The Serrated Edge of Criticism: How to Wound Your Loved Ones

There is a magnificent, beautiful, wonderful painting in front of you!

It is intricate, detailed, a painstaking labor of devotion and love!

The colors are like no other, they swim and leap, they trickle and embellish!

And yet you choose to fixate your eyes on the small fly which has landed on it!

Why do you do such a thing?

~ C. JoyBell C.

May is National Mental Health Awareness Month.  Join me in blogging to erase the stigma of mental illness so our loved ones can seek the help they need.

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riticism has a serrated edge like no other.  It cuts deep and leaves jagged wounds.

I’m not talking about literary criticism. 

Or the critic a writer asks her beta readers to give her.

Or the critique of a fine wine or good restaurant.

I’m talking about negative criticism that tears down confidence, shreds self-esteem, batters the heart, and breaks the spirit.

But I Say This Because I Love You…

The problem with most of us is that we speak before we think.  We eagerly leap to correct someone without getting all the facts (Facebook, anyone?).  We delight in pointing out flaws ~ either character, moral, or simply “You missed a spot there.”

And we usually brush off any pain caused by our omniscient fault-finding by saying “I’m only trying to help.  Don’t you want to be better/turn in a good report/do your best?”

No one is more guilty of this than parents.

I know.  Many of my friends are parents and will probably cry foul.  “But Junior is doing X, Y, and Z!  How else am I to raise an upstanding citizen?!  He has to learn right and wrong.”

True, he does.  No one wants to raise the next criminal mastermind.  But will your negative words really inspire him to greatness?  Has yelling, screaming, or insulting ever produced healthy, integrated results?

 

Words credit: Handsfreemama.com
Image credit: Google

No.  It produces broken, anxious people.

Nine times out of ten, when we are frustrated with someone ~ be they a child or another adult ~ it’s not because we love them. 

It’s because we love our ideals and they aren’t living up to them. 

Now, does this mean that children shouldn’t be taught right from wrong?  Of course not!  But teaching them manners and morals doesn’t have to be done at the cost of their dignity and self-esteem.

Rachel Stafford over at Hands Free Mama has an excellent article today on this very topic: To Build (or Break) A Child’s Spirit.  She admits to being that negative parent and talks about the devastating effect it had on her daughter.  She ceased to see her as her own person, and became either a project to be worked on and perfected.  Or a nuisance to be dealt with.

She was so focused on the fly that she stopped seeing the beautiful work of art.

Happily, she realized the damage she was doing and changed the way she interacted with her child.  And her daughter blossomed again.

Accident Forgiveness for All

How many of us grew up in a home where no matter what we did, it was never good enough?  Or where we were “too much” ~ too loud, too quiet, too energetic, too lethargic, etc.

I may be a grown woman, with years of experience and accomplishments behind me, but even today, both my parents (although my mother is much worse about it) still find fault with everything I do or say. I tried confronting her about once, but that is another story for another day (or a whole chapter in my memoir).  Suffice it to say, my own criticism didn’t go over very well.

One of my co-workers has a sign on her wall that says

You cannot live wanting mercy for yourself
and judgment for others.

And yet that’s how most of us live, isn’t it?  We want everyone else to be perfect, but if we screw up, we want immediate and unconditional “accident forgiveness.”

Isn’t it time we started granting some accident forgiveness to others ~ as well as ourselves?

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

There’s an old poem that starts out “if a child lives with criticism, he learns to condemn.”  Read it, print it out, and tape it to your bathroom mirror and your back door.  Make one change in how you interact and react to others, especially your children if you have any.  See if there’s a difference in their demeanor and behavior.

The Ivory Tower has a Rock Bottom: When Depression Taught Me Humility

And this mess is so big

And so deep and so tall,

We cannot pick it up.

There is no way at all!

~ Dr. Seuss, The Cat in the Hat

May is National Mental Health Awareness Month.  Join me in blogging to erase the stigma of mental illness so our loved ones will seek the help they need.

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f you get up and go outside/go to the party/stop sleeping so much ~ you’ll perk right up!”

“You’re not praying/meditating/centering enough.  You would feel so much better if you were.”

