Latest / She Survived: Stories of Courage, Recovery & Reinvention / When Words Cut: How to Stop Taking Criticism as Truth | She Survived
Transcript
- It starts in the chest, that sudden, cold tightening, like someone has reached inside and squeezed your heart into a fist. You know exactly what it is, don’t you? That moment when someone’s words turn from sound into judgment, and suddenly, you are small. Let’s talk about that feeling for a second. Because I think we’ve all been there, standing in a kitchen or sitting in a meeting, watching the light leave someone else’s eyes, or hearing a tone of voice that drops ten degrees. And in that instant, your body doesn’t just hear the criticism; it feels it. It’s not an opinion anymore. It’s a physical event. Your shoulders hike up toward your ears. Your breath catches in your throat. Your stomach turns over, slow and heavy. I used to think this reaction was a flaw in my wiring. I thought if I were stronger, or smarter, or more polished, I could just let the words pass through me like rain on a roof. But here is the truth I’ve learned after decades of listening to women unravel their own worth based on other people’s opinions: you cannot logic your way out of a nervous system response. When someone criticizes you, especially in a way that feels unfair or harsh, your brain interprets it as a threat. Not a logical threat, but an existential one. In our evolutionary past, being cast out by the tribe meant death. So when someone says something that makes you feel unworthy, your body reacts as if your life is in danger. That tightness in your chest? That is survival. It is not weakness. It is evidence that you are alive, that you care, that you are connected. But here is where we get stuck. We take that physical sensation—the ache, the heat, the sting—and we mistake it for truth. We think, 'If it hurts this much, it must be true.' Or worse, 'If they see this flaw so clearly, I must be broken.' So we internalize it. We carry it home. We replay it in the shower, in the car, in the dark before sleep. We polish the stone until it cuts us deeper. I want you to imagine your sense of self as a garden. This is how I tend to mine, anyway. It’s messy. There are weeds that pop up overnight after a hard conversation. There are flowers that bloom because of kindness, and there are patches of dirt that look barren after a storm. But it is mine. I am the gardener. Criticism is like weather. Sometimes it rains. Sometimes it hails. Sometimes the wind knocks down a trellis. The weather does not ask permission from the garden. It just happens. But the garden does not become the weather. If a hailstorm destroys half your tomatoes, you do not decide that you are a bad tomato farmer. You decide that you need to repair the trellis, or wait for the sun, or plant something more resilient for next season. When we internalize criticism as truth, we are essentially letting the weather rename the garden. We’re letting a single storm declare that the soil is dead. But I promise you, the soil is still there. The roots are still deep. The fact that someone can throw mud at your fence does not mean the foundation is gone. It just means they threw mud. This distinction is everything. It takes time to learn. It took me years to stop believing that every piece of feedback was a verdict on my soul. Most of it is just data. Some of it is noise. Some of it is projection. Very little of it is actually about you. But our minds love to make it personal. We love to weave it into the story we tell ourselves about who we are. 'I’m too sensitive,' we say. 'I’m not good enough,' we whisper. These are stories, not facts. And stories can be rewritten. Let me share a stumble with you, because I want you to know I’m not preaching from a mountaintop. I’m sitting right here in the dirt with you. A few years ago, I received a critique on a piece of writing I had poured months into. It was sharp. It was direct. It pointed out flaws I hadn’t even noticed, yes, but it also carried a tone that felt dismissive, almost contemptuous. The writer didn’t just say, 'This paragraph is unclear.' They implied that the work was lazy, that I didn’t care. And I crumbled. I spent three days unable to write another word. I felt a profound shame, as if they had seen through me and found nothing but emptiness. I went to a friend, tears prickling my eyes, ready to apologize, to beg for forgiveness, to prove I wasn’t lazy. But my friend did something different. She looked at me and asked, 'Who are you trying to please?' That question stopped me cold. Because I realized the anger in that critique wasn’t really about my writing. It was about the critic’s own frustration with the world, their own desire for perfection, their own fear of mediocrity. They were projecting their own anxiety onto my page. And I had taken it in, handed it a seat at the table, and invited it to stay for dinner. When we learn to spot projection, criticism loses its teeth. It becomes easier to see the person behind the words. Maybe they are having a bad day. Maybe they are insecure. Maybe they are just tired. None of that is your burden to carry. You don’t have to absorb their shadow to understand their light. You can acknowledge the feedback without adopting the emotion. You can say, 'I hear your point,' without saying, 'I accept your judgment of my worth.' So, how do we respond? How do we stand in that garden while the hail is falling? The answer is simpler than it seems, but harder to practice. We create a pause. Just a space. Between the word and the wound. When someone criticizes you, your instinct is to defend, to explain, to shrink, or to fight back. All of these are reactions. They keep you trapped in their narrative. Instead, try this: Breathe into it. Let the sentence hang in the air. Don’t rush to fill the silence. Use that silence to check in with your body. Is your jaw clenched? Are your hands shaking? Acknowledge the sensation. Say to yourself, 'This is uncomfortable. This is a reaction. But it is not the end of the world.' Then, ask a question. Not a defensive one. A curious one. 'Can you help me understand what you mean by that?' or 'What part of this feels most urgent to you?' This shifts the dynamic. It moves you from defendant to investigator. It gives you power back. It allows you to separate the useful grain from the chaff. Often, when people hear themselves asked to clarify their harshness, they soften. Or they reveal that their criticism was never about you at all. And if they double down? If they refuse to engage with respect? Then you have your answer. Their inability to communicate constructively is their issue, not yours. You can thank them for their perspective and walk away. You don’t have to argue with someone who is committed to misunderstanding you. You don’t have to win every interaction. You just have to protect your peace. I remember back in episode twelve, we talked about 'When the Room Is Wrong,' about the quiet bravery of speaking up when everyone else is silent. We discussed how silence can cost us our integrity. Today, I want to flip that coin. Sometimes, the bravest thing you can do is not to speak up, but to hold your ground internally. To refuse to let someone else’s narrative overwrite your own. We live in a culture that loves to judge. It’s easy to criticize. It’s hard to create. It’s easier to tear down a house than to build one brick by brick. So when someone criticizes you, remember that they might be tearing down because they don’t know how to build. Or they might be building, and they’re just clumsy with their tools. Either way, it’s not your job to fix their clumsiness by accepting blame for the mess. Your job is to tend your garden. To water your own confidence. To recognize that your value is not determined by the loudest voice in the room. It is determined by your consistency, your kindness, your resilience. By the way you show up, day after day, even when it’s hard. Even when you’re told you’re not enough. You are enough. Not because someone says so, but because you are here. Because you are trying. Because you are learning. The turning point was tiny, as I often say. It happened when I decided that I would no longer trade my peace for approval. I chose myself. And I invite you to do the same. Every time those words cut, choose yourself. Choose the pause. Choose the garden. Choose the truth that you are whole, regardless of what anyone else says. Thank you for letting me into your day. For listening, for feeling, for being here. I’ll be right here next week, tending the soil with you. Until then, breathe into it. You’re doing better than you think. Love, Gloria.