The Real Reason Criticism Hurts So Much for Highly Sensitive People That No One Talks About

 By the end of this episode, you’ll discover the deeper reason criticism can feel so painful as an HSP, and how to begin healing the part of you that takes it so personally.

Welcome to Stress Management for Highly Sensitive People. A podcast helping HSPs avoid overwhelm, eliminate stress, and find true inner freedom. I’m your host, Todd Smith, a facilitator of the work of Byron Katie. A way to question and reduce stressful thoughts, and you guessed it. I’m a highly sensitive person myself.

In this episode, you’ll discover the hidden identity, fear behind why feedback hits HSPs so hard, what you’re really trying to protect when someone points out a flaw, and why it keeps you stuck. A powerful shift that helps you hear criticism without it crushing your confidence. This is an addition of strategy Fridays where we think about specific things you can do to help manage stress as a highly sensitive person.

Criticism doesn’t just hurt because it points out a mistake for many HSPs. It threatens the image that they’ve been working hard to uphold. It could be something like being helpful, being competent, being kind, being low maintenance. In other words, I’m a nice guy. I’m a competent person. I’m a helpful kind of person.

I’m a kind person. This is what we call identity. And so criticism can shake the identity that we’re trying to preserve, and that’s where the pain actually lives. I remember once someone left a comment on my YouTube channel just saying to one of my videos something like, like they didn’t think that was worth anything.

And it was so small, but I could feel the stink and I could feel that contraction in my belly and in my heart. And I started feeling shame for doing what I’m doing, and I started wanting to quit. And I started doubting my competency and even my approach one little wasn’t even a word, just a sound, just that was enough to make me go into this crisis, you could say.

And what it really is an identity crisis. The problem is when this crisis continues to live in us. Due to somebody giving us some feedback and it hitting something inside, we can end up living out of reaction as a result. And one of the reactions that can happen is we can end up getting into perfectionism where we try extra hard to do a really good job.

Like for me, after that I was overcompensating, I was trying to do. An even better job than ever. While at the same time, part of me was like pulling back, going, I don’t know if I even want to keep doing this. So this is how when you’re in reaction mode due to some criticism, this is how you can end up getting caught in perfectionism, trying to avoid that kind of feedback from ever happening again, which actually is.

Not that helpful. Feedback of all kinds. Even that one that I just got on that video was probably pointing to something. It was certainly that person’s experience, and if I looked closely, I could have seen is there any way to improve that or is there anything I would do differently? But instead, when you’re in reaction, you walk on eggshells or you overperform or you emotionally collapse and it becomes harder and harder.

To be who you really are. In other words, we start replacing who we are with performance. And this is a slippery slope because as I become more and more focused on performing, I become more and more disconnected with who I am. And then whenever any criticism comes on my performance, I end up feeling even more hurt by it.

So it can become a vicious cycle. Basically I’m lying. Really, I’m holding up a persona of myself. An identity, a false identity. I’m the competent person. I’m the person who is really helpful or whatever it is, really kind. And of course that’s not perfectly true. We may be kind people, we may be competent people, but the identity says we are a hundred percent that we’re trying to be a hundred percent that.

Instead of what we really are, which is a human being with some tendency towards being competent, some tendency towards being kind, but not perfect at it. So the unconscious dynamic here is that we can begin trying to avoid feedback altogether because we’re trying to protect a fragile image of ourselves instead of staying open and growing.

This leads to over preparing perfectionism, emotional shutdown, or avoiding feedback rich situations like work reviews or partnerships or places where you’re having your creative artwork evaluated or shown or even just putting your stuff out there. Ironically, protecting this image of being perfect basically actually prevents.

Real growth and it reinforces the very shame that we’re trying to avoid. We can never be perfect. It’s just not possible to be perfect. But when we clinging to this identity, then we can’t tolerate even the smallest criticism, and this leads us to collapse on the inside or try harder and continues this disconnect between inside and outside.

So here’s some common mistakes that I think we all make, and especially as HSPs. This comes up, is trying to pre preempt criticism by doing everything perfectly. For me, after that I was studying harder how to communicate more clearly. I was starting to think more about strategy and like research more, like how could I be more effective as as a speaker.

And this is preempting criticism, trying to do things perfectly out of fear that somebody would leave some kind of a harsh, critical comment or something. The other mistake is avoiding situations where feedback can happen. One of the things I just mentioned is in a partnership and your main relationship, you’re in a place where criticism is going to come.