“You wouldn’t be depressed/have schizophrenia/be bi-polar if you went to church regularly/volunteered/did something for someone else.”

Willfully Blind

Can you imagine going into a hospice and telling everyone in there that they’re just being lazy or selfish and that if they weren’t, their cancer would go away?

You would get disbelieving stares, some disgusted glares, and might even be thrown out on your rude and ignorant ass.

 

Image credit: DepressionIsReal.org

Yet people who suffer from mental illness are routinely bombarded with hurtful and rude statements like those I listed above.  As a Christian, the refrain of “God heals all your ills” is just one such thorn in my side.

Before I found my current kick acre therapist, I would hear these words, cringe, and add on another hour of prayer, and feel worse than before.  Or scrupulously re-examine my conscience and mentally beat myself up. 

After all, I must have done something very heinous indeed to feel so wretched and worthless.

Now that I’ve been in therapy for a while, I hear these phrases, roll my eyes, think to myself ~ what a dumb ass ~ and say,

“Oh yeah?  Did He heal your leg when you broke it last year or did you go to the ER and have a doctor set it?”

They mean well.  But they have no idea what it’s like to suffer from mental illness.  Best case? They awkwardly show support for someone in pain.  Worst case?  Their words cause more harm than good.

Woefully Ignorant

Someone with a family member with cancer once told me, “If you don’t know what to say, just hold their hand.  Or cook dinner for the family.  Best thing  ~ do, and not speak.”

The same could be said for mental illness. 

Today, we have knowledge at the touch of a finger.  Want to know the feeding and mating habits of the Mexican grey wolf?  Just “Google” it.

Want to know all the No. 1 hits of 1980?  Type it and hit “enter.”

Have a family member who’s been diagnosed as Bipolar II?  The DSM will give you pages of information, GoodReads will recommend books, and Google will give you pages of both information and support groups in your area.

There is no excuse for ignorance.

There may, however, be a reason for it.

The Ivory Tower has a Rock Bottom

I admit it.  For years I was a hard-ass, rigid, know-it-all.

People who hear me wax poetic about sustainability, organic farming, and the beauty of Alaska will say I still am, but I digress. . .

I had been blessed with the TRUTH and therefore I was obligated to:

speak it at all times;

hit people over the head with it;

feel sorry for those who didn't know it.

Pride was the blanket I wrapped my heart in.  If I knew it all, then pain couldn't touch me.  I wouldn't get hurt, and my heart couldn't break.  And I could be sure I was doing the right thing.

But despite my best efforts, one day, the unthinkable happened.  I fell from my ivory tower and hit rock bottom quicker than Monsanto pays off politicians.  Suddenly, everything I thought I knew was called into question.

But I’m grateful that it happened.

I’m grateful I got sucker punched by depression.

I’m grateful the lines got blurred.

I’m grateful for the humility it taught me.

Because my penthouse view had a foundation of elaborate defense mechanisms and emotional walls that I began building at the age of five.  And once all that rot was torn down, it was obvious how much pain I’d been ignoring all these years.

So now, when well-meaning friends blab clueless platitudes about psychology vs. spiritual healing that make me want to simultaneously gag and punch them in the nose, I take a deep breath and remember that no one had a perfect childhood.  And that underneath all of the well-meaning phrases is probably the saddest ignorance of all:

Denial of their own pain.

And I wouldn't be able to see that if I hadn't had my own blinders ripped off.

Say Something (and) I’m Giving Up on You

Short of getting knocked on your proverbial backside, the best advice I can give about supporting those who suffer from mental or emotional illness is the one my friend gave me years ago:  say nothing and just offer the comfort of your presence. 

Or do something for them as you would anyone who had a physical illness: bring them dinner.  Offer to clean their house.  Watch the kids for a night.  Most important?  Do all this without judgment and without comment.  I assure you, we already feel like the lowest of the low, thanks to our biggest critic: 

the one inside our head.

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

What are some other ways to support someone with mental illness?  Share in the comments, Tweet them to me, or post on my Facebook wall!

Top Five Friday: Shutting Up the Critics

The cost of not pursuing a dream is greater than the cost of failure. 
~ Jeff Goins

T

he way of the creative soul is hard.  We are misunderstood, maligned, and often, the people who should be the loudest in our cheering section, are the biggest naysayers.

