I’ve been reading Soul without Shame; a Guide to Liberating Yourself from the Judge Within, and finding it very helpful. It’s validating of the work I’ve been doing, and even explains some things, like my experience of Kali in the work with Ingrid Bacci. Byron Brown talks about the pain of the self-betrayal involved in either complying with the parents’ wishes, or justifying, trying to prove your case, trying to get them to believe it. That just keeps you in the ‘judgment loop.’ I realize when I began to speak my truth to my internalized parents, instead of trying to convince them, I got much stronger.
When you find yourself in the judgment loop, it is good to be indignant. “This is not unlike what naturally arises in a child who has been tricked or treated disrespectfully. … It is time to stand up and speak for yourself and the truth of your experience. It is time to activate your essential strength.” p 219
“The energy for active defending is available to you the moment you recognize that your deepest nature is being constricted by the experience of being attacked. … The sense of outrage awakens your essential strength and with it the capacity and clarity to defend your own truth in the face of judgment. Ultimately, this truth is nothing but the integrity and aliveness of the human soul.” p 219
“Essential strength is felt as red vibrant heat rising up from your belly to destroy the falsehood, the injustice, the repressive activity of the judge, whether it is coming from another person or from inside you. This movement is based in compassion — a felt understanding of the hurt and limitation being suffered — and thus supports a true disengagement that will serve the humanity of all concerned. It will not wreak vengeance or act out of blind rage. This essential quality may begin as anger at the debilitating effect of self-judgment, but it emerges as an assertive strength to be yourself without the need for acceptance, approval, or acknowledgement of anyone else. Most fundamentally, it is the strength to be yourself without a self-image but with a sense of presence that is grounded, clear, and vitally alive.
“True strength is the basic instinctual energy of survival and self-protection, which we recognized as missing or blocked in the judgment process in Chapter 4. Now it is operating on a level that incorporates intelligence, awareness, and understanding of your true nature and what needs to be defended. Strength is the essential aspect that the judge is most effective at blocking — the part of your essence that was especially undermined by the judgments of powerful adults. You as a child did not have the physical presence and capacity to embody this instinctual energy for your own protection. Even if you could have, it was dangerous to do so because you were still very dependent on adults for survival. That is no longer the case. Now you can begin a vital aspect of your journey: recovering that compassionate, intelligent vitality — the strength essence.” p 220
“The judge’s activity is aimed at blocking contact with the freedom and expansiveness of the living soul. So each form [of defending yourself] points to a way of tapping into the dynamism and aliveness of who you are now, unconnected to your history.” p 245
“You must step out of the judgment loop. This is the real soul work. … This is when you assert your fundamental aliveness and freedom. This is when you align yourself with the deep longing to be real and present in your life against the self-defeating experience of judgment.” p 291