278 - Growing Through Criticism
Types of criticism
Being criticized is never fun, but it’s a necessary and common part of life, and learning how to receive criticism can help you grow as a person and improve your self-worth.
Ann Friedman, a journalist, created the Disapproval Matrix, which is a fun diagram breaking down disapproval into its sources:
Additionally, it’s important to be aware of the tone of the criticism:
Gentle
Usually comes from friends and allies.
Often contains padding or pleasantries before it.
It can be difficult to tell how seriously they feel about it.
It’s important not to respond to gentle criticism in a defensive way.
Matter-of-fact
Gets straight to the point; no preamble.
Usually the easiest to understand what they want you to do differently.
Harsh
Blunt, can contain sweeping generalizations sometimes.
Difficult to differentiate from the haters sometimes (knowing the source can help).
Sometimes difficult to get to the heart of the matter because it feels so hurtful.
Dehumanizing
Important to identify because it’s normally not helpful to engage with.
Typically defined by attacks on you for who you are, not just what you do or say.
Revisit episode 175 - Adventures in Online Arguments.
In order to respond to criticism effectively, each source has different approaches, but they all have this in common: Don’t respond right away.
How to respond
Assume that the person giving you criticism has positive intent towards you. This doesn’t mean that you have to let them take advantage of you or believe what they’re saying, but if your own actions are based off of the idea of positive intent, there’s no downside to reacting this way. Maybe they:
Meant to be helpful and just communicated badly.
Were hurt (not specifically even by you) and lashed out.
If they meant for it to be hurtful in that moment, either they may be an internet troll or they want a reaction, and if you don’t give them that, who wins? You do!
The best way to respond to criticism is to act as though you’re speaking to your personal assistant who isn’t emotionally involved:
Thank the critic.
Assume positive intent, or at least act like you did.
You don’t need to explain yourself. It’s usually better if you don’t, in fact.
If they were just being rude, you can know that and not feel the need to apologize for them. Instead, you can take what they said and examine it, deciding if there’s anything of value in it. You don’t need to agree with everything they said, either; it’s also possible that maybe they just needed to be heard.
Transcript
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Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory podcast, we're talking about how to continue to grow and thrive when receiving criticism, especially criticism that comes from friends, partners, or other allies. When receiving criticism, it's common for people to fight back with defensiveness and counter-criticism or to freeze and shut down and give up.
Our social media even encourages this kind of thing by being more likely to show us conflict rather than healthy examples. Today we're exploring this incredibly important topic, discussing some of the challenges in handling criticism well, as well as some concrete ways that you can learn to improve yourself, be a better communicator and ally and bring people together instead of pushing us all further apart.
Dedeker: Wow, what a nice note to end on for that intro. Let's just cut it there.
Jase: We’re done, that's it.
Emily: And done.
Jase: Em and Deds, I was curious, what comes to mind when, if I said, "Hey, we're doing an episode about criticism." What does criticism mean? What comes to mind when I say that?
Dedeker: I get a little scared. I get a little, like, "Yeee."
Emily: When you were criticized or just like the idea of criticism as a whole?
Dedeker: I immediately put myself in that position of I'm going to be on stage with a spotlight on me.
Jase: Everyone's calling you names and telling you're doing it wrong.
Dedeker: No, not even calling names, not even when you think it's fun is that just really pinpointed critique of all my flaws and everything I've ever done.
Jase: Yes, I get that.
Dedeker: That's what I think of.
Emily: I think of the criticism that we've received over the years from doing this show, but how I am grateful, even if in the moment it hurt and sucks. I felt like a bad person or like a bad podcast host, but I think a lot of those things I've implemented in my daily life and it's become more second nature now. I really appreciate the opportunity to get to learn those things especially and also that we have a group of people out there listening to us that want to give us feedback and want to help us out in that way. Even if maybe in the moment it's like, "You did this wrong. How dare you." That's okay though.
Dedeker: That is the funny thing about being a content creator is that you can get the same piece of feedback from multiple sources and the feedback or criticism itself can be very valuable for yourself and your show and things like that but some sources can be real nice about it and real clear about it and some sources can be real jerks about it.
Jase: I feel like for me in the week of putting this episode together, my mind keeps going to, unfortunately, two memories of times in my personal life when I've received criticism and I've not handled it very well. When I've gotten mean back or I've gotten defensive and then often later we'll think about it and be like, "They were totally right, that made a lot of sense what they said."
