 Welcome to another Letter from the Cocoon. I suggest you grab a cuppa, find a comfy spot and read on... I'm still in here, in the cocoon. Still becoming. Still discovering things about myself that are sometimes challenging to see. But that's kind of the point, isn't it? Awareness is generally the first step of the process. This is just me reflecting from inside the cocoon. Sharing what I've been observing, feeling into and learning about myself. And lately? Judgement. Judgement. Judgement. I've been thinking about judgement. How judgemental I've been, how being judgemental makes me feel, what I might be protecting myself from, and what all that judgement might be costing me. Meet Judge Olga
I've realised that I can be quite judgemental. And I'm not just talking about judging other people. Although... let's start there. Last month, I did Gabby Bernstein's Lion's Gate Manifesting Ritual. It was themed around rebirth and power, and part of the process was looking back at where I hadn't been the person I wanted to be, acknowledging it, releasing what was and choosing who I want to be now. During the ritual, I had a nudge to pick up Gabby's book The Universe Has Your Back and open it randomly. I landed on Chapter 9: Oneness Sets You Free, a chapter about judgement. If you'd like to play along, you can read the chapter yourself. And if you're interested in the ritual, I'll link to the Lion's Gate meditation below. One of the first things Gabby invites us to do is simply witness our judgement without judging ourselves for being judgemental. So I did. And I gave myself a score. 9/10. Judge Olga is a high achiever. Or not. I was thinking about the people living in the accommodation house next door to my unit block. There are arguments, domestic disputes, rubbish dumped in our driveway, people bringing their kids to play on our driveway and kicking balls into our garage doors at 7:30pm at night, their cars parked in our driveway... And I have been judging them. A lot. So instead of trying to tell myself to just let it go, I asked another question: How does being judgemental make me feel? Journalling on it, I wrote: I feel angry, frustrated. I want to control and make people wrong. I want to force others to change. Urgh. Yuk. I feel on edge. Defensive. Blocking energy. Ready to fight and block other attacks. I feel tense, agitated, unsafe. And then I had a realisation. If I'm walking around feeling tense, defensive, agitated and ready to fight, while simultaneously trying to block what I don't want coming into my life... What else am I blocking? I suddenly thought about money. I've been wondering why it seems so easy for other people to manifest money and abundance, while I struggle with it. I've often thought, I've got money blocks. But I hadn't been clear about what those blocks actually were energetically. Then I thought: No wonder I am blocking flow, money and love coming in. Well… Fuck! If I'm blocking the negativity, perhaps I'm also blocking my ability to receive. It was like my energy field was sturdy armour, shielding me from EVERYTHING. A big energetic: KEEP OUT. But…. it doesn't only keep out the things I don't want. Maybe it also makes it harder to receive the things I do want. Money. Love. Opportunities. Support. Abundance. And that led me to another question: What does it feel like for me to receive? Does an overflow of money actually feel safe to me? Or do I feel like I need to squirrel it away, protect it, make sure I don't use it unwisely or unintentionally? I was doing a financial detox last month, so I'd already been watching my relationship with money more closely. If I wanted to buy something, I’d put it on a list for the first of the following month, so I could ask myself then: Do I still want this? So this whole idea of receiving, and my capacity to hold more, is something I'm curious about exploring. And, spoiler alert, I don’t have the answer. How do I witness my judgement? I started noticing another Judge Olga. The one who lives inside my own head. Judge Olga says: Will you hurry up and just take some fucking action? Just do SOMETHING. Anything. Stop sitting around waiting for clarity, motivation, permission, approval. Just do the fucking thing. Stop doubting. Stop overthinking. Stop procrastinating. Stop avoiding. She's pretty fucking scolding and critical, actually. Because another part of me is saying: We're not making enough money. We need to be smarter with our energy, time and resources. We need to create more income. But I'm also afraid. Afraid of making mistakes again. Afraid of failing. Afraid of things not working out. Afraid of ending up in a worse position than if I didn't do anything. And suddenly... my behaviour pattern becomes clearer. I see my loop. I judge myself for not taking action. But I'm not taking action because I'm trying to protect myself from getting hurt. From failing. From being rejected. From making the wrong decision. From ending up somewhere worse. So I judge myself for the very behaviour that I'm using to protect myself. And then I get stuck. What is judgement protecting me from? This might actually be the biggest question for me right now. Because I think judgement is one of the ways I protect myself.
