Jane Brendgen takes up the baton from Lindsay Wittenberg in this new
series of reflection columns.
This issue: Finding a perspective on criticism
A few weeks ago, a dear friend and colleague and I had a fascinating conversation about the experience of being criticised and it lingered in my thoughts for many days. Following this, one of my coaching clients shared her experience of receiving critical feedback from one of her direct reports and our dialogue revealed many layers of complexity and nuance. I felt energetically drawn to a deeper inquiry as a consequence of these rich conversations and decided to explore a few of the threads here.
Criticism is something we all face at times, in our personal and working lives, and the reality is that most of us find it challenging. Why is that?
What is our relationship to being criticised? Are there contexts where we’re more susceptible to being triggered into reactivity and are there settings where we can remain grounded and in touch with a broader range of perspectives?
Considering criticism from the perspective of the sender, what’s the intention behind their need to criticise and what might be going on for them? Is this coming from a place of unconscious reactivity where it’s likely to be fuelled by anger and therefore potentially destructive?
Or, is it being communicated from a considered place, where the intention is to offer feedback in the interests of the receiver’s growth and development? And, even then, is the quality of the feedback reliable and of value given that a high degree of emotional intelligence and sensitivity is needed to offer it skilfully?
WHAT IS CRITICISM?
It feels wise to pause here in service of defining criticism so we have a common starting point rather than assuming we all share the same understanding and, as a consequence, something may get lost in translation.
I read many definitions from a number of online dictionaries and the consensus in an interpersonal context seems to be skewed to the negative: an unfavourable opinion given about someone; to reprehend, censure, reprobate, condemn, denounce, to openly find fault with; the act of expressing disapproval of somebody and offering opinions about their faults or inadequacies.
Goleman’s take on criticism, that it implies judgement, is in alignment with this. He says we recoil from it because we interpret it as a threat to esteem in the eyes of others (Schwartz, 2011). Looking at this through the lens of adult development, Kegan identified “the socialised mind” as the most common stage of maturity, where much of what we think, believe and feel is dependent on how we think others experience us. People at this stage need positive external validation to feel OK about themselves because they’ve not yet developed an independent strong sense of self, where they can distinguish the opinions of others from their own and trust their internal compass (Mallel, 2017). It’s understandable therefore that criticism can literally feel like a threat to our survival, evoking primal emotions such as anger and fear.
Furthermore, many of us may be triggered into the painful feelings of inadequacy, self-doubt and shame that we experienced when, as a child, we were criticised by our primary caretakers, teachers and /or peers. In such reactivity we lose grounding and perspective. We may give our power to the sender, turn inward and hook into the harsh rhetoric of the inner critic. Or, feeling mobilised by the power of anger, we might defensively project our pain outward, judge the person and reject their criticism.
In December last year a close family member criticised me. It came unexpectedly in the form of a WhatsApp message late on a Sunday evening and was related to a conversation we’d had a few weeks previously. As I read the message, I could feel her anger land in my body like a punch in the chest. Then my own feelings kicked in – disbelief, sadness and pain. I felt the activity in my nervous system ramping up as the many and varied unpleasant sensations in my body became increasingly more intense.
An internal dialogue emerged between the part in me that felt hurt, unseen, misunderstood and the internal loving compassionate mother who had access to a broader perspective and recognised that the much-loved family member was stressed, grieving and under-resourced. I trusted that it was very likely she’d misinterpreted something I’d said and was projecting her unbearable pain onto me.
Grounded in a sense of compassion for both of us, I made the decision to let things settle before responding in the morning. I could feel the stretch of the learning experience as I typed a message to her – it took courage to live into the values of compassion and kindness while holding the aching heart of the young part in me that had been triggered by the angry criticism.
This difficult experience was a gift – the convergence of a multitude of complex historical factors in the context of my relationship with my family member revealed an aspect of myself that hadn’t been touched for many years. It offered the opportunity to meet that part, to feel her deeply and bring her back into the fold.
Coming back to the framework of adult development theory, as I reflect on my experience of being criticised, I recognise the subject–object principle playing out. When we’re identified with our present-moment experience we’re caught up in the subjective position. It has hijacked our awareness and is controlling us. We have no objective perspective on it, no relationship to it.
Through developing our capacity to know ourselves intimately – in somatic sensations, emotions, thought patterns, psychological triggers and behaviour – it’s likely that our relationship to criticism will transform, from being had by it to coping to being in control and finally to being able to make creative use of it.
So, instead of being caught up on the dance floor with it, we’re up on the balcony and it’s here where the possibility for clarity, insight, perspective adeptness, compassion, playfulness and choice lies.
Conclusion
This tender reflection has generated further questions which I intend to reference in my ongoing inquiry into criticism. My hope is that they’ll also be of benefit to my clients and to you:
- This is the story I’m telling myself about what just happened. What is it that I’m missing, not seeing about myself and the other?
- What might the sender’s criticism be revealing about our relational system and / or the system of the context within which we’re both situated?
- What might the somatic markers, emotions and thought patterns that are here now reveal about my relationship to the criticism?
- What’s most uncomfortable about the experience? What might be revealed if I let go of thinking about it and instead, drop into the felt sense of it in my body and listen deeply to what’s coming up?
References
- N Mallel, How to be an adult: Kegan’s theory of Adult Development: https://bit.ly/46MI5TU
- T Schwartz, There is no such thing as constructive criticism, Harvard Business Review, November 2011
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- Jane Brendgen is founder of Compassionate Cultures. She is an executive coach specialising in authentic leadership, adult development and therapeutic coaching. She is a mindfulness supervisor.