I still feel a little bit like they were a jerk for the way they said it, but it still doesn't excuse my reaction because they were correct, whether it was about something I did that was rude or something that I should have been aware of that was insensitive or something at a party or at a friend's house or like something. I've just been preoccupied with remembering times I've received that criticism badly and being like, "I wish I could do that again."
Emily: Don't we all, it happens. We have done episodes on criticism before in various forms. In 232, we did criticism or how to doom a relationship and we talked about how criticism can end up causing a relationship to go awry. We discussed ways to minimize that or to give better forms of criticism like what Jase just talked about, receiving it better and giving it better.
Jase: That episode was very much focused on just giving the criticism. It was about how you--
Emily: I forgot we did it 50 episodes ago.
Jase: I know, it's a long time ago, but that one was about falling into this trap of especially in a relationship constantly nitpicking the other or defaulting to criticism or being nasty in your criticism to each other. That's more on the giving end, but today is more about the receiving end of that.
Dedeker: Also, in this Venn diagram of criticism, if you will, we also did an episode called Adventures in online arguments. That was episode 175. That episode dealt specifically with getting into an argument with people online or on social media, often criticism that's given on social media starts arguments. That is also a little bit different. If that feels relevant to you, we definitely recommend you go check out these episodes, but it's going to be a little bit different from all that today.
Jase: Right, plus the fact that that was 103 episodes ago.
Emily: Wow.
Jase: That one's just about how you behave yourself online. I thought a way to start this out. We talked about like Dedeker, you mentioned as a content creator, getting criticism, some of which is really constructive and polite and kind and others that's nasty and mean. I think that's true in our real lives too, where people can call us out on something in a way that's nasty and mean or in a way that is very kind but then even apart from that, knowing who the source is, is also important.
I wanted to look at a couple of different ways to think about and categorize criticism that you might be receiving. This isn't so much for using right in the moment, we'll get to that later, but this is more about just when you're thinking about it generally or thinking about it after the fact, some ways to help you evaluate that criticism can be to identify this.
First, we're going to talk about the source that it's from and then we're going to talk about the tone that it's given with and those two things are separate from each other. For this, I found this very cute diagram, I think we should link this in our show notes, but its called--
Emily: I'll put this up somewhere.
Jase: It's called the Disapproval Matrix. This is by a journalist, Ann Friedman. She does all sorts of slightly tongue in cheek, but a little bit serious diagrams and pie charts and things like that. This is something that she put on her blog that I enjoyed partly because it doesn't take itself too seriously.
Basically, there's two axes on the matrix where on the one hand, people who don't know you at all, total strangers and on the other hand, people who know you really well. Then the other axis is people who are very-- this is more about the criticism itself, but very rational and then on the bottom, she calls it irrational. I would also call it maybe reactive or emotional or something like that. Then in each of the four quadrants here, we have a different category. In the people who know you well and are also rational, she calls them lovers.
Dedeker: I imagine this could be not just lovers, but maybe family members on your side, friends who are on your side, people who are close to you.
Emily: People who care about you.
Jase: I think she means it more as just like people who love you, not necessarily your lovers. It's people who want to see you improve and thrive. People who give a fuck about you. Then on the side of people who know you, but are more of this irrational or more reactive, she calls frenemies, which she said these are people who don't really want to see you improve, but they know how to hurt you because they know you well or in her list of who this could be. She includes exes, toddlers, undermining coworkers, and yourself, and I was like, "Oof."
Emily: Yikes. Hashtag truth.
Jase: Then on the other side, we have the people who don't know you, but who are very rational and this is, she calls critics. These are people who are experts in your field or maybe who do have some valuable insight if it's more of a personal thing and they're criticizing your work or your actions and not you as a person, that's where the rational piece comes in. Then the other side of that is the people who don't know you and are also irrational or reactive which is the haters, specifically, YouTube commenters. I was like, "Yes, sure." She also says jealous ignoramuses and lesser rappers.
Dedeker: Those haters.
Emily:
Jase: Those haters, yes. This is what we dealt with in the Adventures in Online Arguments episode, which is the people who trolls. It's the trolls online. It's the people who don't really know you much at all and just want to fight somebody. They just want to be mean.
Dedeker: Right. I'm taking that it is really important that when you're receiving some kind of piece of critique, to really consider the source. It does really, I think influence how seriously or how much you take that critique to heart.
Jase: That can be hard.
Emily: Absolutely. Also, the tone in which they give that critique. There are different types of tones that one can receive and give when this happens, when you get criticism and when you receive criticism. The first one is gentle. I'm trying to think of when gentle criticism happens. I think a lot of times it occurs with friends, allies, people like that, not necessarily your romantic partner.
