“Men can’t be more perfect than the sun, the sun burns with the same light that warms, the sun has stains, the fools talk only of the stains, the grateful ones speak of the light,” wrote many years ago the poet José Martí.
This reflection has a profound Taoist background and means that in each person, project and action may coexist two parts, one positive and the other negative. We chose which one is important for us.
Unfortunately, there are people who have only learned to see the stains of the sun, avoiding to see the light and perceive the heat. Those are the people who focus on the minor mistakes of the others and avoid appreciating their virtues.
These people have the habit of looking at the others with the magnifying glass to detect all the faults, and do not realize they should look in the mirror before. The problem is that interacting with them could damage our self-esteem because they not only make us feel guilty of our weaknesses and mistakes but also make us believe that we are useless.
How to identify people who criticize excessively?
These people always put their finger in the plague, they take a negative attitude with which they try to undermine your mood. You will find it out because:
– For how much you can do and try to help them, they will always remember that time you were not available.
– Even if you are right, they will do everything to highlight small details of your speech to generate a discussion.
– Even if you can do amazing things, they will keep reminding you of your failures.
– They always find little mistakes in everything you do, even when things are fine.
– They can see the straw in the eye of others, but they do not see their mistakes.
– They express opinions from a reduced, partial and simple point of view, which does not take into account the general picture.
– They see life in black and white assuming the attitude “all or nothing”, for these people or you do things right or wrong, there are no intermediate points.
– They are not self-critical, they do not like being judged, and whenever they can, they will escape their responsibility.
– They judge the others with a very rigid meter but do not apply the same values and criteria to themselves.
Judging the others is a common habit of frustrated people
Without realizing it, we all tend to replicate the way of relating that we have learned in the family. Therefore, it is likely that these people have grown up in a home where adults only look at their mistakes. If when children they received attention only for their mistakes, it is understandable that they have developed this way of communicating with the others. In practice, these are people who have not learned to relate positively and assertively.
Nevertheless, these criticisms usually come from a deep frustration. These are usually people who do not feel satisfied with their lives, so instead of looking into the mirror, which would be extremely painful because they should admit their failure or dissatisfaction, they prefer to focus on the mistakes of others.
These people do not feel satisfied with the decisions they have taken, perhaps because they have been imposed by others and experience a profound inner conflict. Therefore, criticizing the others allows them to shift the focus of attention far from themselves. As Antoine de Saint Exupery also wrote: “It is much more difficult to judge oneself than to judge others”.
In other cases, the tendency to criticize everything and everyone is a defense mechanism. In practice, the person needs to justify his or her unsatisfactory way of life by discrediting the others. They think: “after all I’m not so bad, look at what happened to that one…” or “after all I do not go wrong, look what it does that one…”
Of course, this means that each of us can become a critical person anytime. Then, before directing the magnifying glass to the others, we should make sure we had a look into the mirror.
How to deal with people who always criticize?
If you give them power, people who always criticize can make you very bad. Not only can they influence your reputation in front of others, but with the help of destructive criticism, they can harm the image you have of yourself.
Avoid being involved in a discussion with these people because they usually react very badly and will not accept your reasons. If they are attacked, they will respond negatively because your words break into the fragile protective shield they have built around their ego.
A good strategy to deal with the people who always criticize comes from Transpersonal Psychology, which applies one of the principles of aikido, a martial art of Japanese origin that is purely defensive and is based on the use of the attack force of the adversary, so as not to cause damage, but only to remove it or put it out of combat.
What happens when we apply this principle to conflicts in interpersonal relationships? Instead of entering a vortex of emotional responsiveness, we focus on the fact that this criticism has not caused us any harm. So we don’t assume the role the other person wants to impose on us, then it can not harm us.
For example, in the case of destructive criticism, one may ask the person: “how do you think your criticism can help me improve?” Or “what would you do in my place to get better results?” In this way we do not attack the person, but return the blow, pushing him or her to reflect on his or her words. In fact, with this strategy you could also stimulate a constructive approach, transforming a situation full of negativity into something positive.