Negotiating Your Way Around Negative Comments

Don’t Take it Personally, It’s Not About You
By Aaron Karmi, MA, LCPC

When you take things personally, you feel offended and disrespected. Your reaction is either to defend yourself or submit passively. Either way you take someone’s criticism and view it as a literal, personal and serious threat. You want to correct the perpetrators and prove them wrong. In turn, you make something big out of some behavior that is so little. You want to maintain your innocence and try with all of your might to defend your beliefs, which only serves to heighten the conflict.

You cannot take someone’s opinion personally, because the truth is that all humans are dealing with their own feelings, beliefs and opinions. No one’s judgment is superior, it’s only an opinion. It is not about right or wrong, it’s just an opinion.

Read the entire article at PsychCentral.com>> 

5 Ways to Mindfully Handle Negative Comments
by Steffi Erbilgin

Putting yourself out there is hard. It can be brutal. You could be the most talented, entertaining, sweetest soul on Earth and still be confronted with negative comments. No one is immune. Whether it’s a video posted, an article published, a piece of art created, even a single idea shared, anything can warrant a negative response in this day and age of strong opinions and anonymous digital presence.

I used to think it would be an easy enough task ignoring all the negativity that comes along with public sharing. We see the comments and judgment of others on a daily basis. It’s easy to assume as long as they have a sufficient level of self-esteem they’ll be able to see the comments for what they are, to rise above it. But it’s always different when the shoe’s on the other foot.

When I received my first negative feedback I became obsessed. On one level I knew it was completely ridiculous to let one comment from one stranger have such an impact. I study the ego and how one should not personally take offense, as it’s the ego that’s offended and the ego that does the offending. But it still hurts. I’m still human. After all we are given egos for a reason and although I see mine for what it is it doesn’t make it suddenly vanish or become incapacitated.

Read the entire article at HuffingtonPost.com>>