Dedeker: Yes, not necessarily.
Jase: Right.
Emily: But I think, often your friends tend to sugarcoat things a little bit more or have a lot of pleasantries or pad the situation like give a compliment sandwich, maybe.
Jase: Right. We have talked about that way long ago on this show.
Emily: It can be difficult when something is so gentle to tell like how your friend or how the person that you're receiving this from, how intensely or seriously they feel about that thing because they're padding it with all of those pleasantries and lovely tones, but it's important not to defend yourself or be hostile in these moments when you are getting this gentle criticism from someone. Just because yikes, that sucks. You're like, "Hey, I just have to tell you you did something not great, and let's maybe talk about it for a second." "Fuck you. How dare you?" Maybe, don't go there.
Jase: I think the way this one often shows up because they care about you and they're trying to be nice or maybe they don't know you, but they're trying to be nice in the way they present this, but it can also be really tempting to just justify why you did it, and not really take it seriously. It's almost like because they tried to be too nice, you felt like it also didn't really matter, or it wasn't actually serious and maybe for them, it was very serious and that took a lot of effort for them to try to be kind about it. I do think when there's that, be very mindful that you might not quite know the whole situation and that reaction to just justify yourself is so tempting.
Dedeker: Another tone that criticism can come through with is, just matter of fact, somebody who gets straight to the point of what they're critiquing you on without preamble. In this case, when someone is very matter of the fact, it's often the easiest to understand what they actually want you to do differently or what they actually feel could be improved. With this, I think about my theater days, like when you get notes after rehearsal. That ideally, a good director is just very clear of like, "Hey, change this blocking or you messed up this blocking or actually this line was a little weird, or can you try this thing?" That in an ideal situation, you just receive it also very matter of fact, just like okay, cool, thanks. Awesome. Cool. Writing it down, things like that. I think ideally, in a workplace situation as well, I think the ideal boss is able to give critique or feedback in a matter of fact way like that. Again, striking that balance between not so gentle that you don't really take it seriously but not so intense or hard or mean that you start crying.
Jase: This one, I think also something that I like about receiving matter of fact criticism. I don't enjoy receiving any of these but something that I do appreciate about receiving matter of fact criticism is with the gentle. Oftentimes, it's like, "Hey, I love you and your great, great work." I'm already bracing myself for but.
Emily: But.
Jase: Sometimes when it's just like I'm just going to get right to the point so you don't have a chance to brace and get tense before it even comes.
Emily: I appreciate the lack of maybe emotion that occurs in these more matter of fact situations because if you're feeling like the kind of trepidation on one side or the anger that is before the criticism happens, that can help inform your own emotions that might happen as well. Not necessarily, but sometimes. I think when something is matter of fact and to the point, you just are like, "Well, okay, I heard that. I need to sit with it now. I need to figure out how I'm going to respond to it." But it's not somebody else also acting in a certain way that informs your own specific emotions that might occur after the fact.
Jase: Absolutely. Or even just getting to the point first, and then following it up with, "I know you're doing such a good job and I only tell you this because I know you can do it or I think you would want to know." Anyway, this episode is not about giving criticism, although those are great notes, write those down, take them to heart, but in receiving it, identify that if you see that matter of fact criticism, even if you have the reaction to be defensive, hopefully, you can learn to identify it and go, "Actually, you know what, I do appreciate that and so I want to reward that."
Now, moving on our spectrum here, the next one is harsh criticism. This one is sort of like the matter of fact, but maybe contains more sweeping generalizations of, "You're always doing this." Or like, "Oh, it's just like you to do this thing, don't do that."
Emily: Or when my voice teacher is like, "You musical theater people just do X, Y, and Z." I saw opera, it happens all the time. I saw opera people, we really like--
Dedeker: Hold on. Hold on Emily, your voice is an opera person?
Emily: Yes. I'm learning some age-old standoff.
Dedeker: I just know it in my university. There was age-old standoff between the opera department and the musical theater department.
Emily: Yes, well, I'm learning both and I love singing opera but apparently, I'm not an opera student which no, I'm not. I never went to school for opera. It shows apparently.
Dedeker: I could have some grumbly things to say, some grumbly harsh criticism to say about opera people, but I'm going to save it.
Emily: Well, yes.
