All persons will usually admit they do not enjoy criticism for what they have done or said that they even feel is rightly deserved and sometimes even if not so truly deserved and find such criticism unwelcome, even painful evoking anger. Our God created the earth and all the planets and stars surrounding it and then formed man and woman and gave them the freedom to choose from their environment even under uncertain consequences from those choices they had the freedom to make.
(Gen. 2:16-17) We understand that God gave them the freedom to freely choose from every circumstance in their lives except they were warned not to eat the fruit from the tree producing good and evil (Gen. 2:17), which was a metaphorical way to say that they were told to listen to or be guided by Him in every free choice that they would decide to make. In other words, they were to be free to choose but have His counsel for making the right choices.
Unfortunately, mankind has not managed the choices well throughout history. The decisions of the flesh of mankind have been long regarded as sins with terrible consequences when God’s blessed freedom He gave us to choose right over wrong and evil have been disregarded. Our sins have separated us from God until Christ came to pay for those terrible sins at the price of His death on the cross. Nevertheless, we still have to deal with the consequences of our choices. Certain aspects of the freedom of choice in life’s experiences and decisions include what we call criticism.
Criticism is the expression of disapproval of someone or for what is perceived by the critic as having been said or done. If the consequences of these interactions are undesirable and seemingly unavoidable in the moment and circumstances have occurred unexpectedly even between or among friends, relatives or acquaintances, how should a reasonable person respond without creating more of a controversy? How should we respond, so that the unpleasant emotion of anger that sometimes arises does not take over and cause an even worse reaction in response?
Following are my suggestions or recommendations how to attain peace, understanding and possibly even the potential that love and or respect could arise in that interaction, even when initially undesirable emotional reactions occur. I will show you then how you may respond.
Usually the triggering event that brings criticism comes unexpectedly and from a large variety of sources. Sometimes you have made mistakes and those involved take offense and they tell you so. For example, you had committed to call someone for an event you were both scheduled to attend and, you forgot. They were then upset over the consequences of their failure to appear and called you placing the blame on you where it was largely deserved and you had no excuse for your neglect.
They may have been partially to blame, being duly scheduled as you were but the responsibility feeling gets lost in the urgency of the moment and blaming you with hurtful words comes out first. That kind of criticism hurts. Usually your first reaction is a very unpleasant emotion that rises up in your feelings. How you respond can be damaging to whatever relationship existed between them.
Another example could be that you are called upon to make a presentation to a friendly audience about some subject you are remarkably qualified to present but you make a foolish mistake in your choice of words speaking out something that is clearly false. Then someone in the group calls it to everyone’s attention with a critical admonition that reflects on your self-worth and you are embarrassed considerably and can’t find the words to respond to that criticism, because they were so right.
Disputes in marital relationships can lead to well-deserved comments by your spouse that cause that same emotional response of extreme displeasure by you and you may not be able to find the right words to say in response. There are good and bad ways to respond to criticisms of such kind. You could of course apologize, ask for forgiveness and seek to restore the consequences of your mistake. In the alternative you could respond in irrational anger making the results even worse. Most of the time you can handle the criticism such as that, with an apology which is generally accepted by the offended persons but sometimes not. However, there may be occasions when there are deep seated psychological reasons that trigger your emotional reactions and from whatever life experience reasons you have been unable to control it and you don’t have a clue as why your emotions cause you to feel that way. That is the main focus of this article.
Even when you haven’t discovered the reason in your personal memory and experiences, the usual cause is your body’s capacity and the tendency to produce the chemical ingredient known as epinephrine which is commonly called adrenaline.
The consequence is a surge of emotion. If you allow this surge of adrenaline to cause you to overreact to the criticism, the relationship with that person can be damaged, sometimes irreparably.
Jesus said in Matthew 5: 3 that blessed are the poor in spirit. The amplified version calls this as considering yourself insignificant. If that status is maintained, you would apologize for your mistake and restore a good relationship. If not, because you are so wounded in your self regard you would challenge or offend the critic by your response because as Hannah Whitall Smith famously called it, you suffer from “wounded self-love”. (The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life, page 86)
Your own fear that you may not be able to control such emotions could lead to the development from your youth and over time as what is called an “impersonal personality”, being reluctant to express your deep inner feelings or what is even worse, to allow it to turn into a verbal or worse yet a physical attack of the critic.
The psychological or experiential causes of such personal tendencies in reaction to criticism are too complex and varied to discuss here. However, my suggestion for a remedy is to recognize that you have the capacity to control the harmful effects of such an adrenaline reaction, confess it to yourself immediately and go ahead and engage in the very thing your self love or fear doesn’t want you to do. Then celebrate, as God thereby, on repeated applications of this truth will change your capacity to deal with these common situations.
If you will observe your reactions to a wide variety of disappointing moments from as simple occurrences such as a dropped tool or a spilled glass of water up to the ones described herein concerning interpersonal encounters aroused by criticisms of another or even of your own, your life’s choices will be improved, bringing peace in most such circumstances.
If you think I have missed the truth in this respect, then experiment with your own reactions to those emotions, discover as I did that you can control them with God’s help. Thank Him for even the unpleasant ones when they occur and discover the joy as you will be transformed by the process to His plan for your life and be blest as Jesus said in Matthew 5:3 by being and thereby living in the state of being “poor in spirit”. (Romans 12:1-3; 2 Cor. 3:17-18; and 1 Thess. 5:18).
I am convinced that if we act in trust of God through these or any difficult situations, He will make it easier and easier to reach that desired status of peace in and through all experiences.
John Woodbery Author. A retired lawyer, John writes novels, short stories, poetry, commentaries on legal subjects, even a song (!). Find his suspense novels on Amazon: Hidden, Earl’s Retreat, Two Tombs Covers.
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