How to Overcome Fear of Judgement

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Do you ever feel that the fear of being judged is keeping you from trying new things in life, becoming the person that you want to be, or simply living peacefully?

Well, every single human grapples with the fear of judgment on some level.

We live in a culture that projects many outward expressions of judgement onto us just as well as we are often so self-critical and judgmental of ourselves.

Judgement is a factor of life that at first glance seems to be dense and negative but actually holds some powerful insight as to how we can best embody the person that we want to become and to live the life that we know is possible.

In this article I am going to break down all of the key aspects that culminate to our fear of judgment across familial, relational, and societal dynamics, how to get over these fears of judgment, and how to create a life of freedom beyond judgement so that you can operate at 100% you and to not give a damn what other people think!

Let’s dive in shall we?

Why am I scared of judgment?

There are an innumerable amount of reasons that lead us to develop an unhealthy fear of judgement.

We often look to the very specific examples of why we are scared of being judged through means of identity based judgement like the clothes you wear and what you do, down to potentiality based judged like the fear of failure and fear of what others may think of you should you try to change or do something new.

These are very real types of fears; however these fears of judgement are all branches of a more substantial tree that is beckoning us to understand the roots rather than the branches.

The only approach to cultivating a sustainable lifestyle beyond the fear of judgement is to treat the roots of the tree rather than the canopy.

equator journal

We may find temporary relief by diving into the stories of why we feel afraid to wear certain clothes or express ourselves in a certain way due to the fear of judgment, but by looking just a bit deeper we can begin to address the fear of judgment across all mediums if we know how to ask the right questions.

In fact, that best method of getting to the root is actually finding the simplest question you can ask, and to ask that question over and over again going deeper and deeper into simplicity until you arrive at an irreducible core.

It sounds silly, but the biggest problem most people face in working through their fears is overthinking, and believing that the answers must be more complicated than a simple truth.

The approach I teach is quite the opposite, and I have found that it has deeply transformative and sustainable impact because we break down the issue into its most simple parts to where misunderstanding or overlooking the real issue is nearly impossible.

The first question we need to ask is

Why do I Fear Judgement?

Ask yourself. Then ask yourself again.

“I fear that someone will judge me if I wear that goofy sweater.”

Why Do I fear this Judgement?

I fear that wearing that sweater will make people laugh at me.

Why Do I fear being laughed at?

I fear being laughed at because it makes me feel embarrassed.

Why I fear being embarrassed?

I fear being embarrassed because it makes me feel alone.

Why do I fear feeling alone?

I fear feeling alone because it makes me feel misunderstood.

Why do I fear feeling misunderstood?

I fear feeling misunderstand because it makes me feel that I’m not good enough.

Why do I fear feeling not good enough?

I fear feeling not good enough because then I believe that I am not good enough.

When we keep reducing the scope of the fear down, we eventually arrive at a core principle from which the heart of the fear of judgement beats.

We quickly discover that the fear of wearing a goofy sweater is not because we fear being embarrassed, but rather it is because we fear believing that we are not good enough.

Through the outside judgement we begin to judge ourselves and consequently identify with our judgements we place upon ourselves.

What causes fear of judgement?

courtesy of equator journal

The fear of judged is caused by a deep part of our subconscious identifying with beliefs that did not originate within the self.

If a child is never exposed to judgement, how then will that child develop a sense of unworthiness, a sense of not being good enough?

Judgment is caused by the conditioning that we are all exposed to.

All throughout our lives we are responding our exterior environments in a highly dynamic modality.

We have to navigate complex underlying social cues in all sorts of scenarios day in and day out.

There are innumerate amounts of subtle moments and experiences that carry programmatic elements from our environment to the forefront of our subconscious to be digested, interpreted, and stored away for future catalogued responses.

What we have been accustomed to as normal is merely the conditioning we have been subject to over our lives that consists of a varying amount of micro judgements sprinkled in with some large scale judgmental corrections.

The problem is that at some point we have piled so many corrective actions on top of the core feeling without ever addressing the core feeling that it becomes harder and harder to access the core feeling that holds our liberation.

We become stuck in a survival mode of sorts that prompts when the fear of judgment arises, do whatever necessary to avoid judgement so that you can maintain the physical and emotional homeostasis that you have embodied.

But when is the last time that you questioned, “ Is this how I want to operate? Do I consistently want to operate by navigating through life avoiding expressing myself in ways that others may judge me?

The most challenging aspect within the fear of judgement is the responsibility of choice.

courtesy equator journal

The hard truth is that other people in your environment can say things that are painful; however our mechanism is setup to a default operating mode that is allowing the judgment to be taken personally and to be believed in and therefore identified with.

If someone did not say that hurtful thing to you, would you have naturally believed it to be true and identify with it?

