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5 Ways to restructure criticism into a foundation for growth. Insights, tools and wisdoms to energize, magnetize and realize how what we don’t like can still help us.
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Welcome to the making of you. I'm Alexandria, founder of the Mastery Project and your Transformation Hub. And now this podcast. The series is dedicated to harnessing your unique potential, the tools and understandings for purpose and personal empowerment, and having fun, becoming the architect of your own life.
[00:00:26] Okay, so today we are on episode 10, and it's five ways to work successfully with criticism, right? So my number one is quite a common thing which I offer you guys. Change your perspective. So the key to criticism is to actually perceive it and as one big, endless learning curve, all right? Or learning opportunity. Now, perhaps that sounds a little bit corny, but there's a very important reason for this. When we feel that we're under attack in any way, and criticism, of course, can be felt as an attack, we have a tendency to do three things. Number one, we protect ourselves, okay? Number two, we can sort of dash off into our minds as a reaction and a protective measure. And number three, we can often polarize our perception of the circumstances.
[00:01:32] So if we can change how we see criticism, then we can actually manage our whole relationship with learning in a much more productive way. Now, if you are going to polarize, then you're going to make the person who's criticizing you the tyrant or the power influence over you and make yourself the victim potentially, all right? Or you're going to be looking to try and achieve an understanding of who's right and who's wrong. Whichever way we look at it, it's definitely a polarizing. Now, when we polarize our energy, what happens is we end up in literally the polarities, so the extremes, black and white, victim and tyrant, for example, and we lose our best energy connection, all right? Which is going to be in the beautiful, glorious Technicolor that happens between black and white, all right? So the balance point and our personal balance point, it's most important that we maintain that, because not all criticism is correct. All of these circumstances we can benefit from. So it's most important to do that by keeping in balance. Now, if we react, then we're going to rush off into the mind, often for security, known quantities, and also to stop things by seeking refuge inside the cube.
[00:03:05] Now, the problem is, as you've probably heard me speak about in other episodes, the limited self lives inside the cube, in the mind, all right? Now, the limited self actually is very lonely and loves to drain our energy if we stay too long in our mind, all right? So the limited self isn't the best companion when you're in this circumstance simply because it can romance the polarity oh, that's not fair. All blame, judgment, etc accentuate the drama. All right? It can tell you all the reasons why actually the person who is criticizing you is correct and drag you down. Okay? Because the limited self wants to stay, as I said, inside the cube, but it needs energy and so it wants you to sort of do the Hotel California thing, come into the mind so you can check in, but you can never leave. All right? So just remember not to go dashing into your head when these type of circumstances happen. Stay in your balance point. Have a good and healthy overlap between what you think and what you feel and your heart center. And as you know, I call the heart center creative hq.
[00:04:29] It's also important with looking at it as a beautiful and long learning curve that's endless is to say just because we hear stuff we don't like doesn't mean it cannot be of service.
[00:04:41] So the point with all of the energies of criticism is simply to turn it around and stick a label on that's long and endless called learning.
[00:04:54] Okay, number two, when we're being criticized, we will have a tendency to shut down. So the examples I've given either polarize, go and sort of seek refuse in our heads or one of the biggest things that a lot of people do is they literally stop listening there and then. Now this is why I recommend if you're in management and you've got to deliver some time tough conversations, that you also look at it from the perception of mentoring and teaching rather than judging and criticizing. Now I know with extreme budget loss or mistakes or big dramas that can be very hard to do. But if you're going to get a remedy and you're going to work in a co creation and not break that up or have that sort of erupted and completely useless, then the teaching aspect really does work. And the reason is because whatever the circumstance, hopefully there's one portion of the foundation which has worked. Hopefully. And if it hasn't, you can start out with the positive of we're going to have a completely new foundation because clearly the last one wasn't working.
[00:06:12] So then you can go through all of the learning steps that need to happen and end with the positive remedies that can be undertaken.
[00:06:23] So when people understand it's going to be more of a teaching thing, doesn't mean it's not serious, doesn't mean it's not necessarily a review, but they're more likely to listen. And the issue for everyone on the receiving end of criticism is if we stop listening and we shut down, then when we are asked to contribute to alternatives, solutions, different ways to approach in future, we can often have not really heard any of the conversations. So we're not able actually to contribute to the remedies. So the key for me with number two is listen and keep listening, all right? Even though it can be hard because we're hearing a lot of stuff we don't like necessarily to hear or don't necessarily agree with.