And you may find yourself withdrawing from your own relationship or you withdraw from your work, or you avoid situations where you’re going to be given honest feedback. And this means that a lot of your creativity can end up sitting unexpressed or unshared, just, a box of images in your closet rather than put on the web or shared with people who might actually enjoy it.

Another mistake that’s easy to make is equating being corrected with being unlovable or being defective. This is like thinking that just because a house has a chipped tile, that it means that the whole house should be condemned. It sounds extreme when you put it that way, but that’s what we do.

Oh, somebody goes. About a video that I put out there, and then, oh my gosh, I shouldn’t even be putting any videos out there and maybe there’s something wrong with me. I shouldn’t even be, I shouldn’t even exist. If you really want to take it to the extreme. So it’s easy to fall into this, and the reason this happens is it makes sense on a certain level.

It’s a coping mechanism. We’re trying to avoid feeling hurt. We’re not looking at the real cause of the hurt, which is our attachment to an identity which can never actually be us. So when you realize that your sensitivity isn’t the problem, and that you’re not less than, you’re not a less than good person for not doing things perfectly.

When you see that it’s the pressure to perform perfectly that’s actually hurting you, that’s when things start to shift. At that point, criticism stops being a threat and starts being a mirror, one that you can choose to look into without losing yourself. We have that in front of the mirror sometimes we get very critical of ourselves in front of the mirror.

A lot of times we’re just using the mirror to part our hair or to shave or to put makeup on or to brush our teeth or who knows any other number of things. So a mirror is helpful. It’s only when you have this false identity that I should look like I did when I was 17 that you become critical and start feeling shame when you look in the mirror.

Any kind of criticism is information. It’s like a musician that’s adjusting their instrument. A little feedback can help you stay in tune. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad musician, it just means you care enough to listen and to fine tune and to improve.

So what does criticism threaten beneath the surface? How do we unhook from that identity trap so that we can stay open without needing to be perfect? First of all, it’s just understanding that feedback is only information and if it lands hard, if you feel that reaction, you feel that gut punch, it is just pointing to something unhealed within, and this is really an opportunity if you’re into inner growth.

If you’re into self-development, spiritual development, growing as a human being, then this little discovery that there’s something unhealed within me is exciting because now it’s a chance to look at it and see if there’s some way to heal that. And one way we can do that is to. Notice where we’re getting hooked into an identity.

Notice what the identity is that we’re holding. What is the image that you’re unconsciously trying to protect? And in each situation it may be a little bit different, but here are some common wants. It could be I am the helpful one, or I am the calm one. If I’m the calm one and I get exasperated.

Then my identity is shocked. Or if I’m the calm one and someone says, Hey, calm down, then I will become defensive. Or if I’m the competent one, then if someone says, that didn’t really work for me. We take it personally because it threatens our identity. Or if I’m the easy to love one because I cause no trouble, then if someone says that bothers me, then it can turn us into.

Or throw us into a tailspin. So criticism threatens these kinds of identities. And even if the feedback is very minor, it doesn’t even have to be said as a criticism, just implied that it pokes at that exact persona that we’re working so hard to uphold. And it’s delicate, it’s weak, it’s not really who we are, and it’s easily blown over.

So here’s how to break through this. First of all, name the identity being threatened. Ask yourself, what image of myself just got shaken? Is it I always get things right, or is it I’m the one who never causes problems? Or is it I should have known better? What is it? And then unhook from that image. Is it really true that I have to always be perfect?

Or I have to always be helpful or that I have to always be competent to be okay. Is it really true that I am perfectly competent? It sounds ridiculous when you think about it, but we are trying to pretend that it is and to come back to reality where we’re allowed to be human, breathes fresh air into ourselves.

It allows us to relax. We know we’re not perfect. We don’t not even trying to be perfect. From that point of view, and when you’re not trying to be perfect, criticism is like a gift. It shows us how to improve, how to get better, and it’s not a threat. So if you’re constantly walking a tightrope between doing it right and fearing, you’ll be criticized, and it’s wearing it down.

What you really want is to be able to take feedback without it crushing your confidence. That’s exactly why I created the Perfectionism Unhook Journal. It’s a simple little journal, simple little PDF, and it is a writing process that will allow you to see what image you’re trying to protect in any given situation.

And see how you can soften your grip on it so that you can feel free even when someone points out your flaws. So just head over to the show notes, click on the first link, or visit true inner freedom.com/perfectionism-unhook-journal. Enter your details and I’ll send you the perfectionism unhooked journal so you can start practicing this yourself.