We find that is all comes down to choice. We choose to allow judgment from the outside to negatively impact our inner landscape and dialogue with self.

However, that choice doesn’t even seem like a choice because it becomes buried deep in our subconscious identity. What started off as a choice quickly develops into a defense mechanism because of our upbringing.

Fear of being judged by family

Our fear of judgement began with the conditioning we were exposed to within our family.

“If I didn’t act a certain way, or accomplish a certain thing, I would feel like I was not good enough.”

Thus is birthed our fear of judgement.

From this early stage fear we quickly develop and adapt defense mechanisms to minimize the amount of judgments that we perceive upon us.

When we are young, it is nearly impossible to not take things personally so when we feel like we don’t live up to certain expectations placed upon us we choose to feel shameful or guilty.

Our first experiences with judgement come from the nature of the tasks that we face in our formative years and the space between communication and perception.

Often there will be a discrepancy between what we communicate about how we feel and how we truly feel.

The same goes for what is communicated to you and the amount of void space you can feel between the reality of the sentiments that you receive and how you choose to perceive them.

We can easily begin to think that a statement like, “You tried your best son,” can be interpreted to mean something along the lines of, “I tried my best but I failed. Because I failed I feel like I was not good enough for you, and now I feel ashamed of not being good enough.”

In most cases, this surely was not the intended meaning behind such a statement, but there can be so much space to interpret judgement that may not even be present.

This reading between the lines so to speak is completely normal, however we are choosing to go in and feel those thread of judgement because we felt like we didn’t receive enough clear approval.

The question that we are not always aware of is, “whose approval do I need?”

Of course when you are a child you most definitely want the approval of your family members.

However the line can become very blurry between how you determine you self-worth and how others can be determining your self-worth for you.

This seeking for approval outside the self can go unchecked most of our lives and often can be an underlying limiting block in our lives that can manifest in many ways.

We face this blockage in large scaled environments that extend beyond our family.

 Fear of being judged by society

Beyond our formative years, we also begin to engage with the world through schooling, jobs, and various social settings.

We inevitably carry our fear of judgement instilled from our family dynamics and the programming that comes along with it into broader aspects of our life and engaging with the world.

The fear of being judged by society for what is deemed to be not normal or not in line with the given narrative is very strong.

The collective power and density of group thought is frightening and we can easily imagine ourselves on the wrong side of that stick by simply expressing who we truly are and what is true for us.

It can feel like you are walking on eggshells when society is so polarized and as every action, every thought, and every way of being is much more visible in the public eye today than ever before.

There is undoubtedly a line that can be drawn where if crossed, you will be judged. If there is one thing that you can count on, it is that

You will always be judged.

It doesn’t matter who you are, how you live, or what you’ve done, you will always be judged by the outside world. Everyone is constantly looking outside of themselves for approval, and inside of that seeking there is a thick layer of conscious and unconscious judgement being leaked from the inner landscapes of others.

The most important aspect to understand about judgement is that it always originates from the self.

Someone who is constantly in judgement of others is simply seeing a part of themselves in the mirror that is undesirable.

The urge to judge others is simply the negative outward expression of one’s own struggle with self-judgement.

And everyone struggles with self-judgment on some level through certain seasons of life. Whether it’s a small whisper or a shouting dialogue within the self, we all are initiated by what judgement is trying to teach us.

Judgment itself is not good or bad.

The shape that we form it into within our belief system and identity is where we create the monster of right and wrong and good and bad.

Judgement is like water, it will assume the shape of its container.

The problem is, we are not taught to navigate judgement in a way that actually helps us transcend it, and we simply keep changing the shape of the container to fit within different parts of our psyche.

What you repress will forever express.

It’s not only we learn to embrace and go through the core of the root identity that we are able to meaningfully overcome any inner struggle. We gain an intimate look inside of ourselves and how we navigate inner landscapes such as the fear of judgement when cultivate relationships.

Fear of judgment in a relationship

equator journal

Relationships are the surefire vessel to make that which is unconsciously expressing itself from within us into a visible conscious expression.

There is no sustainable form of hiding in a relationship. If we possess the fear of judgment even within the most intimate of our relationships, are we truly free? Who then is controlling your life?

When we are in a relationship, any part of our underlying identity will eventually make its way to the surface and the forefront of consciousness.

We often discover fears that we didn’t know we had when we open ourselves up to know others more deeply because it simultaneously is a vessel for us to learn more of our own true nature.

The stability of the foundation in which you have built your life will become very apparent to you through the way your relationships manifest.

If you fear being judged for an aspect of your identity, that fear will be brought to light in your relationship.

Depending on your relationship to self, you might indeed feel judged for simply that fear being seen and expressed.