Jase: Oh my gosh. As we can maybe even see a hint of here, it can sometimes be hard to differentiate this sort of harsh criticism from the next category, which was like the haters that we were talking about, the YouTube commenters. It's sometimes hard to differentiate. I think this is where knowing the source can help. In the case of your voice teacher, it's like this is someone who is invested in your success and maybe she needs to work on how she gives this criticism or these statements, but for you, you can at least receive it and go, "Okay, I know that based on her position and our relationship and who the source is, what the intentions might be regardless of how it's being presented," as opposed to a random stranger on the street being like you musical theater people they always do this. [
Emily: Y'all are lazy. Exactly.
Emily: You're not real musicians. The last one are the haters, the dehumanizing points of criticism that tend to occur. This is important to identify the difference between maybe a harsh criticism person or someone who is dehumanizing you because generally, it's not particularly helpful to engage with those who dehumanize you. We talked about this in that episode on online criticisms and online arguments because it's easy to fall down the rabbit hole and just write a long diatribe about how much this person is wrong online, but perhaps it's just not worth it to do that. These people who tend to be dehumanizing in their criticisms, they might be criticizing you for who you are, not what you're doing or saying. They may say you're a bad person or you always do this or you are the problem as opposed to the thing that you did is the problem. Again, check out that Online Arguments, 175 episode for more on that specifically.
Dedeker: Looking at this spectrum of criticism tone. This is very applicable to relationships as well like we covered in our older episode that if you're critiquing your partner that as you slide closer to that harsh criticism or dehumanizing criticism, that's when you're going to start saying things like-
Emily: Name-calling
Dedeker: -you're so lazy, you never do the dishes around here or you are so forgetful and spacey because you always show up late and never remember, like when we have an appointment or whatever, things like that. You can hear those things and you may not think that that's dehumanizing language necessarily, but it is that key point of you're going after who this person is. Like you are a lazy person, you're a spacey person and you're a forgetful person. Even though maybe that doesn't sound like dehumanizing, it's still going to sabotage your partner actually being able to listen to that critique.
Emily: It's not the two of you against a problem. It's like you are the problem. That, to me, is a big difference and that's I think where the dehumanizing element comes in. It doesn't allow you to be like, "Well, fuck. Can I fix this problem because is it just intrinsic in who I am?"
Jase: Maybe the individualizing might be another way to say it because it tends to be like you're being now broken down into your whole identity is based around one aspect of you like you are lazy or you are this or you and all the other protesters out there are bad in this way. You're not a human. You're not an individual. I'm just making this generalized statement about you that's based in a lot of emotion and it's very much meant to be an attack. That's not a--
Emily: Even just using always statements, always or never statements also is similar to that.
Dedeker: All right. How do we respond to this, throw it in the garbage, completely disregard all this criticism or internalize it, and believe that we're really bad people? Either of those?
Jase: Yes, totally.
Emily: I've done both in my life for sure.
Dedeker: Oh yes, me too. Jase is the one who planned this episode, looked at many, many different guides for handling criticism. I know I've also looked at several different blog posts and podcasts and books and stuff like that about handling criticism or receiving criticism well. There's a lot of different approaches out there, but there is this big through-line, this big common step that all have these hold as being really important and that is, don't react right away. Whenever you get critique, whenever you get criticism, just don't go for the knee jerk reaction. Chances are whatever your knee jerk reaction is going to be is not a healthy one.
Jase: Yes. It's not the right one.
Dedeker: It's probably not the right one. Specifically, don't react right away with defensiveness or by arguing or by immediately justifying your actions or maybe immediately just like collapsing into like, "Oh my God, I'm so terrible. I'm sorry. Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God." Just don't react right away. That's the big old-- If there's nothing else you take away from this episode, this is probably the thing you should take away from this episode.
Jase: You could stop listening right now and you've got it all. No, I'm just kidding. We're going to cover a lot more about it. I think this one's interesting because what this looks like varies based on the situation. This is something that I thought a lot about in looking for resources and putting this episode together is it's a very different thing to say how do you apply this when someone comments on your Instagram post versus how do you do this when someone says this to you at the store? Those are pretty different situations.
Ironically, the online one, I think is where people get into the most fights and that's also the place where it's the easiest to just not reply right away. You don't need to reply right away. Just know whether it's a private message or a comment or whatever, you don't need to. There's no rule saying that you have to respond right away. In-person, I think it can be a little harder. That's where it comes down to practicing ways to respond in a neutral way, regardless of how you feel so that you're not having to come up with that response right away on the spot, and you're not having--
Because part of the reason for giving time is so that you can do this process of thinking about what's the source? What are they really saying the stuff that we're going to get into later and that takes some time to do. I'm actually curious if you two have any good examples of this, but in person, it is that maybe even having a script for yourself that's something along the lines of, "Okay. Thank you for letting me know." It's something that's just so simple that even if you feel like they don't deserve that polite of a response, that you can just give it and walk away and be mad.