This is certainly true in my own life.  I am blessed to have a small, but heavy-hitting cheering section ~ people who love and accept me unconditionally and offer both honest encouragement and constructive criticism.    



Photo credit: 123rf.com



But human nature being what it is, one rotten apple spoils the entire bushel. It is a mystery to me why what one negative person says carries more weight than the accolades of five positive people.  But there it is. 



And the biggest naysayer in my life is always close at hand, ready to pounce on every mistake, every false step.  Even all my successes carry a taint of “could have been better/not good enough.”  “Who is this wretched person!?” you cry indignantly, “Keep away from them as much as possible!”  But that would require an out of body experience.

Because I am my own worst enemy and my harshest critic.

Shouting Down and Shutting Out

Scientific American had an article in February of this year on the bias against creativity.  Although many say they value innovation and people who ‘think outside the box’, when it comes to practice, being innovative means taking risks, and most people are risk-adverse.  And by risk adverse, I mean, failure-adverse.

No one likes to fail.

But innovation doesn’t exist apart from failure.  News flash, dear readers: no one is perfect.  No one succeeds on the first try.  As great as Michael Phelps is, he didn’t come out of the womb doing a killer backstroke.  He had to learn how to swim; had to discipline his body and his mind to become faster than the best in the world.

So what is a beaten up creative to do?  Obviously, we must surround ourselves with positive and supportive and wise people.  And we need to drown out the naysayers as much as possible. 

As a visual/verbal creative, that means I read every article, post, book, and essay on creativity and artistic encouragement I can find.  Invariably, two things happen:

1) I’m comforted and inspired by the realization that I’m not alone;

2) My creative bottom gets kicked into gear and I go create something.

Today, I give you the top five articles that shut down my biggest critic and flamed the creative fires this week:

The World Needs Artists – Jeff Goins

Jeff Goins is one of my favorite writers/bloggers on creativity and the art of writing.  His style is easy on the eyes and is always practical.  It’s like having a personal writing trainer.  I may complain about the pain of being creative, but those groaning muscles get toned and built up with every post he writes.  Here, he reminds us how important art and creativity is, how vital we are to life of the world and our social circle.

10 Ways to Establish Personal Boundaries – Barrie Davenport

Personal boundaries are important for everyone, but especially for creative souls.  For whatever reason, our work isn’t seen as work (if I sweat blood every time I sat down at my desk, would that convince you?!!?), and since many of us work out of a home office, the boundary lines are more apt to get blurred. 

On top of that, most of us come from dysfunctional families where boundaries were ignored trampled on, and/or destroyed.  So a lot of healing needs to take place if those necessary fences are to be mended properly.  I’m a big advocate of seeking wise professional help ~ sadly, there are a lot of idiot shrinks out there who simply add new wounds to the old.

Live the Creative Life – Jurgen Wolff on Steve Edge

I’ve never met Steve Edge, but I love him already.  His advice to dress for a party every day and the party will come to you is very wise.  If you wait for inspiration, for the right time, the right place ~ the Muse may pass you by.  We’re only given today, not promised tomorrow.  So put on your party outfit and create.

Best story: how he re-branded DB Restorations.  Brilliant.

Repotting Your Creativity – Emily Wenstrom

Changing your routine up is a good way to shake off negative thoughts and nasty comments.  Last Tuesday, I started a new art therapy class.  It’s been years since I’ve picked up a paintbrush, but once I started mixing colours and exploring shades and tones, the joy of sweeping the brush across the paper filled up my tired heart and began to heal old scarred wounds.

Why Your Work Never Feels Good Enough – Jeff Goins

Another great article by Jeff Goins.  He talks about how the curse of perfectionism is part and parcel of being a creative: we keep striving to get our project to look just like the ideal vision we see in our minds’ eye. 

As long as the ideal vision doesn’t prevent us from actually bringing it to life, than use it to keep reaching and creating.

In the end, the best way to silence the critics ~ whether internal or external ~ is to create every day that we’re given.

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

What are the ways you shut out the naysayers and self-doubt?  What articles have inspired you?  Please share with us!