In everyday life, we often meet with criticism, sometimes soft and polite, but at times harsh and rude. How to behave in order not to become a victim - go on the offensive, keep silent, run away? Let's try to figure out how best to meet criticism and become a winner, not a victim, in any case.
Often the concept of "criticism" has a deliberately derogatory and destructive character for us. Why? Because we are used to seeing negative motives of counselors behind criticism, rather than a hint for self-improvement. This means that we perceive it painfully and do our best to protect ourselves. And what are these motives in our view?
"He envies me"
The most popular opinion in self-defense: he says all this on purpose, because he envies my successes and just wants to annoy me. And in such a simple way, we doom ourselves to stagnation and the slightest opportunity to see development.
"He wants to trample me in the mud and devalue all the good in me"
When can we think this way? A couple of situations for example: they all hint that I have recovered, and now in the mirror I see only a fat cow; my husband says that I cannot handle the tantrum of a three-year-old, in fact he says that I am a bad mom.
In both cases, an incredible exaggeration of the criticism heard, where a small sparkler in the hands simply turns into a bomb, tearing relations with relatives to pieces. The thing is that our thinking settings are more tweaked to the praise, which most of us sorely lacked since childhood. How do the settings react when someone tries to tweak the system? How does the simplest computer react? The programmer sits down, presses a couple of keys, just a couple - and a black screen. Therefore, every time you hear unflattering things in your address, you can help the programmer trample us into the "black screen", or you can see those white lines that he prints in order to improve the system. Dirt or renewal? It depends on what motive we assign to the person. Recovered? Well, I'll see what I've been eating for the last weeks. Do I walk enough in the fresh air. And whether I get enough sleep or because of lack of sleep I am constantly stressed and now and then I eat. So my relatives are worried about my health, and that means they are not indifferent to me. They want me to get enough sleep, get more rest and not forget about the benefits in my diet. Can't handle a baby's tantrum? It may very well be. Probably, they hint to me that I am tense, exhausted, that I do not get enough sleep that day and need rest. And I will ask my dear to sit with the child in the evening, and I myself will arrange unloading hours of rest for my nervous system.
To be able to ascribe the necessary motives to critics, including where they actually do not exist, means to save your inner world from destruction. Let's learn to create such motives, and then criticism will benefit us in any case.
And what can be the use of the remarks sharply thrown at us? If we attribute good motives to such counselors, then it is much easier for us to see the grain of benefit in their words behind the tares of rudeness and even insults. And if we see this grain, then we saturate ourselves with it, and not choke. We saturate and grow - spiritually, emotionally, professionally and sometimes even physically. Advice in a harsh form, you want to take exactly what you can choke on. I want to, but is it worth it?
Imagine that someone in a very rude manner with a distorted face came up to you and threw a package into your hands: here you go! Of course, the first reaction is to throw this bundle far away, or even on the head of this very boor. But if you do deploy? You open it, and there is a diamond. Real, genuine, sparkles, shimmers, and now it's yours. How would you like it? Do you agree to withstand the face of the offender twisted from negativity and the fact that he shoved it so unpleasantly into your palm? Would it be important to you that he did not wrap it in a beautiful gift box and put it on a stylish tinkling tray? What a tray! What a box! Trifle, candy wrapper. How does it compare to a rare diamond? So is the advice with which they fell upon you. You won't consider it a harsh criticism, do you, if it is wrapped in a package and gently brought up on a tray. It is much easier when they say that you are gorgeous, charismatic, unique, and only then they suddenly add the notorious "but". We are used to limiting our own capabilities with this "but". We deprive ourselves of ourselves, deprive ourselves of diamond enrichment, because we are tuned in only to colored candy wrappers. So, the most important dignity of any advice heard is a diamond - benefit. By reflecting on the advice itself, and not in what form it is given, we allow ourselves to see more opportunities for our own growth.
The second merit of criticism is the preservation of relations. People, sometimes relatives and friends, may not talk for hours, days or even weeks, missing out on life, because one blurted out, and the other did not stop being offended. Well, he blurted out - and I'd rather take it and think, suddenly it was the missing step for my staircase to the next of the peaks. And if this step was not enough, if I did not do something or did something wrong, this does not mean that I am poor and crooked - it just means that I lacked only one step to climb to the top of my "I", my self-sufficiency … Not poor, not bad, but successfully rising up. And with this advice - and even higher. Sometimes, how we accept criticism lays the foundation for how we will be given it again. They may not give at all - to spare our feelings. Is it good when someone, staring at our mistakes, nods and shows us the class. That's better? But if it happened that the true motive of the advisor was in fact to humiliate and insult, then perceiving his words sharply, making excuses, playing with him in silence, building the offended, you become an accomplice in his own game, you seem to pay him for the fact that he humiliated you. Do you like it? Then pay further - be silent, sulk, do not answer calls, show annoyance. Don't want to pay? Then finish the game. And it will not end where you hide from everyone with large shields - it will go under the curtain only if you respond to the advice with the correct intonation, in whatever form it was given. See the diamond, not the absence of a sparkling tray, flattering speeches and bows. A smile and a “thank you” spoken out loud will help slow the rockfall in your direction. This is perhaps one of the few reactions that can stop boulders of any size. You do not know how to humor - here is the first advice for you - learn to perceive some things at least with a smile. Not with the idiotic smile of self-defense of a poor humiliated rabbit, but with the smile of the dignity of a person who is so distinctive and significant that people spend so many words and emotions on you.
Let's summarize. Criticism is not always destructive. If we learn to ascribe good motives to people when they give advice, if we see not the form of advice, for example, tactless or categorically impolite, but its grain, then, firstly, we give ourselves a chance for growth, improvement, and secondly, we maintain a positive or at least neutral relationship with this counselor, which is very good for heart satisfaction. And thirdly, we maintain inner balance, not allowing criticism to break us.
