When you discover something about yourself, something that you don’t like about yourself, what do you do? There are those times when our ‘loved’ ones criticize us, and you would think that they are being honest. Or maybe a boss is providing you feedback and it happens to be negative criticism; you wouldn’t think your boss would be lying to you just to hurt you – they have no investment in your personal suffering.

Well, there are two things that I hope you do NOT do, at least right away. 1) I hope you do not disregard the criticism. This only goes to increasing your shadow. If the criticism is true (only you don’t think so), then you have to own that part of you so that you could either change it, or use it to your advantage in a positive way. If you don’t own this behavior or quality about you, it becomes your shadow, your own personal Mr. Hyde. Like Mr. Hyde, this shadow quality will appear when you least expect it. Yes, ignorance is bliss, but that bliss is normally short lived.

I also 2) do not want you to grab onto the criticism with gusto and accept it 100%, and start changing yourself for the “better”. Only you know the qualities that serve you best. No one else can tell you this. We must keep perspective, and remember that “one man’s junk is another man’s treasure!” If we change ourself based on every criticism we get in life, we will be something worse than Mr. Hyde – we’d be a social creation, void of everything that brings true value into this world.

There is only one authentic you. How many people do you know? How many do you think they know? How many people are in the city where you live… or in your state? The world population is somewhere around, 6,883,831,075 and it’s growing; that's a HUGE number. Now, in terms of numbers, that is pretty hard to imagine so just think of your city or states population… and know that YOU are the only YOU there is. As Suess say’s, “there’s no one youer than you. You are singularly unique, and that’s a miracle if you ask me. I don’t know about you but I’m not in the business of changing God’s miracles… I just like to polish them till they shine!

So, to answer the original question; when we receive negative criticism, we say politely and sincerely, thank you for your opinion, I value your thoughts. Consider what was said, it may be spot on honest and you’ll want to change, or you might just end up saying “I like me the way I am”. Either way, receive the criticism with grace and respond to it – one way or the other

Bright blessings ~ Richard