What is Internal Parental Judgment(IPJ) or Virtual Parental Judgment(VPJ)?

IPJ/VPJ is the opposite of thinking with your own mind; the voices in your head that you have never questioned on the accuracy  because they stem from people you believed to be selfless and invested in your interest: parents, teachers, ex(spouses, your closest friends.

As you grow up you need to take responsibility for your own life and admit that those people are/were just people too. Take our own parents for example. Grown ups that had you as their child but the mere fact of having a child or children doesn’t make them perfect human beings. Some parents are more mature than others. Some parents have more issues than others. Some are a downright mess themselves.

Those difficulties for them are real and don’t just disappear (when they have children) because they have become parents.

It is true, they should be able to put their needs aside for their children, to raise them. Most of them would like to do nothing more than just that. Shouldn’t their love for you as their child be so strong and big and the most important thing in their lives? Don’t we all feel we would have become a person with less problems if that had only been our reality and our parent’s reality?

Given what? It doesn’t work that way. The ways of the world are such that even when becoming a parent our problems don’t stop bugging us. Actually the contrary is true. We want to be the caring and loving parents but our problems and issues keep sabotaging that intention. It’s as f nature yells at us,  “You need to address this  NOW.”

“But I have to take care of my children and be there for them. And I have  to make money to run the household, And,  “there is so much to take care of.”

In order to build a healthy sense of self children need the full attention of their parents and the acknowledgment of being potentially equal to them: a unique independent  autonomous human  with the right to exist for the mere fact that they exist at all.

When a parent is too self-absorbed in their own issues or circumstances the child bends over  backwards to get that attention in one way or another. The observations done at this level in childhood are of crucial importance to what stays in our minds as to how we need to behave.

For a person with a Natural Sense of Self that isn’t so much of a problem. He or she doesn’t feel there is anything at stake when performing  the behavior.

In case of a dependency on a Substitute Sense of Self however there is an ingrained feeling of absolutely having to live up to those earlier (self-) improved conditions. The voice of the parent is still clearly heard and the convictions to obey it is never questioned.

The now grown up person still needs to distill  his or her own opinion – judgment- criteria – value and learning that their own voice is the only one that can be fully heard. It is only their own voice that is fully of service to the self.

Are you able to see how much of you is unconsciously run by the opinions and judgments of your parents and other early caregivers? Are you interested in freeing yourself to be your Self for you alone? We invite you to explore what is possible when you do and this is what this site is all about. We, of a Healthy Sense of Self, are here to serve and support your healing. And we welcome hearing from you.