10/09/2026
What if they’re not actually judging you?
Twice this week, I have heard stories of people who thought I was judging them.
Both times, I found it quite funny - because the judgement they thought I was making simply was not true.
And it reminded me how often we do this.
We assume we know what others are thinking. We make an inference or assumption, we project something onto them.
Usually this happens so quickly that we aren't even aware of our own thoughts.
I've worked with a lot of people over the years around fear of judgement.
It can be paralysing, often self-imposing and, believe it or not, self serving. But self-serving in a restricted, survival-based, ego-stabilising way.
There is a lot to unpack here. Shadow aspect, perception, self-identity, mental frameworks... but I want to make this as easily digestible as possible.
I remember one client coming in and telling me she wanted to get to a place where nobody would ever judge her. She thought other people having judgments of her were bad and caused her pain.
I told her:
"I actually quite like people judging me"
Partly to break her pattern, partly to offer a new perspective.
I said, "I hope you walk away from our interaction today and make a judgement that I am caring, that I will put in effort to help you. I hope you walk away with hope. I hope you make a judgement that I am the person to help you."
On some level, we could say all decisions we make are judgments. This is just how the brain works and makes sense of the world.
I like to think of the lampshade metaphor.
Imagine another person is the light.
If you put a red lampshade over that light, you'll experience something completely different than if you put a blue lampshade over.
If you're carrying the belief, 'people think badly of me', this becomes the lampshade you place over them.
Then when you believe someone is thinking negatively of you, or judging you a certain way, that lampshade means you experience them differently.
Recently, someone thought I was judging a choice they were making.
In reality, I could see another path that I thought might open up a new way of being in the world, which would be very empowering.
In aiming to share this perspective, they assumed it meant that if they chose a the other path, I would somehow view them negatively.
But to me, life is more than just good and bad. The paths we choose are just different.
Each one opens up a new experience of life showing up around us, so neither is good nor bad. I would have celebrated them no matter what they chose.
One of my best mates and I often disagree on so many things in life.
Sometimes one of us can see something that seems so obvious from the outside, but the other is not yet ready to see it or simply doesn't want to go down that path.
At the end of the day, our friendship is based upon supporting and being there with them, no matter what they choose.
It's always your life, and I support you either way.
I've learnt to never make assumptions that you know what other people are thinking.
After working with thousands of people and asking them about their own thoughts and philosophy on life, I've realised something quite funny:
Most people don’t even know their own thoughts very well.
So if most people don’t know their own thoughts, how the heck are you going to be able to know?
Normally we're just projecting - put our own thoughts onto others, and then reacting to this projection.
And ironically, this projection is a form of judgment!
Meaning you're making a judgment that… the other person is judging you.
Most judgements are actually based upon someone's level of development and thought processes, or the media they have consumed that's programming their brain.
I've met a couple of people who are so deep in a culture surrounded by social media posts all about anti-men and toxic masculinity.
Pretty quickly, that created a bias in their mind. Now they quite easily view things a certain way and make judgments about half the human species!
Often unaware that these thoughts and concepts are simply data, regurgitated concepts linked to an identity. All unconscious and damaging.
If someone assumes that I am a bad person just for being male (because all males are bad), that lives inside that person.
There is no truth to it, and they have no control over it when there is a lack of awareness of how their own mind works.
So of course, they will project their reality over me. Place that lampshade over me and not see reality.
But why do I need to waste any time or thought energy on what I have no control over?
What happens in other people's minds is their business.
How they see you is their right.
Their judgements are more of a reflection of them - their limitations, prejudices, and conditioning - than of who you are.
And the best thing happens when you allow others to judge.
You'll find that you let go of self-judgement, too.
Because it was never really separate.
