I missed last week. And I have been judging myself …maybe a little too harshly. Then I remembered and applied into my life and onto myself as if a company with a separate legal entity the famous Bible verse; Judge not that you be not judged. I realized that what upset me(what upsets people)-at the time; is not things themselves, but my(their) judgements of these things. So…I…Quickly got over that. Unavoidable circumstances created this to be the perfect time to write about this instead of then.
“Don’t let your insecurity and pride get your better judgement.” ~Theon Greyjoy, Game of Thrones
Let’s be for real, we’ve all judged. And. And. Indulge my good sensibilities in agreeing with this thought on judgement with me from the very unlikely but oh so Apt reference above. It’s quite the triple entendre. A literal caution against letting ego eclipse clarity, a psychological mirror showing how pride and insecurity hijack our inner compass, and a spiritual reminder that our better judgement is not just logic; but soul-sourced discernment.
Dear gentle reader, somewhere in this spiral staircase called self, I found myself both jury and judged. Last week when I didn’t write an article like I mentioned above; and judged myself till my spirit slumped like a tulip too long out the vase; I realize unconsciously it could have been a case of ‘I was trying to avoid writing about Judgement’. What with everything going on with the world. But what else is life if not a long court case with no jury but our projections, no judge but our insecurities, and no gavel but our trauma?
Judgement isn’t just a courtroom concept. It’s a cathedral, a colosseum, a crossroads.
It's how we see ourselves, how we distort others, and how sometimes with grace; we finally see clearly.
So today; A joy being able to fulfill one of my artist’s way commitments in the name of Sun-Day See-Yourself Best Day; let’s embark on this journey through the Junctions of Judgement, where soul meets psyche, bias meets awareness, and misperception; and God willing…becomes wisdom.
Justified Judgement Junctions as I call them fondly - The convergence of logic, perception, and reality.
Misplaced Judgement
Start here, with error.
As human as breathing.
It begins innocently: a glance, a tweet, a silence. And suddenly, a story. We misplace judgment like keys in a couch cushion; only what we lose isn’t metal, but meaning.
Think of the investment analyst who scoffed at the “too polished” founder; never mind she was running P&L, closing deals, and raising twins. Or the stranger who judged Simone Biles for stepping down when she stepped up for her self. Misplaced judgment is a loud whisper of our own fears. It says more about us than them.
Nearly 1 in 2 people avoid therapy not because they can’t afford it; but because they fear judgement. We are suffering... literally…because we are afraid of looking like we’re suffering. That’s messed up.
May we all make mistakes, fall flat, and have our faces meet the mud so we stop judging those already on the ground.
Also; Every journey will be its own story. The American poet Nikki Giovanni wrote, "Mistakes are a fact of life. It is the response to the error that counts." So take heart. Expect mistakes, and believe in your ability to learn. Your wellness is not conditional on picture perfect conditions. (Let those without sin cast the first stone). Become curious about the ups and downs, rather than judgemental. You will emerge as an individual who can handle any weather.
Subjected Judgement
What happens when we are judged through another’s lens?
From childhood, we are measured; not by our intentions but others' fears.
Black; African; women like myself are judged as a collective. When I walk into the room, I’m not Angela, I’m an archetype: too bold, too much, too everything. As the legendary Ijeoma Umebinyuo put it: “Twice as good to get half of what they’ve got.”
Society judges many a women for choosing not to be a mother for example. And the algorithms? The Innanets Judgemental Judy Police? Constantly collecting cases against anyone who dares just to be free to be.
Many have had moments where The church judged them for their doubts. Although lot of literature has been produced highlighting the strengths and benefits of religion, many have associated the following judgement problems with religion: conflict with science, curtailing freedoms, delusion, claims of having the exclusive truth, fear of punishment, feelings of guilt, immutability, instilling fear, internal conflicts, irrationality, justification of violence, limitation on the rights of women, outdatedness, perpetuation of division, persecution, prejudice, rebuffing of the broader perspective, social constructs, strange customs, strained relationships for partners of different faiths, the structure, the suppression of curiosity, its use as a tool for control, unsophisticatedness, etc…and the list could go on and on and on and you could replace Religion with any polarizing topic of the day.
Conformed Judgement
The herd instinct. The danger of consensus without consciousness.
Society says "this is good," and we nod, even when it guts us. Say “therapy” in some circles and they’ll pray for your demons. Say “Africa is being recolonized” and they’ll say “It’s development.”
We’ve been groupies for so long…individuality feels like an attack.
A revolutionary act even.