Emily: I think that's a really good response because I know for myself, I'm pretty terrible about halting just in general. From what it sounds like you're saying, after receiving criticism, a halt, even if it's just like a unilateral internal one, is a good thing to do in this moment. Just by saying like, "Thank you for that. I'm going to take myself over here for a moment and think about it. Then I will be back with you momentarily." Maybe that's a thing to do when you receive criticism.
Jase: It's a hard skill to do in person and it's not always the right response. I will give that. There's not one-size-fits-all because there's context and things that go with this. It reminds me a little bit of something that my mom told me that she would do. This is when I was learning to drive. She was talking about when people honk at you or are mad at you for doing something when you're driving. She just told me nonchalantly one day. She's like, "Oh, I smile and I give them a wave." She's like so then they know that I heard them that they know that. Then also I hope that they think, "Oh, do I know that person? Oh gosh." It's like that's so good. Sort of like defuse the situation.
Emily: I should use that. I love it.
Jase: All right. We want to go on to talk about why this is so hard and some nuance of specific types of criticism that can be especially difficult and especially vital to respond to well. Before we go on to that, we want to take a quick moment to talk about our sponsors for this episode, and how you can support us and keep this information available for free.
Emily: Why is it so hard to receive criticism? It is for me. Some people are and some people aren't. When criticism happens, sometimes the person who's giving it to you, their tone can be mean. Even like well meaning criticism, it can come across as being mean.
Jase: Absolutely.
Emily: They may not intend it that way but sometimes it can happen. This is definitely true if the person giving the criticism feels particularly hurt by something that you did, and maybe if you internally know like, "Fuck, I screwed up there. Yikes. Here it comes."
Jase: That's such a good point.
Emily: It's both at once, converging together and creating this emotional disaster in the moment, potentially. Hopefully not with our tips.
Jase: I think you made such a good point to where not just they might be hurt, and so they're reacting extra mean. If you know you've screwed up too, you're much more likely to interpret them as being mean. At least that's been my experience. You're on defense already, because you realize, "Whoops."
Emily: Exactly. I got to say, sometimes also, there may be other underlying things that you feel resentful about, or they feel resentful about. All of that can converge within one criticism because it may not just be about that thing. I think Dedeker and I talked about this recently, where it was like, I had a fight with my partner about curtains, but it wasn't about the curtains. That resentment or whatever was happening underneath caused that small criticism to become much bigger in the moment,
Dedeker: Another reason why it's so hard to receive criticism is because it can feel like a betrayal. In particular, if it comes from someone that you view as an ally, or a friend or someone who's on your side, it can make it even harder to take. There's some advice out there that focuses on, "Okay. First of all, don't react defensively. Don't react angrily. Then take a moment, consider the source and then learn to just not worry about the criticism."
I think that's not bad advice. It can become a problem if it leads you to just sticking in your ways and never improving. I guess the side effects of that being also just discounting your friends and just be like, "Well, they don't know anything or they have an agenda or things like that."
Maybe that's just true but then sometimes in some cases, it may not be true. Then there's other advice that focuses on again, not reacting defensively, not reacting angrily and then figuring out, how do you find the truth in their criticism and then work on it.
Again, very, very good advice for a lot of different situations. On the flip side, it can also become a problem if this just causes you to internalize all criticism and cause you to shut down and give up and feel shameful and guilty and just like you're a terrible person all the time.
Emily: I know something that my mom has said to me in the past. She was like, "You're criticizing me but I realized after the fact, that was just about you."
Emily: Which sounds like my mom.
Dedeker: It sounds like 100% your mom.
Emily: I know. That's an interesting point though to think about is that sometimes there is like a transference involved there, in like okay, you're hearing criticism from someone else but actually, it's more internal stuff going on that is about that person. You do have to really sit there and be critical with yourself and think about like, "Shit, do I do that? Is that something that's really part of me or is this actually sound like it's about them?" Differentiating that is hard sometimes.
Dedeker: Definitely.
Jase: I would say part of why it's so hard to differentiate is because there's usually both. That's why it's important to look at both sides of this because say you're someone-
Emily: Mom.
Jase: -who takes all-- You tend to take criticism super personally. If someone says like, "Oh, my advice about this is to really sit with it and try to figure out what was at the heart of what they're saying and then try to make a change." You're going to be constantly changing back and forth all the time being essentially blown by the wind because you are already prone to that.
