Now I already know how to take hurtful phrases calmly. My friends envy me for this, and I’m ready to tell you how I learned this. Yes, it was not easy, but there is a fact: I learned this, and there is a technique for this. I can tell you. I’m telling!
So …
For a long time I wanted to work through all my emotions, not to fall into tears, not to blush at critical remarks in my direction. The final push was the case when I publicly burst into tears.
At the University of Practical Psychology we meet and share our successes. Oddly enough, this is not always such a simple thing, and this also needs to be learned: to talk about your successes in such a way that it is understandable to people, and interesting, and joyful. And the requirements for the story increase each time … And once again, when I so wanted to share my joy, the host interrupts me: “Nastya, listen to yourself: do these formulations seem successful to you?”. Well, yes, the remark was on point, and the phrase will most likely seem normal to you: what is so special about it? But for me it sounded like this: “They scold me, they criticize me, they only interrupt me, I perform poorly, they are not proud of me, I am a bad girl.” I blushed, squeezed my chest, I could not stand it and burst into tears.
When I came to my senses, I decided to ask the host: “Your comments are very sensible and valuable. But when I hear them during a performance, I get lost. Could you please give them at the end?”. With this already prepared text, I was going to go to the next meeting. But then I thought: “Stop! After all, situations like this happen to me quite often. They happen in other places and with different text, so I need to solve the situation not only here, with my presenter, I need to change my reaction to such phrases!”
After analyzing, I found the following chain:
They tell me a critical (in my opinion) remark — the body contracts — squeezes the chest — the body feels tension and wants to get rid of it — I cry — the body relaxes — everything is fine again.
“What if I can stop myself from shrinking and tensing up during criticism? Is it possible? I thought. If I can teach the body a new reaction, the chain will look like this:
They tell me a critical remark — the body is relaxed — I take it calmly and continue the conversation.
I brought my thoughts to the next meeting, and our rector, the magnificent Nikolai Ivanovich, supported me. “Who is ready to help Nastya train herself for such a reaction to criticism?” Thanks to the incredible girls in my group and they supported me: they had the same problems. So we agreed to meet: each will bring a list of phrases that hurt and cut the soul, and we will train each other.
And I sat down for my list. I wrote not only what sounded like criticism to me, I wrote everything that I would be afraid to hear. I wrote phrases — and my inner text, which took the most painful and bitter from the phrase. I wrote and shed tears, so it seemed to me that I was pulling out the most secret, the most painful.
What were these phrases? Maybe for you they are not sick at all — but this is for you … But for me, if I hear “What, are you going to roar now? Only little girls roar. Are you over 30 or am I wrong?” — It’s like a knife to my heart. When they say to me: “Do not rely on children! They are gentle and affectionate only when they are small. Then they will not need you, they will have their own affairs, their own interests, ”I hear:“ They will leave you. Nobody will need you, neither your husband, nor your children!”
But I wrote everything, I had several dozen such phrases that hurt me. And so I came to a meeting with my classmates. We found a quiet, secluded place in a cafe, exchanged lists and began to suddenly and abruptly “bestow” each other with these beautiful phrases.
— Well, you and the cap! Kapusha, and also brainless. — And you are a brazen upstart! “Where else are you going if you don’t understand anything?” You’re a zero, get the hell out of here!
Or: “You are no leader! And you still dare to consider yourself a professional? It’s not a salary increase that shines for you, but courses for the unemployed!”
Well, feminine, eternal: «Mom, I don’t love you …»
Everything was expected. The phrases hurt us, our faces turned red, whitened, our eyes glazed over. We smoothed over what was happening with apologetic laughter, turning into laughter. Then we brought each other back to the Calm Presence (thanks to the University for this wonderful exercise!) and gradually we got used to these phrases. Gradually, they lost their sharpness, we began to perceive them more and more detached.
But we went further: the next round was followed by a new round, we came up with a new context, we added a new wording from ourselves — and it was clear how a new emotion was going. But then this wording ceased to cling.
We didn’t give up. In fact, talking nasty things is not the easiest thing to do, but we girls are stubborn and we continued round after round. Lonely waiters in the cafe looked at us like we were crazy, but we didn’t care: we were successfully moving forward! And the result became more and more obvious: the apologetic laughter gradually subsided, we calmly and calmly answered “Such hurtful” phrases earlier. We calmly expressed them to each other. They became mere phrases. Just words, like many other words, like many other phrases.
We won. We stood up, hugged and thanked each other.
And we concluded: “It’s true, you can train yourself, previously hurting criticism can stop being so painful. If you repeat words and phrases that cause negative emotion many times, then they turn into simple phrases, like many other phrases, like many other words. You can develop a calm response to criticism and painful statements. With proper practice, our body will be able to remember this new calm reaction.”
By the way, when we recognized each other’s fears and expressed them to each other, my friends and I became even closer to each other. We felt not just relief, we felt unity: we are moving forward and developing together. We are strong, we know how to win!