Conformed judgement hides in polite dinner tables, corporate DEI boards, and LinkedIn endorsements. It’s what has made investors time and again dismiss female founders as faces instead of founders. It’s what fuels Gen-Z’s anxiety and boomers’ blame. In VC meetings, women pitch traction, and men pitch vision; but the money still flows one way. For example.
When we come face to face with individuality, it feels like an attack on us. You could be as loving as a pet, as dotting as a painter's brushstroke, as patient as a saint in meditation, but the world(read someone somewhere) will still judge you on the preconceived notions she/he had about you/your kind. Too much power struggle; very little camaraderie.
We must rebel…evolve in groupthink and groupspeak. As Nyashinski said: “Judgement yako haikuponyi.”
Filtered Judgement
When trauma becomes a lens, not a lesson.
A man cheats, and suddenly that is how men are. A woman cheats, and suddenly all women are devils. A father neglects, and now love equals self love. A mother neglects, and now love equals abandonment.
Cognitive biases; confirmation, conviction, superiority…shape our views and society. But what if the real villain is our unprocessed stories and realities? Our inability to point the finger at ourselves first being that the hardest truths are the ones we have to tell ourselves…devoid of the filtered judgment we self impose on ourselves(and those around us many a time forcibly).
I had to sit with truths I had coped my way through for 30 years. Face the trauma, not trace a la filter over it.
Judgement filtered through pain becomes projection. Judgement filtered through ego becomes delusion. Judgement filtered through healing becomes discernment.
Filtered judgement doesn’t also just show up in personal trauma it flows through generational lenses too. According to the Law of Generational Myopia in the laws of human nature by Robert Greene; each generation judges the world through its own curated value system, often in opposition to the one before it. Early adults clash with those in midlife not because they’re enemies, but because each holds a different story about what matters. This creates blind spots, imbalances, and a tendency to dismiss what doesn’t mirror our ideals. But when we pause, and zoom out, and consider our place in the broader historical arc; acknowledging not just the tension but the transfer of wisdom between generations; we begin to dissolve the fog. Awareness becomes an antidote to bias. It liberates us from the illusion of superiority and allows our minds to become more fluid, our judgement more whole. Only then can we stop reacting and start remembering: we are threads in an unbroken chain; history in motion, not just opinion in echo.
Projected Judgement
We judge others for what we haven’t faced in ourselves.
You say “She’s too loud” but what you mean is, “I wish I could be that free.”
You say “He’s arrogant” but what you mean is, “I fear my own smallness.”
Projection is how the unhealed cast themselves in someone else’s movie and then hate the script. It’s a (smoke)screen, not a mirror.
“Trust your feelings” but feelings are nothing final or original; behind feelings there stand judgements and evaluations which we inherit in the form of…inclinations, aversions, unconscious biases, ancestral echoes, and the emotional residue of stories we were told before we ever had the words to question them.
The inspiration born of a feeling is the grandchild of judgment…and often of a judgment…and in any event not a child of your own. To trust one’s feelings means to give more obedience to one’s grandfather and grandmother and their grandparents than to the gods which are in us; our reason and our experience.
If you find yourself triggered, ask: Is this about them, or is this about me?
Defensive Judgement
When fear dresses up as discernment.
Those who judge others based on their skin color have lost touch with their own souls. The soul cares nothing about race. It has no interest in arbitrary distinctions. It has no interest in the form our earth-suit takes.
We use judgement as armor. ‘Preemptive strikes’ before we’re exposed as some circles like to take us in circles with.
We say, “That friend is fake” when really we’re afraid to open up. We say, “I don’t do dating” when we mean, “I’m tired of being hurt.”
In motherhood, in marriage, in money…we pre-judge to protect.
But that armor rusts. We carry old arguments, bury our pain in passive-aggressive posts, and pretend being unbothered is peace.
But unbothered is not healed. It’s avoidance with good branding. The devil is in the judgement.
Anchoring Judgement
The pivot point.
Something changes. It has to. The breakdown becomes the breakthrough.
You lose your job, but find your calling. You leave the relationship, but find your soul. You’re judged by the world, but finally see yourself.
Anchoring judgement is the moment when judgement becomes wisdom-in-motion. It holds you steady.
I saw in earlier post today by Ken Njoroge where he said:
“Stillness is a powerful precursor to inflection.”
That stillness? It’s not emptiness. It’s anchoring.
This is where you stop judging the storm and start dancing in the rain. You learn to love the things that you wish most had not happened. What punishments of God are not gifts? It’s a gift to exist. And with existence comes suffering(and along with it its shadow judgement). There is no escaping that. If you are grateful for your life; which I advocate for wholly and believe its a lifestyle ethos to live by as not everyone is and as we are all wont to have moments of ingratitude and dissatisfaction with our lives at various inflection points; if you are grateful, truly grateful, then you have to be grateful for all of it. You can’t pick and choose. The elixir of awareness and empathy and connection.
