Life Lessons with Risa: Negative remarks hurt

A reader writes: “A friend called me ‘frumpy’. It hurt my feelings very much. I can’t help thinking about this remark all the time. I am quite sensitive, and it often happens that someone says something negative about me that I just can’t shake. Any advice?”

I overthink things a lot too, even though I’m a life coach and have the tools to deal with it. So, remember you are not the only one who struggles with this. The first step to snap out of this going over and over some criticism in your mind is to get really curious about the feeling a person’s words are creating for you. When your friend said that, how did it make you feel? Ashamed? Inferior? Inadequate? Take your time and explore the feeling. Try to find that feeling in your body and describe to yourself how and where you experience it. After you’ve sat with the feeling for a while, and it’s no longer so intense, you can now try and see if you can change the way you think about this incident.

You do that best by asking yourself questions. Such as:

·         Whom do I like or love who’s also frumpy?

·         Why do I like this frumpy person so much?

·         Whom do I admire, who is a sharp dresser?

·         Do I too want to be more of a sharp dresser?

·         Is my friend an example of a sharp dresser and that’s why she said it?

·         Do I want to be like her?

·         Or do I always want to stay a little frumpy?

I want you to reinterpret the incident so that you’re learning something about yourself and your friend. You are also deciding on purpose what kind of person you want to be. Furthermore, you’re teaching yourself that when people say things, they usually project their own view of themselves and the world onto their words. They’re usually merely uttering their own opinions, not the absolute truth.

What is an absolute truth though, is God’s unconditional love for you. Whether you’re frumpy or not. Remember this wonderful verse: “See what great love the Father has given us that we should be called God’s children—and we are!” 1 John 3:1.

And here’s my final tip, precious child of the highest God. If these words keep haunting you, it may take more than one round of the process above to get to a new, better story about it. And that’s okay too.