It can become tricky double edged sword of judgment because on the one hand we are opening up the opportunity to actually address this fear of being judged which in an unhealthy container can make you feel very judged, and therefore you might even judge yourself more deeply.

On the other hand, we can be judgmental of ourselves for our fears simply being brought to light.

In either case, we are creating the exact opposite scenario than we wish to create based off our own unresolved issue.

For Example, I had a tremendous desire to be grounded, yet simultaneously feared being grounded to where I actually masqueraded my fear behind being ungrounded.

Even though what I truly wanted was to be grounded, I knew it represented a level of commitment that I was resistant to follow through upon, so the fear manifested in creating the exact opposite scenario that I wanted.

With slight of hand trickery of the mind to convince me that it was better this way, I lived an ungrounded lifestyle living in a van that ultimately did not represent what I truly wanted.

I actually feared what people would think if sold my van and chose to live in a home despite me desperately wanting that exact thing.

I literally manifested the opposite of what I was after out of fear, and in my relationships I was afraid that I would be judged if changed this part of identity.

I feared becoming who I wanted to be out the fear of judgement in my relationships and what the world would think of me.

So our unresolved fears of judgement that live within us will always manifest in our relationships. If we fear that will be judged because of who we are, we are ourselves are neither confident nor comfortable with our true nature and therefore we are already judging ourselves.

IF we start off a relationship with self-judgement, we are likely to be met with more judgement because the environment has already been created for judgement to thrive.

If you are negatively judgmental of yourself, you will manifest more negative judgement in your relationship.

You become more of what you are. What you focus on is what will thrive in your life. If you focus on all the aspects of where you fear judgment, you will create those exact scenarios that you fear which could further instill that fear.

So then we might ask,

How do I avoid fear of being judged?

equator journal

This question is a paradox. You cannot avoid a fear that you possess. You cannot repress a fear that your possess and be free from it. Anything that you repress within yourself is in control of your life.

So then the question that we need to ask is,

How to get over fear of judgement

How do we go beyond our fears in a way that actually deals with the fears?

The truth is...

The fear of judgement is akin to the fear of living your own life.

They are two ends of the same thing. They are simply measuring the degree of your personal sovereignty.

To fear judgement from other simultaneously is the fear of living your own life. It can be sad realization but there is a deep amount of revelatory truth behind this awareness.

However, the beauty is that every single human being undergoes this initiation, we all experience varying levels of feeling like we are not living our own lives.

We are led to live a life that we feel is not our own because a persistent fear of judgement from others translates into your operating program that prioritized outer acceptance before inner acceptance.

That programming says, “I need to feel approval from others before I can feel approval of myself.”

This programming leads us to believe that if I approve of myself but nobody else does, I must change who I am in order to be accepted, then and only then will I feel like I am who I am supposed to be.

How often do we place our measure of self-worth, our feeling of personal sovereignty in the hands of somebody else? The answer is very often.

We are constantly perpetuating a feedback loop that is fueled by our own fears of judgement wherein we never escape the fear of judgement, we only escape momentary judgement.

So then, what is the real task at hand in order to become the person that you want to become?

To avoid judgement, or to avoid your fear of judgement?

Judgement itself need not mean anything to you. All judgement arises from within the self, so if judgement is felt from outside the self, then it is simply belonging to somebody else and it does not need to be identified with even if it directed at you.

If you are being judged by someone, that someone is simply using you as the mirror to view the part of their own self that they are judgmental of.

Of course, hurtful things can be said and can have a lasting impact, but the inconvenient truth is that we only experience judgement when choose to personally identify with it.

When we choose to identify with someone’s judgement upon us, some part of us believes that to be true; therefore, we are making that accusation manifest within us, despite the judgement being solely about the nature of the one who is judging.

This shines light on a very important question,

How to stop being scared of judgement?

courtesy equator journal

When we possess the tool of non-identification we always hold the power. When we become conscious of what we are choosing to believe about ourselves we become creators of our reality.

When we no longer outsource what we should believe about ourselves to others, therein we regain our full agency to become fully authentic.

Here, you can discern if it is in your best interest to be scared of what others think of you.

Does fearing the judgement of others help you become more of the person that you want to become, or less of that person?

Chances are if you are reading this than it is not helping you become your best self.

Beautifully however, at any moment you can take your power back. You can forgive yourself for seeking approval outside of yourself, and begin to slowly cultivate your own well of approval. It won’t be easy, nor will it happen overnight, but if you start replacing your fear of judgement with radical self-acceptance for what is, you can they begin to actually build your life.

You can become the author of your life once you drop the fear of judgement. Imagine how much more meaningful your life can become when you are writing for yourself rather than for other people.

Your story is so worthwhile to celebrate, just make sure that it is in fact your own story that you are writing.

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