How to overcome being critical or judgmental of yourself or others
Summary: The abuses a person suffers as a child from their parents or caretakers becomes their inner voice and the way they treat themselves and others in their adult life. The first step in overcoming this is realizing it is a pathology and how unhappy in makes you, as well as how destructive it can be in a relationship.
There is extensive information that provides awareness to these issues and how to overcome them in my book, “The Power of Personality Types in Love and Relationships.”
Excerpts from the book:
Control:
A controlling person might feel that controlling a partner replaces the lack of control they felt as a child, alleviating some of their fear and possibly resentment. The negative past experience does not necessarily have to be obvious abuse as a child. Everyone is sensitive to different things. Controlling others could be simply an attempt to overcome the ill-treatment from a well-meaning yet critical or judgmental parent.
When evolving a person realizes there are two options: either trust or control. One cannot exist if the other is present. A strong degree of closed-mindedness is also typical of those who try to control others, this is why the fight against this, led by awareness, starts with the open-mindedness to realize it exists as a pathology, not reality.
Critical:
People who are critical often don’t realize it’s the behavior they were taught by their parents that they didn’t like, that they now possess themselves. This happens mostly on a subconscious level; they don’t realize they do it because they are so accustomed to it happening. (This is typical behavior of the personality type in my book called ‘selfish entitled’)
It is difficult to be in a relationship with someone critical of themselves for many reasons, some obvious, some not. For one, they enter a vicious cycle that starts with being critical of themselves, causing them to assume other people are equally critical of them for the same reasons. This then causes anxiety and resentment against others that they have to overcompensate for and this makes them unnecessarily defensive, especially in relationships.
This is one of many reasons it is hard to even be friends with a person who is very self-critical. For this reason, look to see where you are critical of yourself and realize how you are sensitive to others in this area. Then you will lower the risk of turning simple communications into potential fights.
Using Approval
If you are critical of yourself or others, you need to realize that this is a major cause of unhappiness. You have been using criticism for years, and unhappiness is where it has led you. Try approval: that is, approval of yourself and others. Every time you want to point out something negative, take a breath and give yourself or the other person approval for something instead. This will also carry over into your relationships positively just the same as being critical does negatively. Trying this for just thirty days will change a relationship.
There is a lot of information in my book that can help you overcome this devastating issue of being critical against yourself. I would also recommend meditation in order to help you to quiet your mind and find peace and further awareness. You can learn how to meditate and the benefits of it by clicking on my blog here.
See the reviews on Amazon:
The Power of Personality Types in Love and Relationships: Build a Great Relationship with the Right Partner and Stop Wasting Time on the Wrong one
Click here to hear an interview with Bill Farr about Personality Types for Jennywire, online, self-help magazine.