How to Stop Internalizing Criticism from the People Closest to You
3 Tools I give my clients
There's a moment most of us know well. You receive a dig from a colleague, a family member, or a peer, and instead of letting it roll off, you internalize it. You turn it over, you start questioning yourself, maybe even downplaying your achievement to make the other person more comfortable. And just like that, a comment that took three seconds to say has hijacked your focus for the rest of the day.
Here’s what I want you to know: that reaction has nothing to do with you.
When the people around us start to feel the distance between where they are and where we're going, something gets activated in them. It's not malicious most of the time, it's fear. Fear that you'll change, that they'll lose you, that your growth is a quiet judgment of their standing still. They don't always have the self-awareness to recognize it, so it comes out sideways, as a joke, a guilt trip, a passive comment that lands like a small blade.
Here’s what that looks like in real life.