Whereas for you, that opposite advice might have been more helpful of, it might actually be about them. Then on the other side, you might be someone who tends to write off other people's opinions and think like, "Oh no, I've got this figured out. I have all the experience I need to know this." This especially comes up with things like criticism coming from your allies. You're posting something about black lives matter as a white person and you get criticism from people of color. It's like, "Well, fuck, I'm trying to help here and I'm getting criticized for it."
If your reaction to that is to say, "Oh, well, that's about them and not me", and not change, you're missing out on an opportunity to actually learn something and be a better ally because they have an experience that you don't. It's like in different situations, different ones of these could apply in it but you need to take the full context of the source and all of that other stuff.
Emily: I am glad that you brought that up just because this moment in time is so critical for anyone who's an ally and a white person and someone just to sit and reflect and think about how you contribute maybe to inherent racism in our society and what you can do to change that. Listening more in these moments is very important and I am glad that you brought that up, Jase.
Jase: I think it segues into the next one here which is receiving criticism can be especially hard if you're being criticized for something and your motivation for doing it was approval. That shows up in situations like this. Or trying to be a good-- whether it's right now and it's about black lives matter or if it's about pride month and I'm trying to be an ally to my queer friends or whatever it is. It is super important to do it, take a risk, but then also to be open to receiving criticism and willing to internalize that and understand it and change.
Again, considering the sources it's coming from.
In looking into that phenomenon, I came across Judith Katz. Judith Katz wrote this book called White Awareness Handbook for Anti-racism Training in 1978. She's a fairly influential person in that world specifically of corporate trainings and things like that. I don't want to get into discussions of her or her techniques and things like that for this topic. Something I thought was relevant to this discussion is that she was very critical of that feeling of guilt and then a need to perform that you're doing something rather than actually making a real change.
What she found is that because of that, she actually switched her anti-racism trainings from being mixed-race groups to being only white people in the groups and also avoided using people of color to reeducate whites because she found that it led-- When the instructor or the person teaching was a person of color, it led to the white people being more focused on getting forgiveness or acceptance from that person rather than figuring out how to make real change. I thought that was interesting.
It definitely made me think of criticism and how we receive it and identifying even if it's scary to admit it, what might be my motivations and how might I be able to change my behavior once I realized that.
Emily: I want to just say thank you again to Ruby Bouie Johnson. The very first time that we had her on our show, I asked her, "How can we be better allies to the African American community?" She was like, "That is not my problem. That is not a thing that I need to get to answer for you." I appreciate her for telling me that because that was the first time in that moment that I heard that ever back in 2015. Thank you again for that. There's a lot to learn on this show.
Jase: It's funny because that reminds me of another person, this guy named Jackson Katz which is weird that there's Judith Katz and Jackson Katz both came up in this episode, but I don't think they're related to each other. He has TED talk that I found very inspiring where he talks about domestic violence and sexual abuse are often referred to as women's issues but they're not. They're men's issues because men are the ones doing this. Like, "Hey man, let's figure out this problem with us. Let's not call this a women's issue." There's a similar like, "Let's find some ownership and try to make real change as opposed to just performing that I'm not like them or I'm different or I'm an ally."
Emily: Absolutely. Let's move on to talking a little bit about how to receive criticism better. The first one is a way in which I am not very good at it in my personal life but something that I really want to get better at and that is assume positive intent. Just assume that when the criticism happens, they have a positive intent towards you. It doesn't mean that you need to believe what they're saying completely or that you need to let them take advantage of you in some way if that's what is actually happening.
If your actions are based on assuming positive intent, then there's no downside to hearing and sitting and thinking about what they're telling you. There's a lot of ways to do that. Let's talk about some of those.
Dedeker: If you decide to assume positive intent, there are a number of different possibilities. It's possible that whoever criticized you did mean it to be helpful. Maybe they just did a bad job of communicating it and you decided to assume positive intent and great. You got the benefits of getting the feedback that they intended and you didn't start a fight over it.
Jase: If Dedeker were writing this story, it would end with them high fiving each other at the end.
Emily: High five and fin. Maybe they were hurt and maybe they just lash out and maybe they weren't even hurt by something that you did specifically but they lashed out to you. In this moment, if you sit there and listen and don't feel defensive and don't get defensive and angry at them, then they get to be heard and validated by you. Even again, if you don't agree with them in that moment.
