This is intended to be the tenth article in a series I’m working on about trying different mindfulness and coping skills from the website DBT: Dialectical Behavior Therapy (https://dialecticalbehaviortherapy.com/). I’m doing these practices because my therapist thought they would be good for me—and honestly, I’ve been curious to see whether they actually make any difference in my everyday life.
This time, I took on the DBT mindfulness skill called Letting Go of Judgments. On paper, it sounded simple: spot a judgment, reframe it in more neutral or descriptive language, and—ta da!—feel a sense of relief. That’s what I expected, anyway. I figured I’d root out judgments I didn’t even realize I was carrying, flip them into something kinder, and suddenly have a sunnier outlook. Easy, right?
Wrong.
Expectations vs. Reality
At first, I honestly thought this would be the easiest DBT exercise yet. People are naturally judgmental, right? We look around, we complain, we gossip. I figured I’d be tripping over negative judgments like Legos on a carpet.
But when I sat down to do the exercise, I hit a wall. I don’t usually judge people. That’s not where my negativity goes. What I judge—constantly, relentlessly—are situations, events, and possibilities. I realized I’m basically a pessimistic little bitch (my words, not DBT’s). I don’t look at a person and think, “What a loser,” I look at an upcoming family reunion and think, “I’m going to be humiliated and my life looks pathetic compared to theirs.”
That realization was a gut punch. It also cracked the exercise open for me. Once I stopped looking for judgments of people and started listening for judgments of situations, they came pouring in.
Hunting for Judgments
At first, judgments weren’t sharp or obvious. They were more like background static—an emotional hum that I couldn’t quite identify. I’d feel anxious or annoyed, but I had to dig around to figure out why. Eventually, the words would float up: pathetic, embarrassed, burden.
Once I saw them, it was embarrassing how many there were. Luckily no one else could see them (except you now, since I’m writing about them).
The reframing part felt forced. There’s no way around that. Telling myself, “I’m disappointed in myself, but there are things I can do that would make me proud” felt awkward, like I was reciting a self-help book I didn’t buy. But here’s the thing: just because it feels weird doesn’t mean it’s useless. Like any practice, it gets easier the more you do it. And since it’s all happening in my head, who cares if it sounds fake at first?
The Judgments That Cut Deepest
Out of all the examples I worked on, the family reunions hit me the hardest.
My original judgment was: “I love my extended family but I hate family reunions because their lives are so much better than mine and I’m embarrassed.”
The reframe was: “I love my extended family and they love me no matter what.”
Writing that out was rough. Even as I typed “they love me no matter what,” my brain whispered, Do they, though? Or is that just my Bipolar Mind lying to me again? And that’s one of the most frustrating parts of living with bipolar disorder: the constant not-knowing. Is this thought reality, or is it my mood disorder talking? When it’s about something as important as family love, the uncertainty can make you want to cry. (Which, to be clear, I did. Welling up mid-exercise was not on the agenda, but here we are.)
Another one I wrestled with was my bipolar identity itself. The raw judgment was: “I hate my bipolar disorder. It’s been nothing but a burden.”
The reframe: “I own my bipolar disorder. It’s a struggle, but it’s my struggle, and I’ve got this.”
And here’s where I’ll be brutally honest: I don’t know if I’ll ever let go of that first judgment. I’m not one of those people who thinks of bipolar disorder as a gift. I don’t begrudge anyone who does, but for me, it’s not some quirky superpower. It’s depression that’s flattened me, mania that’s derailed me, and a constant battle that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. Maybe I’ll get to a place of peace someday, but right now, “owning it” feels more realistic than pretending I’m grateful for it.
Reading the Reframes
When I looked back at my worksheet, the “let-go” versions actually felt more truthful than the judgments. But they also looked… weird. Like I was trying to talk myself into something. They didn’t feel fake exactly, but they read funny, like lines from an overly optimistic screenplay.
And here’s what surprised me: I didn’t feel any immediate physical or emotional shift. Usually, I’m hyper-aware of what’s happening in my body, and I expected to notice a release of tension or a lift in mood. But nothing.
I think I know why. The judgments I worked with were days old, not fresh. They’d lost their bite. So when I transformed them into something kinder, there wasn’t much sting left to neutralize. It makes me wonder: would this exercise hit harder if I did it in real time, catching judgments as they’re happening instead of digging them up afterward?
Did It Work?
Did this exercise soften my self-attacks? Honestly, I don’t know yet. Some of it felt like papering over the same old pain. But some of it felt like cracking open a window in a stuffy room. Just noticing the judgments instead of letting them run silently in the background was a step forward.
What I do know is this: negative judgments are half the battle when it comes to happiness. If you’re constantly judging yourself, your family, your life, your environment, then you’re going to be miserable. No amount of yoga or kale smoothies will fix that. But if you can catch those judgments and shift them—even a little—you create space for something else.
Letting Go Beyond DBT
Outside the worksheet, “letting go” means loosening my grip on the idea that life is always against me. It means not rehearsing every disaster scenario before it happens. It means trusting (sometimes against all evidence in my head) that people love me, that I’m allowed to love them back, and that not every situation is doomed.
It doesn’t mean turning everything into rainbows. It means cutting myself some slack.
Takeaways
If I had to sum up this experiment in three phrases, they’d be:
- Forced but freeing
- Family gut-check
- Owning the struggle
Letting go of judgments isn’t as dramatic as, say, controlling your breathing until you hallucinate new jewelry designs (that happened, long story, see article 7). But it’s sneakier and maybe more powerful. Because judgments are everywhere, running in the background, coloring everything we see. Catching them, reframing them, and slowly rewiring the way I talk to myself might not make me feel instantly better. But it’s a practice I want to keep coming back to.
Because if I can let go of even a handful of the judgments that tell me I’m pathetic, doomed, or unlovable—maybe, just maybe—I’ll have a little more room to believe something else.
