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Stress Management for Highly Sensitive People (HSP): Inner Work and Strategies for Coping with Stress, Overwhelm, and Negative Emotions
#256 | Why Some Criticism Stings More Than Others & How To Diffuse The Emotional Impact as a Highly Sensitive Person
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Why does criticism from one person cut deep, while the same words from another roll right off your back? For highly sensitive people, criticism can feel like a direct assault on the self. But what if the sting of those words isn’t just about...
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Todd Smith
By the end of this episode, you'll discover a little known insight that can change your experience of criticism forever. Welcome to Stress Management for Highly Sensitive People, a podcast helping HSPs avoid, overwhelm, eliminate stress and find true inner freedom. I'm your host, Todd Smith, a facilitator of the work of Byron Katie. A way to question and reduce stressful thoughts. And you guessed it, I'm a highly sensitive person myself. In this episode, you'll discover why two people can say the same thing, but only one leaves you feeling wounded. The surprising reason your mind clings to some criticisms while others fade away. And how one simple inner work tool can change how you experience criticism for good. This is an edition of Breakthrough Mondays where I share success stories and helpful insights for highly sensitive people on the path towards inner freedom. I remember a recurring event that happened early in my marriage and it had to do with the cupboard doors or the. Sorry, the. Yeah, cupboard doors in the kitchen that I tended to leave open. And my partner would remind me of it and quickly lost patience. And his tone was kind of like accusatory. And I used to pick up on that. And I used to really think, this is a, this is a bad thing for my partner, he really doesn't like it. And I started getting stressed about it and I started feeling like I'm messing up and I started feeling like a failure. So it actually blossomed into a big stress response for me. And I remember doing some work on it, doing some inner work on it, and I needed to because it was getting me. What I realized when I did some of this inner work was that it wasn't such a bad thing and that I wasn't a bad person because of it. I mean, it sounds obvious, but emotionally I wasn't getting that. And so once I got it on an emotional level, I started to have a different experience. And what happened over time is this would repeat again and again because my absentee mind would keep leaving the cupboard doors open and my partner would continue to say, what did you do? You did it again. And what I noticed is that I started becoming aware of what was going on earlier and earlier. And at first I would fall for it again, I would feel bad and then I'd be like, oh, wait a minute, I remember looking at this and it doesn't mean I'm a bad person, it doesn't mean I'm a failure. I'm exaggerating here. And so I would come back to sanity pretty quickly after the fact. And then what I noticed is I Started catching it earlier and earlier in each subsequent situation. And I remember one day when I had left the cupboard door open, not on purpose, my partner was telling me about it and that same tone was there. And I remember seeing it as if it was like, you know, a missile being fired at me. And I just kind of turned and it kind of went right past me. It was like this awareness that I, I could see the bigger picture. So this brings up a really interesting point that criticism, which is one of the challenging things that all people face and highly sensitive people are especially, can be especially sensitive to criticism, can be, can feel wounded easily when two people say the same thing, for example, you may notice that one leaves you feeling wounded and the other doesn't at all. So what's going on there? What's the difference? It may be that one person is not judging you personally and is making that clear. So maybe it's someone that just really loves you and is just really skilled at speaking in a way that holds the whole picture and is not angry or feeling impatient in that moment. And you hear something coming from them, some feedback, could be the cupboard door, for example, but it's, it doesn't get you because you're seeing the bigger picture that, oh, you're still, I'm still a good person. Whereas another person may be telling you the same feedback, but the tone is a little bit accusatory or there's a little bit of energy behind it, impatience, anger even. And you may start buying into that and feel like, oh my gosh, this is, this person really thinks I'm a bad person. Like on an emotional level, this is what it may feel like. So this can make a difference between whether you take, whether you actually feel wounded or not. It comes down to whether you see it as something to do about you, whether they're judging you personally or not. But let's take a third example where say someone is really judging you, but you didn't feel like you needed their approval for some reason. You know, maybe it was like a three year old is judging you, but you didn't feel like you needed their approval. So it doesn't get to you. So this is another layer of this, that the need for approval from somebody is part of what makes this criticism sting. And then finally, let's look at 1/4 situation where say somebody is judging you, you're needing their approval, but in this case you're clear that what they're saying is actually not true. Like you're, like what you know, then it's not going to get to you, or maybe it is true, but you don't believe that it's a bad thing, then it's not going to get to you. So what we're seeing in all of this is that there is a subjective area inside of ourselves that is important, plays an important role as to whether we feel wounded by criticism or not. This is