Jase: Something that I like to point out with assuming positive intent is sometimes it's very clear that they didn't mean any positive intent and any reasonable person would realize that they don't. Yet even in those situations, if you act as if you assume positive intent, you can have this superpower. In the example of, they said something and they meant it to be hurtful. That was 100% their intention. One outcome of that is that if you respond to it as if they had positive intent and give a kind response that acknowledges their concern, sometimes that can immediately diffuse that hostile person. Like my mom waving at the people in the car. For some people, they go, "Oh gosh, I realize I'm being an asshole." This person gave me an out by responding nicely so then I can respond nice. Now we're good. Now we're nice.
Emily: That's really good advice.
Dedeker: We've seen it so many times. Again, to switch out of the personal realm and into the realm of ourselves doing the podcast that so many times we've gotten like very, very critical emails. I know at least my practice, when we get those emails to try to step away, let all the feelings pass through, and then come back. Again, look for where the truth is. That often when we respond just straight up kindly assuming positive intent that often people respond back even more positively than we did. The whole point of it is not to get that positive response but sometimes it is surprising that someone will reach out.
I think like, "Gosh, they sound so mad and so pissed off about this thing. I'm sure they're just permanently pissed off at us." Then just the fact that you're willing to listen and, again, assume that they were reaching out to you for a positive reason often produces these really positive results.
Jase: Where the reaction will be, "Wow. Thank you so much for actually listening to me." It's like they don't even expect it because that's not what most people do. It is a superpower. Then, okay, so check this out. Now same scenario. Someone said something and it was clearly intentionally mean and hurtful. In this case, you respond kindly. You assume positive intent and act as if they were trying to have a friendly debate or something like that. Then if they are just a troll who all they wanted was a fight, they don't get what they want which was to make you angry and upset you so their only option then is to just slink away underneath their bridge and troll some other people, or it's for them to like keep trying to engage and then it's just so clearly this person's the asshole and then this other person's not engaging with it. You end up winning either way. It's this win-win no matter what. This is what I love about assuming positive intent. It's hard to do which is why that "don't respond right away" step is there because without that I don't know if I could ever do this.
Dedeker: Second to assuming positive intent, another good hack for responding to criticism, I love this one, it's to respond as if you are your own personal assistant or executive assistant if you will if you want to feel more rich maybe-
Dedeker: -who just isn't emotionally involved. Like someone's telling your secretary this feedback and as a secretary or as the executive assistant you can thank the critic, you can at least act "professional." It is to be positive intent and you don't necessarily need to explain yourself right in the moment. That you can be like, "Okay, awesome. Thank you. I hear that. I'll pass along the message."
Jase: Maybe don't say exactly that part.
Emily: I love it. I'll help pass along the message to myself.
Dedeker: But I like that. I like that level of putting a little bit of a buffer between you and the criticism itself.
Jase: Yes, absolutely.
Emily: Yes, that's great advice. Finally, after all is said and done, you can decide what to do with this criticism. If they were in fact an asshole, you can hopefully figure that out and know that and you don't need to apologize for them, you don't need to try to-- You can defend yourself, but why bother? It's like, don't. You don't even need to do that in the moment. Just be like, "Cool, okay. Bye."
Emily: Maybe take what they say and see if there is anything valuable in it, especially if it is someone that you care about and that is a friend, or a lover, or a family member, an ally as we've been saying, and see if anything that they say has value to it.
Jase: Yes. I remember in the early days, especially, of Multiamory we would post our episodes on Reddit.
Emily: Oh, yes. Do we not do that anymore?
Dedeker: No.
Jase: I think we do sometimes but not regularly. I think sometimes other people will post them there, but when we were just starting out and posting our stuff into the polyamory subreddit, we would get some real nasty feedback sometimes. Also, people liked it and it did help us get the show out there but we would get some real mean, very critical, harsh feedback. I remember at the time we had to remember, "Okay, this is Reddit, this is the sewer pit of the internet. We don't need to take it too seriously," but at the same time, especially if we started noticing more than one person saying something similar, we did start to go, "Huh. They're kind of right. That does make sense. I could see why they would want us to get to the topic sooner." Was one of the ones I remember a few people at that time being mean about. We rambled too much before we got to the topic.
Anyway, just things like that. Even in that situation, I'm not going to say all those people were nice or I'm not going to say, "Oh, I'm so terrible. We screwed up so bad," but there is still value in being able to find like what the truth was in that, what is there that-
Emily: A nugget of truth.
Jase: -you do agree with.
