Our Big Brain has a particular habit. (Just in case you don’t know what “Big Brain” is, it’s how I refer to the dominant, programmed part of the human brain.) The thinking in Big Brain is all based on judgment. This is not a bad thing. Every decision we make on a minute by minute basis is controlled by this judgment. The sound judgment you learned throughout your life continues to serve you, like not drinking drain cleaner, or not placing your finger in a light socket.

But the judge in Big Brain also lives by a certain motto: 

Guilty until proven innocent.

The Perpetrator

The judge in the human brain might not be the nicest, but it wasn’t designed to be “nice”. Your mental judge is there for one reason and one reason only, to keep you alive.

As far as it’s concerned, it’s a rough and tumble world out there, and everything is a threat unless proven otherwise.

I think this is an important thing to understand, about yourself, and other humans. Each brain is always scanning for what is wrong. It takes a lot of conscious skill to train your brain to scan for what is right, and when you do that you’re working against a lifetime of habitual thinking and who knows how long of genetic evolution.

Because of this, it’s very easy to fall into a negative thinking spiral about people and circumstance. When this happens, the judge feels very justified, because then there is a perpetrator to focus on. Anyone or anything that you’ve decided is working against you has been deemed a perpetrator by your Big Brain.

You are not a victim

The problem with this process is you then become a victim to the perpetrator. Let’s put this in perspective around neurological disease.

If you can only see the disease as a perpetrator, as a villain, than you can ONLY EVER BE A VICTIM TO IT. What are the feelings that victims feel? Powerless. Terror. Anxiety.

Victimhood is a method Big Brain uses to get you to hide and try to change the bad feeling situation with quick feeling “fixes” like food, alcohol, drugs, binging on tv or social media, and the like. It’s signaling that there’s something wrong, and you should try and fix it.

I’m sure you can see the issue there. Remaining in a state of victimhood perpetuates the behaviors your Big Brain is implementing to create some quick change, with a typical result of developing the habit of overdoing it on those quick fixes. You develop a loopty-loop my friend.

Book of Laws

Your judge has a very specific set of laws to work with, namely, the thoughts that are contained within your brain. Think of this as the Book of Laws the judge has to work with.

This book contains all the rules that your thinking lives by. And if you only think through your Big Brain, you can only ever reference those laws.

So how the heck do you not be bound by those laws?

You have to think outside them. And your judge will not like that. Judge will try and throw the book AT YOU, the very owner of the book. It will remind you of the laws you are bound to by creating negative thoughts and feelings about anything outside the laws.

If you don’t want to change, this is perfect!

If you do want to change, you’ve got to put your judge in check and consider new laws. You have to send your judge back to law school. How this translates into reality is you have to examine all those thoughts that are creating judgment in your mind. 

Yes, this can be unpleasant at first, because your judge will still be using the book against you, and might bring up judgments such as:

• you’re a bad friend
• you’re a bad son/daughter
• you’re so mean
• why do you treat people this way?

That’s just your judge, doing what it was designed to do, judging you as guilty until you prove yourself innocent.

Look at judge getting all judgy. But guess what? Judge isn’t right. Judge only judges this way because somewhere, along the journey of your life, your Big Brain picked up on those thoughts and decided to incorporate them into the thinking that creates your reality. 

Someone who thinks “I am a wonderful son/daughter/friend/human” has incorporated a different thought into their Big Brain, and thus creates a different reality for themselves. Their book of laws says something different.

Nobody’s book of laws is better, just different. But when it comes to human emotion, one is going to FEEL a heck of a lot better than the other.

And therein lies the reason to try and change any laws in your book. To create a better feeling life, not artificially with quick feeling fixes, but sustainably with actual change to your laws.

Pay attention to your judgments. Read your book of laws, and if you don’t like it, rewrite it. The first step is awareness. My favorite way to develop this is meditation. You can also find a counselor or therapist, work with a coach (hey, that’s me!), or determinedly begin your own journey in your own way, whatever that looks like.

Just know that Judge is gonna judge, but you create the laws that it passes judgment by.

Work with me

Do you want some assistance in surfacing your judgments so you can start to change your book of laws? I can help you do that.

Book a complimentary consultation with me to start exploring the possibilities.