Today's Draw: Judgment from the Victorian Romantic tarot. What kinds of things to people judge you for? Are their judgments fair and accurate? Why do you think they judge you this way?
Today's card was drawn by a guest drawer, Bubbles of the fabulous c.1960s duo, Bubbles and Gwen.
As you'd expect, the Judgment card frequently deals with judgment. Some believe that, on a spiritual level, this card indicates a time of a summing up your life in light of how it might determine your place in the afterlife or your place in the next life. But on a personal level, it goes beyond the judgment of others to helping us discover our deepest personal truths.
We've all felt judged before. Maybe we're not smart enough. Or pretty enough. Thin enough. Funny enough. GOOD enough. We look around us and everyone seems more compelling, more engaged by life. They MUST be looking at us and seeing the hairy mole on the side of our faces. Or maybe they whisper about our divorces. Or don't think we're adequate mothers.
There have been times in my life that I've actually avoided life and public altogether because I was afraid of what others would think of me...of my appearance or my eccentricities or the way I carry myself through life. These were painful times for me and they're not so long ago that I can honestly say "I'm past that now."
What I finally realized, though, was this...people may judge you for 1/10th of a second when they see you. But just like you're all in your own head all the time, so are they. They're too busy thinking about their freaked out eyebrows or the suggestive dance they did at the office party to think about your issues.
When you find yourself bracing against or fearing judgment, the judging has already happened. And it's something you've done to yourself. I mean, if you didn't judge yourself, how else would you know what others might judge you for?
Things started to turn around for me when I started worrying that people might judge me for being cute and smart and funny. When I finally realized that, as is human nature, they would probably judge me for being far superior to them in the areas in which they judged themselves. When I finally figured out that, while some people might judge me, pretty much of all of them are too intensely distracted by their own shortcomings to notice the booger coming out of my nose.
So if you answered the questions above, go back and re-read your answers, replacing "people" with "I". For example, if I say "People judge me for the amount of time I spend in the shower each day. With all the unbathed people in the third world, they think I am wasting water." And change it to "I judge myself for the amount of time I spend in the shower each day. With all the unbathed people in the third world, I think I am wasting water."
Just that simply, you reveal your truth and the way you feel about yourself. And if you don't like being so hard on yourself, you can change your behavior. And you can also change the way you judge yourself. With that, I leave you with a quote I didn't find on my Facebook feed just prior to writing this entry. While there was a quote similar to it on my feed, it's not exactly this. Because if it were, I would apparently have to pay Mike C. to use it:
Sorry it's late today! I forgot to push send last night!
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