Emily: Yes, absolutely. You don't have to completely agree with everything that this person is saying but exactly, if you can find the small nuggets of truth within whatever they're trying to convey to you then maybe you can make a positive change or at least start to think about what your behavior is, how you're being perceived by the world. Things like that. You know what? Maybe sometimes the person just needs to be heard. Maybe they just want you to listen to their feelings and the day that they're having, or the fact that you do this thing that really pisses them off and they tend to swallow it most of the time but you know what? Today that's not going to fucking happen.
Jase: Yes.
Emily: Yes.
Jase: I find very often this one comes up when it is more about them than about you. That maybe they have an experience, say, of people talking over them a lot in their life and they snap at you when you do it once, even if that's something you don't actually do very often but they've snapped at you. That's an instance where there's truth in it. Yes, you did do that and they felt the way they felt. They felt hurt by it. Two, you can agree but also I'm not going to agree that this is something I always do, if you don't. Really, just try to evaluate that for yourself but at the same time, it's realizing that even if it's still more about them than about you, it doesn't mean that that means you don't have to care.
It's like, "Oh, this might be more about them but I can do something to help them." I can say, "Yes, you're right. That really sucks. I'm sorry. I'll do better." If that's not something you already do that's an easy promise to fulfill. If you don't normally interrupt people it's easy to say, "Yes, thank you. I will be more mindful of that," and that's easy because you already do it. Does that make sense?
Emily: Yes. Let's recap what we learned today, shall we? Don't respond defensively when you receive criticism. That's our number one takeaway as we discussed before the ad break. Consider the source and the content.
Dedeker: Respond as if you were your own executive assistant. Thank your critic, assume positive intent from them, and don't feel the need to explain or justify in the moment.
Jase: I wish we'd covered that more actually. Just that you don't need to justify why you did what you did. Just thanking them and taking the feedback is sometimes more helpful, both for you and for them.
Dedeker: In my theater days, it was TTMFN, take the motherfucking note, which is that--
Jase: I feel like every time you say that you've added another letter.
Dedeker: No, I don't.
Emily: T-T-T-T-TTMFN.
Dedeker: No, it's always just been TTMFN.
Jase: I've always just thought it was TTFN. It's just "take the fucking note."
Dedeker: We always did
Emily: Motherfucking.
Jase: Okay.
Emily: Sorry, everybody. Swearing a lot in this episode, mostly me but yes.
Dedeker: I think the thing that I would see would happen sometimes with actors is that a director can just be like, "Oh, hey, in this scene you messed up that blocking. Make sure that it's actually this kind of blocking." Even if the actor's like, "Oh, yes. You're right. I did mess that up," they still would feel the need to be like, "Oh, yes. I messed that up because I thought that this was happening, and so and so moved over here and so I thought--" It's just like, "No, no, no. We've been in rehearsal for four hours already. Shut up and TTMFN."
Emily: Yes. It's eleven o'clock at night, get the fuck-- Yes.
Dedeker: Yes.
Jase: Yes.
Emily: Totally.
Dedeker: I think the same thing can happen here. When you're called out on something especially, you really can just be like, "Wow. Thank you for calling that out. I'm going to make action to change," instead of having to go onto this whole six paragraphs of, "Well, I thought that it was okay to say this because this is my impression and then I read this thing, and this person said--" I'm just like, "No. No one's asking you. No one asked for this."
Emily: No one asked for this.
Jase: Right. It's like that's the work to do later like we were talking about. It's like that's the work to figure out how do you feel about this, what do you actually want to implement in your life. Which is step three here? First step is don't respond defensively. Step two, respond as if you were your assistant. Thank them. Assume positive intent. Don't justify. Then step three is evaluate what to do next on your own. I think this one can sometimes be missing from advice on this topic, which is that not only trying to find the real core of what they're saying. It's also deciding, do you agree with it? What about it makes sense? What about it might you need to learn more about?
Then this important last step of actually trying to implement the changes. That if you do agree with it, really trying to implement those changes. Like we talked about before, this isn't as simple as just doing the thing they told you to do, but how do I really make the change that I agree with that's at the heart of what they said and not just show that I did the thing they asked.
Emily: Being a performer.
Jase: Yes, exactly. I think that one shows up with allyship a lot but also just in our own lives too, with your partner or something. If they're criticizing you and you think there's some validity to it, find some ways to really make that change in a lasting way rather than just-- Often in relationships it's the go overboard, doing the opposite of it for a day or two and then you just revert back to how you were before because it was more performative and not about actually finding a way to change the behaviors at the core of it.