powerless. Until...until what?

What is important here? What seems essential is cultivating a sense of observation that can identify who is speaking within me, who is taking over from moment to moment. When I am angry and vicious, when there is no possibility of anything going right in the world, I am being controlled by the Judge. When I collapse into despair, feeling like life is misery and that my life will always feel like a waste, I am being controlled by the Victim. In order to heal from the control of these voices, I have to be aware of when I am being ruled by each of them. In order to heal, is it necessary that I listen to all of the beliefs that each one holds to be essentially true? Hmmmm...I'm not sure. Maybe it is important to listen to each one – if I can maintain my objectivity, I can hear what each one believes, what each one does in response to those beliefs, how each one tries to control me. But it requires tremendous fortitude to be able to listen to the fullness of each of these voices without being pulled in by their madness, without being hooked.

When these voices hook me, I reinforce their beliefs. When I am able to see the light beyond these beliefs, I shatter their hold on me. Byron Katie's work brings me forever back to the questions that shatter these beliefs. “Is it true?” She says that when we are in conflict with reality, then we suffer. What we must do in order to be happy is to accept what is, and to love what is. NVC has taught me to listen beyond the Jackals – the thoughts spouted by the Judge and the Victim – to the true feelings and needs there. Some of those feelings and needs are basic to being human. I wonder, though, how many of those are rooted in core beliefs that are in conflict with reality...

Sometimes it's hard to know where to begin when I am hooked by these beliefs. Which practice will I default to? I have so many! I have NVC: observation, feelings, needs, requests – listening to the Jackals, feeling what is in my heart, and listening to what needs are at the heart of the matter. I have yoga and meditation – staying present with the breath as I experience what arises. I have so many books written by people who guide me to the light, who reflect the truth, who remind me what is real. I have my rudimentary knowledge of Byron Katie's work. I have Ecstatic Dance, returning me to the body to move through whatever gets stuck within me. I have Medicine work, which connects me with the utterly transcendent Divine so that I may learn directly from Source. I have counseling – which provides me a safe, sacred space in which to sift through the murk of my psyche. I have acupuncture, which can bring me back into balance when I am pulled off course – mind, body, and spirit. David Deida looks at things in three levels: function, flow, and glow – therapy, yoga, and spirituality. Some of the things that I engage in here are at the function level – therapeutic. Counseling, acupuncture, NVC, Byron Katie. These things allow me to see my mind and emotions and responses, and to work within them toward healing and wholeness. Others are flow level – yoga, embodied practices. Yoga, Ecstatic Dance. And still others are glow level – spirituality and contemplative work. Meditation, reading spiritual books, and Medicine ceremony work. I am so blessed to have so many resources that are available to me at any time, anchoring me to the Truth if I can choose them in the moment.

But the truth is that I don't always choose them in the moment. The Judge says, “wow, you must be fucking dense or something...” The Victim would reply by feeling deflated, saying, “life is really hard.” But if I choose a practice in that moment, I allow myself the opportunity to rise above the murk and lies. Sometimes I feel blindsided by the Judge. Sometimes I don't even notice that the Judge has spoken, and the Victim takes me over without me even understanding what has occurred. The other night was a brilliant dramatization of all of this. I was working in the ceramics studio, alone. I was trying to complete a small porcelain bowl, and it had gotten too dry and began to crack. In spite of my best attempts, it was not salvageable, so I had to give it up. I raised it up and shattered it on the table, pissed off. I began to work on a new porcelain bowl, and continued working on a ceramic colander that I had begun two weeks prior. It was also beginning to crack, but I decided that there was no way I was going to let it go. It wasn't too far gone, and I was going to try to patch it and finish it. I became more and more frustrated, and while I made progress, the littlest setbacks in my work sent me to the edge. I threw a water bottle across the room. I shouted, I cursed. I felt so angry I could have heaved the table across the room. I felt powerful and furious – surely trying to find some strength and control in a situation that was surely beyond my control. Clay will do what clay will do, and there is little that I can do to change that. Eventually, after I finished my colander and my porcelain bowl, I had hopes of doing some more work with glazing. Suddenly, the music stopped. My ipod had frozen, and I couldn't get it to come back to life. At that point, I was at the absolute breaking point. I was overcome in fury and wanted to hurt someone – or myself. Screaming “fuck, fuck, fuck” at the top of my lungs, I abandoned my working, and left. By the time I made it to the car, I was ready to die. I felt that my anger had collapsed on itself, having no hope of creating any effect beyond my own inner emotional state. I felt utter despair, and wept for my whole drive home. “What's the use of anything, I just want to die.”

