Sometimes your biggest critics, the people who support you the least, the ones who tear you down to others, come from within your inner circle. They can be family, friends, or community members. But the fact is, while they maintain their façade, they are the crabs in a bucket, pulling you back in when you try to crawl out.
Let’s get elementary. When explaining it to young children, Brenè Brown uses the phrase “candle blower outers”. She explains that each one of us has a candle inside us that represents our spirit, our soul, our light. Sometimes it shines really bright. You want friends who celebrate your light and who protect your light: the kind of friends who make your light shine even brighter. We don’t want to surround ourselves with “candle blower outers”. We equally don’t want to be “candle blower outers” for others. When you put it into terms a third grader can understand, it makes a pretty great point.
So what do you do? You keep going. You keep accomplishing your goals, and you don’t start to doubt yourself simply because someone else is. Brenè says it best, “If you are not in the arena getting your ass kicked on occasion, I am not interested in or open to your feedback. There are a million cheap seats in the world today filled with people who will never be brave with their own lives, but will spend every ounce of energy they have hurling advice and judgement at those of us trying to dare greatly. Their only contributions are criticism, cynicism, and fear-mongering. If you're criticizing from a place where you're not also putting yourself on the line, I'm not interested in your feedback.”
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