And there it is. Judgement is my cage. My self-imposed cage. And perhaps this is part of what Wild & Wise is actually about for me. Freeing myself from the cage. Not because I've figured it all out. Quite the opposite. But I'm starting to see (and feel) the bars. How can I forgive the judgemental thoughts? One of the things I appreciated about Gabby's process was that it wasn't about beating myself up for being judgemental. It was about noticing the judgement. And then forgiving the thought. Which sounds simple. It’s not. Because if I'm judgemental about being judgemental, I'm still judging. So perhaps the invitation is: Can I accept that this is where I am?
And then choose again. I've already had an opportunity to practise this with someone I love. I was having a conversation with a close friend and realised I was being Miss Toxic Positivity. My friend was sharing what she was experiencing, and instead of really holding space for her, I was jumping in with: "But you need to reframe it as..." "You should look at it this way..." "Try to think more positively..." I wasn't actually allowing her to feel what she was feeling. I was making her experience wrong. And it hit me: I don't want to be that person for her. So I sent her a voice note, basically apologising and saying I wasn't holding space for where she was in that moment. I had been dismissing her experience from a place of toxic positivity. I was telling her she shouldn't think like that and trying to coach her into being more positive. And that is NOT honouring where she's at. She thanked me for the voice note. And I noticed something else. I wanted her approval. I wanted to know that everything was okay. I wanted to know that she forgave me. And when she thanked me, I felt validated. Which was another little moment of awareness. Even doing the "right" thing can become another way of seeking approval. Apparently Judge Olga has many departments. How can I see people and situations without the story I’ve created about them? Gabby's third step is about seeing the person for the first time. I always thought oneness was about all of us being connected energetically - each of us being part of the whole. But what if seeing someone for the first time also means letting go of the story I've already created about them?
Not who I was. Not who I think I should be. Not who I think I need to become before I'm worthy of love, money, success or belonging. Just... me. Right here. Right now. Still becoming. Creating safety instead of building a bigger cage And this is where I've realised that judgement and safety are connected for me. I still get irritated when I hear loud voices next door. I still brace. My living room and balcony look directly into one of their rooms and balcony, so I've put plants up as screens. I also put a piece of fabric over the glass sliding door. Literally, it’s just a piece of colourful fabric I bought in Morocco. Interestingly, I noticed how much safer I felt with that little barrier there. I couldn't be seen so easily. I had more privacy. I felt my body relax. And instead of telling myself I shouldn't feel unsafe, I thought: What if I can create safety for myself without living in a guarded state constantly? So my next step is actually to get proper curtains installed. Not because I'm supposed to rise above my irritation and be all "Kumbaya, My Lord". But because I get to choose who comes into my personal space. I get to create a home where I feel safe. And I think that's part of the work too. Not forcing myself to feel differently. But creating enough safety that I don't have to stay braced all the time. The cage I'm beginning to wonder if this is what the Wild & Wise journey is really about for me. I'm starting to see where I've been caging myself...
And perhaps the question isn't: How do I stop judging? Maybe it's: What is my judgement protecting me from? And once I can see that...
Because maybe the work isn't about becoming more loving, more abundant, more powerful or more magnetic. Maybe some of the work is simply removing the things that are getting in the way of experiencing what is already available to me. Maybe it's about expanding my capacity to receive. And maybe freedom isn't something I have to chase after. Maybe it's about noticing the bars of the cage I've built around myself. And then, slowly, choosing to release them. Want to explore this for yourself? If this has made you wonder about your own judgement, you might like to try the exercise that started this little rabbit hole for me: What am I judging? How does my judgement make me feel? And then the question I'm adding for myself: What is my judgement protecting me from? You might even write yourself a letter of amends. Not because you've done something terrible. But because perhaps there are parts of you you've been judging, criticising or trying to force into becoming someone else. You could write: I'm sorry. I forgive you. I see what you were trying to protect me from. I choose again. If you'd like to explore where this came from, I've linked Gabby Bernstein's Lion's Gate Manifesting Ritual here, and The Universe Has Your Back, particularly Chapter 9, Oneness Sets You Free, here. I'm sharing these as references rather than teachings, because this Letter isn't really about Gabby or the ritual. It's about what I discovered when I did the work. And what I'm still discovering... here, inside the cocoon. With love, Olga 💗
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