The Art of One Single Breath

As it turns out, I am not a big fan of criticism.  Just ask my hubby. Whenever I receive it – even the constructive kind, I see it as judgement – sometimes harsh, unfair judgement.

It’s no surprise that I have identified this as one of those things to work on, sort through, look at from all sides, inside and out to gain some insights.

And of late that is just what I have been doing.  As we pack up our home of 12 years to move house, with our mountains and mountains of stuff that we have gathered along the way (hands up who has kids!), tempers are being frayed. As we tackle what seems an overwhelming amount of fix-up jobs to put our existing house on the market, the stress levels are rising.

So to make it through the next month intact, I realised things are going to have to change on the criticism front.

My recent journey has lead me to understand one important thing though with regards to this criticism – it needs to change, but change from within.

 The issue lies with me and how I receive criticism. Not with anything that my husband says – or even how he says it.

And at the crux of it all lies not one but two versions of my ego. Yep why would we only have one ego to deal with when we can have many.

To sit back and observe my ego at play becomes a little trickier when there’s more than one.  Reactions happen at lightning speed as they bounce off each other and before I’ve even taken a breath the situation has escalated and I have engaged in a confrontation that is often unnecessary and unfounded.

I used to pride myself on “over-delivering” when I worked in the corporate world – my ego was definitely running the show and was determined to avoid criticism at all costs.  And in the end, the price of exhaustion was costly indeed.

Now that I have extracted myself from that space, this avoidance of criticism is playing out in a different way.  With one simple comment from my hubby about whether something has been done – or finished, my quick as a flash multi-layered ego has simultaneously said – “See he knows you’re not good enough/worthy/a failure – and he’s right” and “Who the hell is he to tell me I’m not good enough/worthy/a failure – I’ll show him”.  And then I’m back in “over-delivery” mode fuelled by resentment. And the results aren’t pretty for anyone. And the truth is the confrontation is happening inside but being projected externally onto my hubby.

So I am dedicating myself to finding the pause.  That moment just before the reaction  – I’ll start with a breath – and then I’ll increase it to a deep breath – levering just enough space between the comment and the reaction – to be the observer. And I’ll recognise that my ego is looking for validation of it’s belief that I am not good enough and also looking to avoid that validation at the same time.

A long term ingrained habit of the ego can only begin to be changed with a decision to breathe.

Do you have somewhere in your life that you need to take a pause?

That One Single Breath? 

Creating a tiny crevice of space to change the outcome? A way to allow internal peace to take place of internal battle? I’d love to hear in the comments where you need to take a pause in life – as always your comments and ideas are an inspiration to me.