to take criticism, especially when it is unfairly directed towards you.
Of course, we must work towards making criticism work for us. This means that when someone criticizes us, we step back, swallow the feelings that surge through us, clear the mind and take a long hard look at what is being levelled at us. If there is something that can be learnt, then we accept it, but if it is only something vicious, then we must just walk away from it. No comments either on the side or direct, no reactions....just walk away from the criticism as intact as possible. With time this gets better, believe me. Sometimes, we will flare up - we are but human, but this is something to work towards because walking away will not stop the flow of our life...
But, what if we cannot do this?
The Tiny Buddha gives us 6 tips to remember and work on:
1. It is not the criticism or judgment that is the problem. It is the believing of it that is the problem.
Do we believe the criticism or judgment? If we believe it, then we are in deep trouble. If it niggles at the back of our mind, we have a serious issue because we have to go on living - we can't stop till we resolve this one issue. If we don't outright walk away from it, we may have a further complication.
2. When someone shows us how we’re out of alignment with ourselves, we have an opportunity to change our beliefs.
Do I continue to hang on to a personal belief that someone has criticized? Maybe there is something inherently erroneous in it. Am I afraid of something that is deep within me? We need to give it a second or even third look. This would also be a good chance to see if we are insecure about ourselves because the criticism/judgment about this belief has shaken us badly. Insecurities are hard to remove, but for a peaceful life these have to go.
3. It really does not matter how other people see us; what matters is how we see ourselves.
Do we have a tendency to look at ourselves through the eyes of other people? How can we know if what the other person is seeing is right? Another thought that often pops up is - What must he/she be thinking about me? If I do this or think this way, how will other people react? How would he/she want me to react/behave in this situation. Thoughts like these totally negate us. Instead of looking at ourselves through our own eyes, we are cutting all kinds of mental and emotional capers trying to look at ourselves through the eyes of someone else...and that someone else could also be a person very close to us. We are clearly forgetting that we each one of us has our very own, unique, special personality.
4. Look for the truth in the criticism and let the rest go.
If there is truth in the criticism or judgment, accept it. Now comes the important part - what are we going to do about this after accepting it? We can work on it or we can abuse ourselves and go down the I-know-I-am-a-rotten person road. We are not islands. Our paths cross those we know and those we don't know....those we care for and those we don't want to associate with; some crossings happen close to us, and some happen far away....but at some point or another, one of these roads is sure to cross ours and we will hear criticism of ourselves. What we have to concentrate on is to look for the truth, accept it without rancor, correct ourselves without self-denigration, and move on.
5. Find gratitude in every situation.
Gratitude heals, and if we look closely, there is always something to be grateful for in every situation. We can even be grateful to the person who has criticized us and passed judgment on us, because we can change that aspect of ourselves, we can understand where we are coming from and do something about what we never realized was hurtful or harmful.
6. Always try your hardest to forgive - yourself first, and then the people who have hurt you with their criticisms and judgments.
It is very hard to believe that we are not perfect...that our every action and every word is correct and right and just so. Therefore, when someone shows us that we are not perfect, the jolt can be quite hard to bear. The good thing is that if we take this in the right way - as a way of removing the objectionable parts of us - we will be the better for it. When we are complacent about ourselves thinking and believing that we are always right, being criticized comes as a rude shock. Looking at it objectively and in the spirit of wanting to be a better person, we realize that our complacency was actually a prison keeping us inside and locking us away from real life. Once those walls are knocked down and we learn to forgive ourselves, we can then forgive the person who set us on this path, maybe quite harshly, and indeed forge out a better relationship with him/her and others.
As a wise man said - It is not what happens to us that is important. It is how we relate to what happens to us that is important...