“We find comfort among those who agree with us- growth among those who don’t.” Frank A. Clark
When it comes to receiving criticism, or negative comments about what I do, say, write, or create, I recognize my constant need for acceptance and praise. I can feel my addiction in the fleeting moment of joy I get when someone really likes a post I have written, or when I get an email about my “healing hands.” And I recognize the trigger, a quick tightness in my chest or the pit of my stomach when I receive a negative opinion from someone, my mind instantly defaulting to thoughts of worry, dejection, and self sabotage.
One of the women I go to for healing help often nudges me to detach from the highs and lows of life. “You are addicted to elation,” she reminds me, and I am encouraged to remember that all of life is good, even the stuff that doesn’t feel like it at the time, even the really crappy stuff.
I know the value in learning from constructive feedback and the older I get the more I eat it up, appreciating the time and energy my mentors take to impart their wisdom on me. It is when I have been told I’ve done something wrong, or someone expresses their displeasure with me, my work or my writing, or worse, getting no response at all, that takes me and my mind off the cliff into the pit of unworthiness.
It seems we live in a world where everyone takes everything personally. We ping off of each other like super sensitive, emotional pin balls, and only hit the ten thousand point bonus once in a while when someone likes our stuff. What if we were okay no matter who liked our stuff? What if we were able to express ourselves through our work, our passions, our writing or our art and not give a fuck who likes it? What if we took the word rejection out of our vocabulary and just simply shined our light?
The conditioned answer is that we have to care about who likes us, what we do and what we create if we are going to make a living doing it. The only way we can not care is if we are already successful, then there is no pressure to strive for acceptance, affection or admiration. Right?
“I don’t experience rejection, because very simply, as soon as I have expressed something, it’s not mine nor has anything to do with me or who I am…whatever people can say about what I had the chance to create only talks about them, and the work of art I happened to create just triggers something in them, whatever it is, positive or negative.” Vincent Leleux
The same goes for when you are given a compliment. It is not about you or what you have done or created, it is all about the other person and something inside of them that resonated with it. So it serves us to not attach to the negative or the positive so much that we rely on one over the other for our own self worth. It is not about you.
So we can welcome any comment with the same detachment. There is no good, bad, worse, better, success or failure. It is just what meaning our mind has tried to put there to make sense out of the situation. The beliefs we hold about life, including old, out-dated, conditioned beliefs that do not serve us anymore, are what we are basing that meaning on.
Another one from Vincent: “There is no meaning but the ones the mind creates, so just be with whatever is here, present.”
In another group where I dabble with healing ways and ideas, our teacher, John F. Barnes says, “Detach from the outcome” when we worry about our own performance anxiety with the healing work we are doing with a client. In the same way Vincent describes rejection or complement, it also goes for what a client’s body will do in healing, and it is rarely about you. It is up to them to do the work of letting go. We are just the facilitator. So in writing, or art, or other expressions of who we are it is the same. We become a facilitator for another person’s process. They will either resonate with us, or not.
I am thinking about how then to go about being a “good” facilitator, but trying to live up to some outside definition of good will be torture. I can follow general principles of holding a healing space for others, whether I am treating, or just doing my regular life, but other than that, the best way to be a “good” facilitator is to be myself, in full expression of what sings from my soul. For a long time I did not get this.
For a long time I tried to learn the right way to be, to do, to write, to heal and to live. I dutifully learned the techniques, and practiced, and studied. I fit myself into what I was supposed to be like, and squeezed myself into the roles I was given, until that box got so small I could not breathe.
Now I get that being “good” at what I do, or what I write, or how I am in the world with others has more to do with authenticity and detachment. It is a combination of the expression of the real me and awareness of not taking others personally. When I am in full expression of my soul there isn’t another soul in the universe who can call that wrong, or bad, because that expression comes from essence, and love.
When I feel myself in that sacred place there is a peace and freedom that is priceless, no matter what sort of situation I might find myself in. Everything is clear and detaching is easy. I get up on my board and surf the waves as they come, small or big, warm or cold, easy or challenging and practice knowing that every single one of them serves my purpose. Every single one is making me a better surfer.
The only way I can help you with understanding your own attachments and with practicing accepting others comments, criticisms, complements or rejections without taking them personally is to learn about awareness. When you discipline your mind and learn how to feel the messages from your body, transformation is inevitable.
For now, the next time you get rejected or blasted with negativity, notice what happens inside of you, step back and make some space so that you can observe what is happening from the outside in. Give yourself permission to feel the feeling and then let it go. When we allow the flow of emotions, without resistance or attachment, we don’t get caught up in the idea that one is better than another. They all serve us. And from that place of awareness, we get to make choices about how to live our life.
Through all of the healing process that I have followed over the years and all of the teachings I have practiced I have made sure to write about, reflect and talk about my journey. One of the biggest secrets of life is that we are not alone on this journey, no matter how alone we may feel at times. Reaching out by writing about and talking to others about these topics will help you gain perspective, and with perspective you will be able to practice surfing your waves using a new technique.
Brene Brown reminds us that connection with others is why we are on the planet. This particular lesson, in all of its forms, is one of the biggest we are here to learn. Each wave that moves our way is a potential connection to soul. When you move out into the world next, look around you at all the possibility for shining on others with your unique expression of love.
Remember that the right way to shine is to be totally, unapologetically you, and if someone doesn’t jive with your light turn in another direction and shine again. Just because someone doesn’t like your particular kind of light doesn’t mean you should stop shining, it just means that they don’t like your particular kind of light. Some people love milk chocolate, some love dark, and some are allergic to chocolate. No way is the right way to be, they are just all different, unique, sacred expressions of soul. Shine baby, shine.
