Do you get hurt when you receive an unsolicited comment or criticism from someone close to you and would you like to know how to deal with criticism?

Generally speaking, criticism sucks. It’s never nice to be at the receiving end of bad comments and even more when you didn’t ask for anyone’s opinion.

A “friend”, once, told me that the item I wore (and loved!) didn’t suit me at all when I was telling her how much I loved that piece of clothing.
I wasn’t hurt by her comment. I was in a good place in my life and when I narrated the conversation to my husband, it made me laugh thinking how rude, my friend’s comment was, given I hadn’t asked for her opinion. Some people need to work on their delivery and diplomatic skills I think.
However, should I have been in a difficult place in my life at the time, her comment would have hurt me like hell I think.

Since it was a recent friendship, I naturally distance myself a bit. I don’t feel anger, I don’t feel hurt and we still speak but I know that I want to be surrounded by people who lift me up not the other way round.

When it comes to receive criticism from people who don’t know, it still stinks too but we should learnt not to care so much about these.
If they are constructive, look into them and see if  there is anything YOU wish to improve (not because the other person says something).
If they are just critical and do not add value to your life, put the person back in her/his place explaining that you didn’t ask for their opinions and her/his comment was hurtful.
If they don’t get the message and keep being hurtful, choose the path of least resistance, the path that will make you feel better and block them purely and simply (an easy thing to do on social media these days) and move on.

The bottom line is that one can always control what people say but we can control how we feel.

The reason we often hurt, is that the hurtful comment, touches on a issue, we have ourselves, issues with.

So there are different ways to improve your positive thinking and be armed in the face of criticism and unsolicited comments.

The first one is EFT tapping

EFT tapping is a form of psychological acupressure based on the same energy meridians used in traditional acupuncture and which allows you to tap away limiting beliefs about yourself and others and change the way you think without the needles used in acupuncture.

So if you’re stuck with a specific issue, an inner belief, EFT is a great way to unblock things from the comfort of your home.

There is plenty of free videos on youtube about EFT but my favourites are the ones by Brad Yates because I like this voice and his method makes total sense.

Three weeks down the road of practising EFT tapping and I have noticed several obvious things that improved my health and well-being: I sleep better, I feel less stressed and less anxious.

The second thing is listening and practising positive affirmations

Once you’ve done EFT tapping and unblocked some issues and inner beliefs, then you can start working on practising positive affirmations and meditative teachings of Louise Hay.

Surround yourself with friends who make you laugh and lift you up

Louise Hay has a very soothing voice, which I love, and is a gentle soul. There is a lot of her podcasts available on Youtube and I find that in periods of anxiety and self-doubt, listening to some of her talks, make me feel more relaxed and secure.

If you lack time during the day, aim to listen to this evening meditation to release negativity and boost energy and consciousness for 30 days.

Personally, I have seen a lot of improvements.

I’m more focused, more aware of things and people, more confident, fearless to try new things and putting myself out of my comfort zone and then there is the various breakthroughs that happen now and then…

In fact, I had so many breakthroughs, that the trickiest part for me, was to put everything in writing in a way that makes sense to all of you so I will start by how we deal with criticism or what we perceive as criticism, from our parents because I’m sure I’m not the only one with a mother or father that has an opinion on everything ;-)

One of the insights came from a conversation I had with Mila…

While I was in Paris, Mila posted a photo on her Instagram with a spelling mistake in one of the hashtags.

Beside myself on Instagram (you can follow me there), I’m constantly giving Lily and Mila a hard time when it comes to spelling mistakes on their profile because I don’t want them to be the easy targets of negative comments.
I also cringe when I read spelling or grammar mistakes made by adults on Facebook but I hate giving unsolicited advices to another adult that may hurt them…my mum doesn’t :-)

My mum regularly emails me to highlight spelling or grammar mistakes I’ve made in French.
After nineteen years in London, I admit that my French took a hit. At home, we mostly speak English and when I don’t use English, I often speak Frenglish or use words that don’t even exist in French.

Since I’m now translating more posts in French, I’m more likely to make mistakes on the basis that a lengthy post will require 4 hours of my time, plus an extra hour to translate it and re-read it a couple of times. By the time I’m finished with the post, I often have no energy to check if what I wrote in French is grammatically correct.

So Mila made a mistake…
I messaged her privately to let her know she had made a mistake and she replied: “Thanks but you do like mamie (my mum) lol”

My answer was: “not quite. I say this to you to protect you because I don’t want people accusing you of not being able to write properly”

As soon as I wrote this to Mila, I realised that it was the same for my mum. Regardless of how my mum delivers her message and often it’s a very, straightforward, direct way, it’s still come from a place of love and care so since then, I have been carefully watching how I react to things my mum said to me.

Often one hears “you can’t change people, only the way you react to things“ but it really hit home last week and I credit Louise Hay’s positive affirmations in helping me to shift my view of the world in a positive manner.

I have used my mum as an example but of course, it can be anyone like a sibling, partner or colleague and I hope this personal sharing will strike a chord with you and encourage you to look at things in a different way, to listen to Louise Hay or any similar podcasts and say positive affirmations on a daily basis because it has definitively improved my sense of being, stress and anxiety and I think we can all benefit from it.

If you need a “starter pack”, here are my favourite audios on youtube:

• Learn to do what you really want by Louise Hay: 60 min of just positive affirmations which I listen when I travel, go for a power walk or at night in bed
• Louise Hay about prosperity: very interesting
• Brad Yates’ EFT tapping: strange to start with and not something you want to do in public but try to do this 2 or 3 times/day for 10 minutes and I guarantee you will see some results.

Let me know how you’re getting on! xoxo

//Photography: Karine Köng, Client: Catherine Dupon | To book a shooting please email me at [email protected]

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