Why Highly Sensitive People Fear Criticism So Much & What Begins to Change When You Stop Needing to Be the Expert

 By the end of this episode, you’ll understand why highly sensitive people often feel intense pressure to know more, prepare more, and get things right, and what begins to change when you no longer need expertise to feel safe. In this episode, you’ll discover why highly sensitive people often feel intense pressure to avoid mistakes or blind spots or being wrong, how fear of criticism can quietly create a constant need to be more prepared and more certain, and how things can start to feel different when you stop treating criticism as something you must prevent at all costs.

This is an edition of Breakthrough Mondays, where I share success stories and helpful insights for highly sensitive people on the path towards inner freedom. Have you ever noticed how much pressure you can feel to know enough or to prepare enough to get things right before speaking or teaching or helping or posting something or even sharing something?

There can be this subtle pressure underneath all of it that you need to make sure you haven’t missed anything. You need to make sure that you’re ready for every objection. You need to get this right. And underneath all of this is often a fear of criticism. Highly sensitive people often pr- process criticism deeply.

They notice all the subtlety that goes along with it, the tone of voice, the facial expressions, the nuance, the emotional energy, the subtle signals. And it’s our nature as highly sensitive people to like peace. We like harmony. We like things… We like everyone to get along well. We like everything to be in agreement.

This is something that is natural for us, and we work hard to maintain peace and harmony. And part of the reason for that is because we’re so affected by disharmony. We’re affected more by negative situations than other people. And as a result, we try really hard to prevent any kind of upset from happening.

And so it’s easy to see criticism as a kind of upset or a kind of disharmony, and it can become something that we are trying actively to avoid. And when it happens, we feel even powerless because, of course, people do say things. And so that’s when this gets experienced as something bigger than maybe what it actually is.

On top of that, we take everything that comes into us and we process it. That’s part of being a highly sensitive person. We process things deeply. And so we look at the meaning of what was said, and we look at what was not said, and we try to put one and two together and figure out what it actually means.

And often it points towards a kind of self-criticism often. “Oh my gosh, this means that I did something wrong,” or, “Oh, I should have prepared more.” It can feel like rejection, and rejection is one of the toughest kinds of stresses that we experience as human beings because we’re so socially oriented.

And so when that happens, if we interpret that criticism as rejection, then it can really weigh down heavily on us. We can feel exposed. We can feel like a failure. We can feel like we now have disapproval from the person who’s giving the feedback. And so naturally, criticism can feel very threatening, and I think for highly sensitive people, more threatening than than for most, or certainly we experience it more fully, like in full living color, like we experience everything.

But to understand this more deeply, we have to ask what exactly feels threatened here? Why does criticism feel threatening? What… That means something is being threatened. Something feels like it’s being threatened. That’s the real question. What’s being threatened here Usually criticism is not threatening your deeper self, like your actual true self.

It’s threatening an identity. An identity is an image or a role that we play, something that the ego creates and tries to maintains. Something like, “I’m the expert,” or, “I’m the one who knows,” or, “I’m the competent one,” or, “I have authority here,” or, “I’m the leader here.” Now, interestingly, this kind of image or identity can be shown in the positive “I am the expert,” which might sound like egotistical but it can also be experienced…

The same identity can be experienced in the, “I’m not that, but I want to be that.” So I’m trying to be the expert. I’m wanting to be the one who knows. I’m trying to be the competent one. And you may have a lot of experience of not being that, and so you’re trying desperately to be something that you’re not or that you’ve built a story around that you’re not.

And so there’s a desperation there to be the one who’s competent here, to be the one that people look up to or appreciate or anything like that. So this is how the ego, if you will, can sometimes be, instead of egotistical in the typical sense of like a bloated ego, all grandiose, it can be actually coming from a place of not feeling good enough, and it’s still an identity.

What’s the identity? It’s that image that I’m trying to maintain. I’m trying to be the person who’s successful. I’m trying to be the person who knows what he’s talking about. So when I’m trying to be that, and I’m not so sure that I am, then I feel a kind of like low self- self-esteem. But what’s really happening is I’m trying to be something that I’m not, and that’s what I mean by identity.

I’m holding an image of what I should be instead of just being what I am. Now, people on the other extreme of that hold an identity that they’re great and they, and that’s also identity. But they believe it. They think they are great even though they’re not. It’s still a false identity.

Without getting too deep in the weeds here, it’s just interesting to see how when you have an image of what you think you should be or what you think you are or what you wanna be, and you get attached to that image, then you become vulnerable Because identities are not possible. They’re not real.

That’s not who I actually am. I’m not the perfect expert in what it is that I’m talking about. And so when I’m trying to hold up an identity, it’s like trying to hold up a lie. You have to work really hard. You have to protect it. You have to think ahead to try to avoid any kind of criticism coming towards that identity because that identity is inherently weak.

It’s actually vulnerable by its own nature because it’s not who I actually am So This means that the more attached you are to being one who knows, for example, then the more threatening it feels not to know. It’s “I have to be this. This is who I’m believing I am or believing I should be,” and anything that goes against that feels like a major threat.

So because the identity feels vulnerable, then the mind starts trying to protect it, and one of the ways that it tries to protect its vulnerability is by using things like knowledge. The more I know, the more protected I will be, the more I can hold this identity that I do know what I’m talking about.

