Finding a New Way with Words

Raise your hand if you’ve ever been guilty of being critical. Keep your hand raised if you’ve ever been on the receiving end of a criticism. Now, ask yourself which position feels better: criticizer or criticized? With few (if any) exceptions, I imagine we would agree that doing the criticizing feels infinitely better.Why? The easy answer is power. To deliver verbal bullets holds much more appeal than being hit by them. While boosting ourselves up by bringing someone else down can provide sense of empowerment, it’s a false (and fleeting) sense. Yet even a false sense of being in control is more comfortable than being out of control. Here’s where the trouble – and the harder answer to the ‘why’ question – lies: dishing out something potent and derogatory steeps us further into denial of the underlying truth(s) of our own dissatisfaction, fear, anger, disappointment, pain, and/or yearning. In other words, we are critical so we don’t have to be vulnerable.Unfortunately, when it comes to intimacy in relationships, so many of us push the person we care about away rather than taking the risk to come closer. Intellectually, it makes sense that the more we can pinpoint (and point out) somebody else’s limitations and/or deficiencies, the less likely we will be to make a mistake (i.e. choose someone who “isn’t good enough” and/or avoid looking at our own shortcomings). Of course, we tell ourselves that engaging in this “it’s-you-not-me” game is about protecting our hearts and being careful not to overlook what could, ultimately, one day, be the deal breaker. While there’s something to be said for paying attention, there’s also something important to be said about paying attention to too many of the wrong things.A wise woman once said to me, “Behind every criticism is a wish”; the criticism acts as the cover-up to our deeper desire. I think it’s safe to say our best intention is not to hurt our loved ones’ feelings, crush their spirit, or poke holes in their sense of worthiness. Our intention is to let them know what would make us feel loved, cherished, safe, and secure. Unfortunately, when our requests for those needs come with a finger pointing outward, we may injure (at best) or annihilate (at worst) our most desired connections. We may also sink deeper in our own muck - the muck that insists we aren’t fallible and that criticism will, eventually, bring us what we want. Quite simply, it won’t.Next time you feel compelled to tell someone why they’re wrong in some way, pause. Ask yourself what it is you really want. Then, find the courage to discern if what you seek is there. Whether it is or isn’t, you will have made the discovery from a place of authenticity. While that doesn’t guarantee against disappointment, it does minimize the risk of regret, and it is certainly a step in the right direction toward loving yourself, and others, better.