Self-Criticism

We can be hard on ourselves - most people, in fact, are hard on themselves, and those people take the gift of self-evaluation very seriously. Self-criticism, to them, is a valuable, indispensable tool if they want to progress. For many of us, our desire is to have everything work the way we design it to work. We want life to flow the way we want it to. But as many of you have learned in years past: Man proposes, God disposes. And again: We make plans, and then life happens. We all need to remember that we are in for a rough ride when we are dealing with issues about life, people, places, events, and situations - they can be very crazy and unforgiving.

A couple of years ago, I travelled to London where I met a cousin who introduced me to his then-fiancée, a lovely lady, and we all had fun together. They traveled to Ghana and the US, where he introduced her to his side of the family. In fact, I met her in September that year, they had their wedding in November the same year, and by the following spring, they were divorced.

What happened? Many things happened. Some were noticeable before the wedding, and some popped up after the wedding.

This reminds me of a story about a man who called 911 on the morning of his honeymoon to report his wife missing and to complain that there’s a strange woman in his bed. The officer at the other end of the phone simply said, "You go to sleep, and when you wake up, you will see the woman you married." The point is that the wife always wore a good amount of makeup, hiding her real face behind the makeup. For good reasons, the husband actually didn’t know what the wife looked like until the morning of their honeymoon. She didn’t look like the same person he knew, so he felt he had to cry for help. Fact is, once the makeup is off, our real faces and characters show up - and the real you may be the person you are afraid to meet.

In bringing up embedded behaviors, we surprise each partner, providing each partner with a reason to doubt themselves and to ask if they made the right decision, or if they were so blinded by love that they missed all the warning signs. But to tell you the truth, love isn’t blind. Love has never been blind.

As we talked through the night, my cousin didn’t mince words, sharing with me that he was raised to do things right - near perfection or perfection, if you will. And so, when things don’t go right or are not perfect, he blames himself incessantly, engaging in self-criticism. It is as if he looks in the mirror and all he sees is failure, dejection, missed opportunities, the what-ifs, and the what-could-have-been. He bleeds over every failure, especially the failure of a marriage that was supposed to be perfect, or at least should have lasted longer than the sun and the moon. But here we are, picking up the pieces from a shredded piece of paper that was supposed to represent all that we believed about each other.



I remember sharing with him that there’s never one way of dealing with things like that, and self-criticism wouldn’t get you anywhere. Self-criticism should serve two purposes: to assess and rebuild. First, assess with all honesty what happened. Second, rebuild your life with the knowledge that failures teach us beautiful lessons about life.

The Tibetans have this saying: ‘If the problem can be solved, there’s no need worrying about it. If it can’t be solved, worrying about it will do no good.’ On this particular issue, his issue was a problem that couldn’t be solved, so why worry about it to the point where you drain yourself in self-pity?

Self-pitying drives most of our self-criticism, or self-criticism drives our self-pity, I think. Whichever way you look at it, one influences the other, and that process often dampens our spirits to the point where we fail to see the possibilities that lie ahead of us, or the abundant life that can become possible because of the blessings of a fresh start, the chance at new beginnings.

I am not in any way suggesting that we don’t have to criticize ourselves over our actions. We sure must engage ourselves in that exercise because that’s one of the surest ways of being transformed - maybe of understanding that you don’t have to be perfect. I also believe that it is a way of knowing that you can receive as much grace as you give because you happened to have met the part of you that you have been so afraid to meet.

Here’s a story for you:

“In a hidden temple, there was a mirror which was said to show the truth. But unlike normal mirrors, it showed no reflections, not even a shadow. Pilgrims traveled far to stand before it. Mots got angry, it’s broken, it’s a trick, and this is worthless. They walked away, disappointed. But one girl, who was curious, stayed. She sat before the mirror for hours, thinking if it shows truth, but I see nothing, maybe the truth isn’t what I look like, but who I have forgotten to be. She didn’t speak this out loud; she just thought it, and the moment she did, the mirror lit up, not with her reflection, but with flashes of every choice she avoided, every dream she buried, every version of herself she had silenced. She fell to her knees, not because she saw something, but because she finally understood that she hadn’t been looking for.”

Understand this: the truest mirrors don’t show your faces - they show the parts of you that you have been too afraid to meet.

Which part of you have you been too afraid to meet? Is it the one that languishes in self-criticism because it believes that all should look perfect, or the one who believes in the viability of new life?

I remember telling my cousin to enjoy life then, knowing that the grace you give is the grace you receive. And quite apart from being perfect, life always has a beautiful way of bringing life to the deserted places of our lives. Life has a way of renewing us. Life has a way of assuring us of God’s providence. Life has a way of helping us to understand that self-criticisms are never enough, nor do they satisfy any goal if it doesn’t lead us to rebuild. Cherish these words from Bruce Lee: “Life itself is your teacher, and you are in a state of constant learning.”

Psalm 46 has an interesting line: Be still. Be still and know that I am God. When you are hurting, Be Still. When you are confounded, Be Still. When you are lost, Be Still. When you are failing, Be Still. When life appears to be crumbling, Be Still. When you feel hopeless, Be Still. Be Still and know that I am God. Be Still and know that you are held by God.

Remember this: mountains may fall into the sea, but we will not be moved. You must be still because it is God who holds all our imperfections together and assures us that we don’t have to be perfect, but we can be graceful.



Manny+