When someone compliments us, we usually feel warm inside, like we’re special and someone noticed. When someone criticizes us, it also gets inside. But not so fun.
This article is particularly for folks who feel a deep hurt when they get negative comments from others. If you’re unfriended, or not getting enough “Likes” on Facebook, or you’re told you’re not measuring up, it’s devastating. You carry the bad feelings for hours, maybe days.
One way to spend less time feeling miserable after being criticized is understanding the origin of perceptions. Perceptions rule, so we better figure out whose are whose.
There are at least two perceptions of us when we interact with another person. There is our way of viewing us and the other person’s way of viewing us.
We are not necessarily what others say we are or how they see us. Of course, those who know us well can sometimes be right on with their comments. But their comments are still their comments. This may sound like word shuffling, but understanding that someone else’s statements about us are a lot about them is vital.
When we’re criticized, we can actually slow down or even prevent our reaction from making us miserable by considering the source. I don’t mean putting the other person down, or saying they’re wrong. I mean understanding that their critical view is their perception of us.
When we get hurtful feedback, it’s important to realize that the sender’s opinion comes from their life experiences, their knowledge, their beliefs, their feelings. How can anyone really know us? We don’t even know ourselves sometimes.
There’s a fine line here. If we dismiss outright another’s view of us, we block a chance to look at ourselves. And we really need others’ opinions to grow. But when we take their messages as truth without examination, we’re vulnerable to being easily hurt–and unnecessarily so.
We need to remain open to others’ ideas about us but not take them as gospel. We need to weigh them against our knowledge of ourselves and know that their perceptions are at least as much about them as they are about us.
Handling positive feedback the same way keeps our perspective clear—it’s how the other sees us. Someone tells us how wonderful we are, how we can do anything. Or less dramatically, we’re told we’re a good person, doing for others, being dependable. We can feel happy that we’re seen that way but not neglect to evaluate whether we see ourselves that way.
I try to say to myself (or out loud) when receiving a compliment, “I’m glad he sees me that way.” It’s not discounting the compliment. It just reminds me it’s his view of me. And I ask myself if I agree. This helps me not hook my worth to positive comments from others.
Goethe, 18th century German writer and statesman, said, but more profoundly, “If I love you, what business is it of yours?” That points to whose perceptions are whose. This message can help us stay out of the misery of allowing other people’s opinions to take us down.