And preparation becomes protection. The more I prepare, the more I’m going to be ready for anything, and therefore, the idea is I’ll be safer. Certainty becomes protection. Try to control everything so that I’m 100% sure that I’m going to be having no threats to this image that I’m holding up of being, say, the expert.

So the mind says, “Learn more, prepare more, think more, anticipate more, don’t miss anything.” And this requires perfection, actually, because one tiny criticism can just bring the whole thing down like a house of cards. So we have to bolster this. We have to build a castle wall around this false identity to protect it so that there, it becomes impenetrable, and that way we can feel safe.

Of course, we still don’t feel safe because it’s still a lie. It’s still not actually who we are. We’re still pretending to be something that we’re not, and so that vulnerability is inherent. But the belief is, the hope is, “If I know enough, I’ll be safe. If I prepare enough, criticism won’t happen.” But this creates an endless kind of pressure because no amount of knowledge can fully protect a false identity.

That vulnerability will always be there. That’s why the pressure can feel endless. There’s always more to know, always more to prepare for, always another blind spot you could miss But freedom starts growing when you stop trying to be more than what you actually are. This is the thing. When you’re trying to be something that you’re not, when you’re trying to hold a lie, even a good lie, it’s vulnerable.

When you stop trying to hold that, you become l- like the opposite of vulnerable. You become completely safe. So you don’t need to be the expert or the authority or the one who always knows. You don’t have to be beyond criticism when you stop trying to be more than you actually are. You can simply be what you are in reality, which is someone who cares, someone who’s excited about the subject maybe that you’re talking about.

Someone with some experience, not someone who has all the experience in the world, someone with some experience, someone with some insight, and someone who is still learning. That’s real. That’s honest. It’s humble in a way, but it’s humble in the way of just being just right. It’s who I actually am. Like, this is my experience.

I don’t know more than that, but I sure love what we’re talking about, and I’m excited enough to share it with you, and I’m really interested to hear what you think and what your perspectives are because I’m still learning as well This kind of approach requires no defense. So now when criticism comes along, it feels different because there’s no false identity there that I’m holding up that would feel threatened by the criticism.

It’s just me, good old me, right? Just run-of-the-mill me who knows some things and doesn’t know a lot of things and just loves learning and trying to figure out what’s going on, what’s the next layer of understanding. And it– and I become someone who values other points of view because they add to the richness of this kind of exploration.

So criticism in that way becomes another perspective, just another viewpoint or another piece of information. It may be useful, it may not be useful. It may be true, it may not be true. But what it’s not existential. It’s not about me and me not being good enough or me not having prepared. It’s not existential because what it means is there’s no false image or false identity that I’m having to protect that is feeling threatened.

When that goes away, there’s nothing to be threatened. And so this allows you to stand with your feet on the ground and have an honest discussion with people and share ideas from a place of ease instead of a place of feeling vulnerable. So instead of asking, “How do I avoid criticism?” You might ask yourself, “Who am I in reality that isn’t threatened by criticism?”

There must be some part of you that really is there that is not threatened by criticism. What is that? And my guess is it’s gonna be closer to the real you, the one who just loves the subject, the one who just wants to share, the one who’s excited to learn. Like that part isn’t threatened by criticism.

Only the part that says, “I’ve gotta know it. I’ve gotta know everything. I’ve gotta be super prepared. I’ve gotta be the one in charge.” So criticism hurts most when it threatens who you think you need to be. That’s the real issue. The real problem often isn’t criticism itself, it’s the pressure of trying to maintain an identity that was never fully sustainable.

Freedom begins when you stop trying to be more than you are. So the feeling I’m left with today is that it’s natural for us as HSPs to want to feel safe, and it’s logical to think that being more prepared will help us feel safe. But ironically, this can have the opposite effect. There is no such thing as perfect preparation.

When you stop focusing on being perfectly prepared and bring a spirit of humility and curiosity and learning to your presentation, you can take on a much more peaceful role of being a facilitator, allowing everyone to contribute instead of trying to be an infallible expert In this episode, we looked at why highly sensitive people often feel intense pressure to avoid mistakes and blind spots and being wrong.

And that is because we’re affected by negativity more than others. We feel it more deeply. And when we have an identity that is threatened, that is a very scary negative experience, and we will try to avoid that at all costs. We also looked at how fear of criticism can quietly create a constant need to be more prepared and more certain, and this is how we try to defend.

We try to defend that identity by having more knowledge, having more preparation, being more and more prepared for everything that comes up so that we– nothing gets through And finally, we looked at how things can start to feel different when you stop treating criticism as something you must prevent at all costs.

What we saw is that criticism isn’t really the problem, it’s the inherent vulnerability of a false identity. I am the expert. It’s a false identity. How can anyone be the expert in the perfect sense of the word? So when that loosens and we start coming back to who we actually are, I’m an interested enthusiast about this, then it’s basically the same thing, but without this identity.

Now I have all of that excitement and love for my subject at my fingertips, but without a false identity that I know I am the one who really understands, that really knows everything, that is infallible. So when that happens, then it starts to be a much more relaxed kind of presentation.

It starts to be something that you’re just sharing, and if other feedback comes in, it’s not any threat. So thanks for listening. It’s always great to explore with you. This program comes out three times a week on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Join me next time for Self-Compassion Wednesdays, where we dive deeper into understanding ourselves as highly sensitive people by exploring the unique traits that shape our experience.