where our power lies and we often forget that it's there and we just go on automatic and we end up getting. Getting decimated by criticism. So if you can be aware of this a little bit, it can bring in a whole new level of experience when criticism comes your way. So the real thing is when I buy into the idea that this is a bad thing, you know, that what I've done is a bad thing and that this criticism is coming to push, put me in my place and tell me I'm wrong and tell me I'm a bad person. This is personal. When I see it as personal, that's when I feel like I crumble inside. That's when I feel bad. So what's really happening is that my own inner judge, and we all have one, has jumped on the bandwagon with the other person. So instead of just having one person criticizing me, I have that person criticizing me and my own inner judge criticizing me and like really stepping on me and saying, oh my God, I can't believe you did that. That's terrible. And to whatever degree I do that to myself, and it can happen automatically. It's not like I can control it. But if that happens, that's when it's going to sting. That's when it's going to feel like a big wound. That's when it's going to be a terrible experience. But because it's inside of myself, the more aware I am of what's going on and the more I can kind of question my own thinking, where I'm starting to buy into I'm a bad person, the more freedom I'm going to start to have and the less it's going to be a problem when other people give negative feedback. So the key for me is in questioning my actual beliefs. So maybe the thought is that simply, this is I'm a bad person because of this, or this is a bad thing that I did this. I need to actually question that and use the specific situation as a reference point as I go through some questioning process. The process that I love is called the work of Byron Katie. And it has just four questions and some turnarounds. And what it actually does is it gives me a chance on the emotional level to re experience that situation and to notice what's happening on the inside for me, how does that thought affect me? And could the thought actually be the opposite? Could the opposite be true? When I go through this step by step, almost like leading a child, then things often really change. I like to say there's two parts of me, and I think for all of us, there's a stuck part of me in a particular stressful situation, and then there's a wise and intelligent part of me. The stuck part is the part that I'm pointing to do the work. The stuck part is the one that needs to do this inner work. And I, as the kind of wiser guardian part of myself, have to be very patient with that emotional stuck piece of myself when I am. And I allow it to ask these, to answer these questions and begin to explore the opposite of what it believes. It often unhooks from this, this buying into the criticism being a bad thing. And this starts to give space, this starts to give me breathing room. And as a result, I, with practice, can even sidestep the experience of shutdown completely, if I'm aware. So this is something that I love to do, is something that I've been doing for many years, and I've applied it to many, many different situations. And it always works the same way and it always brings me back home and it always empowers me to, to see how I contribute to my own suffering. And I can stop doing that at any point. So the feeling this gives me is a feeling of freedom. I'm not dependent on making everybody be good at giving criticism. Some people are good at it, some people are not good at it, and I'm not as dependent on that when I start finding this inner area where I can be the intermediary between that person and my emotional self. So this gives a feeling of growing resilience and growing freedom that I'm not having to avoid certain types of situations as much. In this episode, we looked at why two people can say the same thing, but only one leaves you feeling wounded. And it can be due to the fact that one person is judging you personally and one person maybe is not judging you, or one person is someone you feel like you need approval from and one person isn't. Or it could be that you are buying into their criticism as being a bad thing. We also looked at the surprising reason your mind clings more to some criticisms while others fade away. And this again has to do with how I hold it when my internal judge starts taking on this, like it starts buying into this criticism, then it's relentless. It just keeps going and going and going. I can just keep beating myself up for hours, days, who knows how long? And if I can interrupt that, then I can sidestep that whole area of suffering. And finally, we looked at one simple inner work tool that can change how you experience criticism for good. And this is the work of Byron Katie. It is something you can use in any stressful situation, and if you hold it gently, if you use it skillfully, it can be an amazing way of unraveling your particular engagement with a stressful story. Not just with criticism, but any kind of situation. But in this case, it can be super powerful. So thanks for listening. It's great to explore with you. This podcast comes out three times a week on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Join me next time for Self Compassion Wednesdays, where we dive deeper into understanding ourselves as highly sensitive people by exploring the unique traits that shape our experience. Tired of feeling overwhelmed by everything all at once? Take the HSP stress test@TrueInnerfreedom.com you'll also find a link in the show notes. The test will reveal your unique sensitivity profile, including how your nervous system naturally responds to stimulation, emotions, social energy, and more. You'll also gain a clearer picture of how stress might be amplifying that sensitivity. Take the HSP Stress Test now. It's a powerful first step on your journey to true inner freedom.