[00:07:13] Okay? Number three. Well, when we have the situation of criticism, then we've also got that sensation in ourselves of feeling our energy is, is under attack, okay? To some degree. Now if you can keep in the center, as I've said, that keeps you open hearted and open minded, which will keep fueling anyone in a circumstance that isn't as easy or suddenly becomes a drama or a conflict.
[00:07:49] Now I always use this with clients who say, oh, I hate, you know, I feel really diff, you know, sinking feeling when people start criticizing or there's any conflicts. I always say, please look at, everyone is entitled to their opinion. So relabel criticism as a bonafide opinion, just like everyone else's opinion is bonafide, all right? And the reason is because then you don't attach yourself to what's going on and start sort of packaging it up into a big burden or a big sort of emotional attachment to what is right or what is wrong. Now, everyone has their perspective, of course. So the key with criticism is to say that their view is a valid view even if you don't agree with it. Now if you do that, you're in a situation where you're not getting caught up in the dramas, the crisis, the conflict of the circumstance. You're saying, hey, there's something that is valid. I don't necessarily agree with it, but you're remaining neutral. You're not polarizing yourself and you're not draining your energy.
[00:09:06] So the key is not to see it as right or wrong, it's to see it as different, all right? And to simply go, I'm not a victim of it. The other person, if they're delivering it, isn't necessarily the tyrant. It's all about discussing different, okay? And understanding how everyone can benefit from, from different, okay? Number four, get a second opinion. Now, I know that might fly in the face of me saying, you know, be balanced, be open, be accepting of the flow of the circumstances in the learning. But sometimes if we know we're a person who takes things personally and who has great pride perhaps in one's work or has really sincerely believed that they've been on the right track and found out that, that they're on the completely wrong one or inappropriate one, then I think it does a lot of good for people who are very much likely to self criticise and beat themselves up to go and talk to someone that they trust and someone who is neutral and not involved in the circumstances that they're in. And the reason is because if you need to be self honest, all right, if you have a big juicy blind spot and don't actually see what's going on or what's happened or your part in something something, then it's often much more digestible if you hear it from someone you trust. Also, they got no vested interest. They're not interested, of course, in criticizing you or doing you down in any way, but they can be a fantastic neutral bounce board that's going to help you understand if there is a circumstance where you didn't do very well, then how you can remedy it and you trust them. So you're much more likely to be open to actually applying that new way of, of being and doing and the new attitude in a new circumstance.
[00:11:14] So get a second opinion and help yourself heal any emotional shock that you might be undergoing if this has come, for example, out of nowhere, and recognize that that person you trust, as I said, whether they are saying things here or not, they are actually in neutral. That can really be a very great positive in your steps forward from that point on.
[00:11:42] Okay, so number five. Now, a lot of people go, criticism's part of life. The truth hurts. Well, as far as I'm concerned, it is definitely about understanding that it's not about being right all the time any more about being wrong all the time. It's about aligning with our creativity and with our learning capacity. And sometimes we think we're aligned and we find that it's not as aligned as we would like. And then other times we are totally in it, knocking it out the park and really enjoying what we're doing. So for me, the most important aspect of criticism is basically not to get into a space where you've built excess baggage and then that excess baggage, you're the one who ends up dragging it along in life. And it builds into a resentment or it builds into a barrier or a burden that you find very difficult to let go of or get over.
[00:12:50] So if you say, well, I'm very sensitive, there's nothing wrong with being sensitive. But realize if there are repetitive cycles generally in your head, all right, and your limited self will probably be behind it, and there's that aspect of oh yeah, you should have done it this way, or overthinking it that way, or going over and over in endless post mortem about how it should have been, then that's not going to help you. And that energy is going into building that excess baggage.
[00:13:23] So if you have been shocked, don't take it personally. But that doesn't mean you're not sensitive or sentient or aware of how you feel about it. But taking it personally for me is building that excess baggage and dragging it along, whereas being sensitive, then the next part is to say, okay, what am I going to do as an alternative and to apply it and to recognize that there is no point in dragging someone else's opinion of you around with you instead of being yourself and moving ahead. So every moment in our experience is infinite and has miraculous capabilities and possibilities. So we simply need to be in that moment, be connected like that, not dragging excess baggage from previous criticism Alrighty. It's been my great pleasure to turn criticism into learning today. I hope you've enjoyed it and I look forward to seeing you at episode 11. And if you'd like more content like this, please don't hesitate to go to the websites yourtransformationhub.com and themasteryproject.com where you'll find lots and lots of tools and ways to transform your life. Thank you very much.
