Lindsey Nordby

Pride is a vulnerable thing. Nobody wants their pride hurt. And when you’re especially proud of something you did, sometimes it’s extremely difficult to receive any sort of criticism on that thing, constructive or not.

I run into this a lot. Typically, I am extremely proud of the things I do, because I find myself pushing myself out of my comfort zone to do things I haven’t done before. One example of this is the floorboards I installed across the whole main level of my house. I feel especially proud of them, however whenever people come over for the first time I feel this incessant need to point out the flaws in them so others don’t see it and offer criticism.

I am quick to take criticism as a personal attack. Even though, consciously, I recognize that it is not one, but I have a hard time building a distinction between the two.

Without attacking anyone in my past, there are a few people who, while growing up, only ever had negative things to say about me. Even when something didn’t regard me at all, I still got ridiculed and criticized. To this day, these people still don’t have very many good things to say about me. As a teenager, I never knew what I did to cultivate this hostility. As an adult, I sorted out how this wasn’t against me, but the remarks I received came from an unhappiness with themselves. Even still, these comments rooted themselves deep down and are the cause for me thinking that all types of criticism, constructive or not, are against me.

Circling back, as an adult who finds a lot of pride in her work, criticism is a hard battle for me. I ran into this battle recently, which got me thinking about it for quite a while now. A group of friends and I play a frequent game of Dungeons & Dragons (yes, nerdy, I know – blame Michael). Back in January, we played a similar version, however the game had ulterior motives that we were not all briefed about. In short, the game was designed to learn the flaws in our play styles. Following the conclusion of the game, the team leader went around the table and critiqued the things he thought we could all work on. While done with the best intentions, I had a really hard time with this. Walking into the game thinking it was just a nice game with friends and then later learning of the actual plan sat with me in all the wrong place. It brought me back to a place of feeling like everything was “Lindsey’s fault”, as was so recently regarded as a teenager. I felt like my contributions weren’t being valued, but rather that I was being sized up and that I wasn’t performing as expected. It tapped into the deeper rooted feelings of negative and hurtful criticism.

Going home that night, I felt heavy. Because it was a late night, there was not much I could do to rectify the situation, so I slept on it. The next morning, I woke up deciding to try to brush it off and move forward, recognizing that the individual from the night before’s intention was not to attack at all. I really had to convince myself of this though.

I share this all with you for a number of reasons.

First, to emphasize how I am just as broken and flawed as the next person. I read so much into things because of experiences in my past that it hurts me in the present. It is a trait I will never stop trying to challenge in myself.

Second, I share this with you to encourage you if you ever experience feelings like this. One thing I have learned from this whole battle with these feelings is that nobody but myself can define who I am. If someone takes issue with a way I live my life, that is on them. They can provide criticism all they like, whether good or bad, and I can choose whether or not I want to take it into consideration. But, others opinions of me don’t matter. All that matters is what I think of myself, and what God thinks of me. And God loves me deeply and fully, despite whether or not I make decisions against what He would otherwise want me to do.

If nothing else, I hope you can take this away: Words are just that, words. If someone offers criticism, you can brush it off. They are not taking a sword and stabbing you. Sure, words can cause temporary damage. They do hurt! But let it be that – temporary. Words can hurt, but they can’t scare. You can make the choice to move on and not worry about what someone said. Because, again, the only opinions that truly matter is that of yourself, and that of God.

Together, we can challenge ourselves to not take everything personally!