I was so swept away in this emotional avalanche that I couldn't see what was actually happening. My frustration at first had been justified. I had spent valuable time making a porcelain bowl, and was unhappy that it was falling apart. But I didn't remain with that singular event. My mind went nuts, and I began to be angry because “everything I do is a waste. I can't do anything right. I am an utter failure.” Whoa...all because a porcelain bowl got too dry and fell apart? Really??? And then, just when my Judge had overreacted completely, the Victim kicked in. “I want to die. I can't do anything right. Life is not worth it. I give up. I am a failure. I am worthless and a loser.” So, all because a porcelain bowl didn't work out, I was ready to totally hate myself, abandon myself, kill myself. It's scary how fast this kind of response can come along. It moves at a speed that slips beneath the level of conscious awareness. After having just spent a few weeks studying the Bhagavad Gita in my Philosophy and Practice of Yoga class, I am inspired to embrace the warrior that is within, stronger than these beliefs and lies. I am inspired to stop in the moment, to resist the overwhelm of these emotional responses, and to listen more deeply to what is true.

It is not true that I am worthless. It is not true that I am a failure. It is not true that life isn't worth it. It is not true that I am willing to give up so easily. It is not true that I am powerless. It is not true that I am not worthy of love and joy and happiness. It is not true that I am not good enough, strong enough, beautiful enough. It is not true that I don't deserve the life I am living. It is not true that I must work endlessly to earn my right to be here. It is not true that while other people may judge me, criticize me, reject me, and try to cause me harm, I deserve these things, that those people are right. I am only able to take in the judgment, criticism, rejection and abuse of others if I am already judging, criticizing, rejecting, and abusing myself.

I want to be happy. I want to live a life in the Light. I want to live Love in everything that I do. I see now that much of the happiness, light, and love that I have embraced has merely been an attempt to escape from the misery I experience in myself, in my life. But this happiness that is an escape is always going to be ephemeral, temporary. I have sought to escape the Judge by fleeing to ethereal realms of lightness and joy. I have sought to escape the Victim by fleeing to acceptance and peace. But what I have found is that this is small joy, small lightness, small acceptance, and small peace. The Love I yearn for is a love that is powerful and undying. The Joy I yearn for cannot collapse under any weight. The Peace I yearn for is so eternal that it swallows the possibility of war once and for all. And all of these must come through knowing Truth that cannot be proven or disproven, but felt and known as the Source of All.

When I seek Love outside of myself, I will only find small love. Love that can change depending on circumstance or the weather. When I seek Peace outside of myself, I will only find small peace. Peace that is biding its time, holding its tongue, not wanting to rock the boat. When I seek Joy outside of myself, I will only find small joy. Joy that treads water, hoping to stay above sorrow, yet remembering suffering all too well. When I seek Truth outside of myself, I find only truth that can change depending on paradigm or epistemology or science or religion. Small truth, peace, joy, and love will just keep spinning the cycle of suffering into lies, war, sorrow, and fear. I choose to anchor myself to the practices that return me to Truth, Peace, Joy, and Love at all costs, in the face of all experiences and appearances, no matter what. I am a Spiritual Warrior. I have chosen this path, and I will not give up now or ever. I pray that Spirit will continue to bless my life by sending me exactly what I need today and always.