Discerning Judgement
An elevated form.
Beyond ego, beyond pain. A kind of spiritual sobriety. You don't react; you reflect. You don't assume; you inquire.
Discerning judgement is knowing when to speak, and when to listen. When to go, and when to rest. It's what the movie The Substance (2024) tried to show us: meaning isn't loud, it's layered. And we have to try and find meaning in a fractured world. Away from the judgemental-ness of it all.
Good judgement is a skill.
It’s the kind of judgement that VC firms like Knife Capital for example show by investing not just in trends, but in truth, in nuance, sometimes even intuitive judgement.
It's the form of judgement that doesn't just notice what is, but imagines what could be.
I was a judge at the East Africa CFA regional research finals earlier this year. The irony wasn’t lost on me: how often we subject others to standards we ourselves didn’t create, from systems we’ve inherited. But in that room, I also saw what discerning judgement could look like; rigorous, fair, present. Not about being above, but alongside. Not about power, but clarity. To move the needle. And objectively; the ladies who won knocked it right out of the park.
Transmuted Judgement
The zenith. Judgement as grace.
Just ands. Without any buts, ifs and whens.
Imagine judgement not as division; but as discernment wrapped in compassion and articulated honesty. The kind that says: “I don’t understand you… and I see your inhumanity.” “I don’t agree… and I wish you healing.” “I don’t condone… and I condemn.”
We need this now more than ever.
Because we have alot of energies that are currently bloodthirsty. With weak infantilised global institutions that are in objective judgement truly only crafted as selective judgement junctures to keep African leaders in check. Isn’t that Nonsensical in the African context to travel to other continents to be judged by those who’ve never judged their own crimes? Swali Nyeti.
How can one rise above their own darkness if they don’t first break the inner chains they forged long ago? What others call freedom may be the prettiest prison…its links glitter, but they bind. The unjust judgements we fight outside often mirror the laws we’ve written on our own souls. You can't cleanse the world of tyranny if you haven’t dethroned the tyrant within(and without). And No one can truly judge you unless you've already judged yourself.
Because judgement is not action. Condemnation is the bare minimum decency demands. Silence is not neutrality; it's complicity.
Because the real Judge: Lady Justice herself; is watching not just what we say, but how we live. Ben Horowitz wrote a whole book about What you do is who you are(highly recommend).
Because the most authentic people I know don’t judge, they witness. They don’t shout truth, they embody it.
Somewhere along this journey I realized: We are not here to become judges. We are here to become mirrors that reflect truth and light; without distortion.
We are here to transmute judgement. From shame to sovereignty. From fear to freedom. From ego to essence.
What you want and need is the power that Danton in the French Revolution possessed to make sense of it all and act accordingly for the zeitgeist. And this power is a function of vision, of looking at events from a different angle, through a fresh framework.
You ignore the clichéd interpretations that others will inevitably spout when facing changes.
You drop the mental habits and past ways of looking at things that can cloud your vision.
You stop the tendency to moralize, to judge what is happening.
You simply want to see things as they are.
You look for the undercurrents of discontent and disharmony with the status quo, which are always there below the sur-face.
You see commonalities and connections among all these signs.
You question not just the moment, but the momentum; what force is driving what you see?
You listen to the silence between reactions, the space where real discernment lives.
And finally, You allow yourself to be transformed by what you perceive; because true vision doesn’t just observe, it reorients.
Slowly the flow, the tide itself, comes into focus, indicating a course, a direction that is hidden to so many others. Let go of the false labels. Let go of the inner gavel. Let go of the burden of being right. And the false judgement of righteousness.
Just as the trees are letting go of dead leaves so beautifully, without resistance; may we let go of inner judgement and whatever does not bring peace to the soul. And world.
Let’s be bold enough to accept the boxes of judgement are falling apart. And…And…If these boxes are falling apart; should we then be writing our identities by hand and speak only for ourselves, in our own words; so we could take our chances out in the open and meet each other as we are... asking: "What is it like being you?" And be brave enough to admit that we don't already know the answers. Maybe it will mean we have finally arrived.... just "unpacking the boxes"; making ourselves at home. And Maybe one day; we will look back and wonder how we managed to live together in the same "house" for so long, & never stopped.....to introduce ourselves.
Free of Judgement Justifications.
Think you’ll be happy.
Have a lovely Sunday ✨🦋
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