Joe asks the woman to imagine she absolutely cannot judge someone who’s treating others badly. What would she feel? “Nothingness. Just silent. It’s quiet.” When she actually goes there in the moment, anxiety floods her arms and hands and she feels she has to do something.
This reveals judgment’s hidden function: it’s not really about the other person’s behavior. Judgment fills the space that would otherwise be a vast, quiet openness — and that openness is terrifying. Without the structure that judgment provides, there’s nothing to push against, nothing to fix, nothing to define yourself by. The question “what’s the point of my life if not to fix the wrongs of the world?” surfaces immediately.
“If you can’t go to judgment, then there’s a vastness that makes you very anxious.”
Underneath the anxiety is sadness — a grief about purposelessness. “Where do you go? Why are we here?” The entire identity built around fixing and judging is a defense against this existential openness. The judgment gives the mind something to grab, the fixing gives the body something to do, and together they create the illusion of purpose and meaning — all to avoid the silence.
Related Concepts
- Compulsive fixing avoids being present
- Anxiety changes form, not substance
- Any self-definition limits you