You’ve felt it before: Someone eyeing you up and down, whispering to another—and you can’t help but wonder if they’re judging you. And since we’re all human, I’m sure you’ve been there, too: Going all who does he think he is?! over something someone’s doing. It’s natural, but what makes people judgy? How can we avoid it? And can anything good come from it?

Author and artist Amber Rae offers a powerful answer in her book, Choose Wonder Over Worry. We become judgy when we’re put face-to-face with something we’re denying or repressing within ourselves. That person or thing we’re reacting harshly to? “It’s a map, pointing you to the place that you’re afraid to accept within,” Rae writes. “As Carl Jung said, ‘Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.’” Oof.

Rae recalls enjoying a drink at a rooftop bar, when a woman nearby started dancing wildly, all by herself. She jokingly told someone nearby, “She must really need the attention,” but after uttering the put-down, her friend Wanda’s voice rang in her head: “You cannot judge someone and love yourself at the same time.” Double oof.

In that moment, she realized she wasn’t actually judging that woman, she was judging herself. She realized the woman’s carefree dancing reflected how much Rae cared about what others—even total strangers—thought of her. “I feared that if I were to freely express myself in public—like this dancing woman—surely I’d be rejected and laughed at,” she adds.

At the core of it, most judgment seems to come from this place: an outsized concern that if you were to do that same thing, others would reject you. It’s a fear of not belonging, and the sense that if you call out the “outsider” first, you’ve somehow buffered or protected yourself from secondhand embarrassment. Or shifted the lens of judgment toward them, so nobody’s noticing your flaws.

It’s something to sit with, to reflect on and weigh whenever it strikes within you, or within someone you love. It’s only then that you can push past pettiness and uncover your own blind spots.

Psst: You can find more insights like this in Rae’s book, Choose Wonder Over Worry: Move Beyond Fear and Doubt to Unlock Your Full Potential. It’s a great read when you need to refresh and recenter yourself. (Not an ad, just a book I’d recommend, though the post does contain affiliate links.)