“You OK?”
“Yea.”
I feigned stoicism. I knew I should’ve filtered out the criticism, but deep down, I began to doubt myself. Alone, as I felt the full force of the words hurled at me, albeit online, I flinched.
This was not new- having my commentary published and facing criticism. Years ago, struggling to recover from a cyber-vitriol episode (think having yr name dredged in sand via 800-shares by whom you thought was one of your childhood literary heroes for a newspaper commentary), I hid under the covers in tears.
The online world can be a harsh place.
But I’m learning, that each time we fail to process criticism, fail to see whose opinion matters and whose doesn’t, we run the risk of letting fear set in next time, playing small and eventually, being paralyzed from sharing our gifts with the world.
In her book “Daring Greatly,” Brene says: “When it comes to others’ opinions, there’s a fine line between caring so much that we lose ourselves, and not caring at all, resulting in the loss of our capacity for connection.”
I think it’s healthy to shed tears, even if they’re over people who “may not matter.” The truth is, hurtful words – hurt.
Yesterday, I did the Square Squad exercise for the first time: “Take a 1-inch x 1-inch square of paper and make a list of people whose opinions matter to you – those people who love you, not in spite of, but because of your vulnerabilities and imperfections.”
As I wrote the names, people I could count on, who could call me out lovingly, it gave me courage to know- that these were the people whose opinions mattered most. I realized that was my hope for my children too- to rise strong and dare greatly every time. 💪🏾
My hope is that as you rise strong from failure, with mud on your face from the critics, that you’d know, in spite of your foibles and failings, that you did so while daring greatly.
And because of that, you’d keep writing, keep speaking out, keep giving of yourself and sharing your gift, however small, with the world.
Who’s in yr Square Squad? ❤️