More Than Anxiety

Ep 102 - How to Handle Negative Feedback and Criticism as a Highly Sensitive Person

• Megan Devito • Episode 102

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Ever felt like criticism cuts deeper than it should? 15-20 percent of the population are highly sensitive people (HSP), so you're not alone!
 
In episode 102 of the More Than Anxiety podcast, I dive into the world of HSPs and explore how to handle negative feedback. Learn practical strategies to manage emotions, boost confidence, use criticism to your advantage. Discover how to navigate other people's opinions, ignore intrusive thoughts, and build confidence and resilience. This episode is packed with actionable advice for HSPs and those who support them. 

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You know you're overwhelmed, burned out, sick to death of work but also trying to do everyting for everyone at home. TAKE THIS QUIZ to find out why you're so overwhelmed and what to do about it.

Megan Devito:

Welcome to the More Than Anxiety Podcast. I'm Megan Devito and I help ambitious women break out of the anxiety cycle that keeps them frustrated and stuck. Get ready for a lighthearted approach that will change what you think, how you feel and what you believe about yourself. This podcast is full of simple steps, a lot of truth, talk and inspiration to take action. So you walk away feeling confident, calm and inspiration to take action. So you walk away feeling confident, calm and ready to live. Let's get to it. Hey there, welcome to episode 102 of the More Than Anxiety podcast.

Megan Devito:

In this week's episode, I'm going to be talking to my fellow highly sensitive people, especially women, and this podcast kind of came about from some questions; I don't know if you guys are on LinkedIn, but they'll ask for input or questions or feedback or whatever it is on certain topics, and this was one that I started answering this question and it was all about how to handle negative feedback and I thought you know what Negative feedback for some people isn't just feedback. It actually feels like a personal attack. That's really where this episode came from and that's the direction I'm going to go. So, as someone who cries at pretty much everything and who takes things in using all of my senses and all of my emotions. Things can feel really extreme, even when they aren't anything other than just words that somebody is saying and maybe they're just words to help me improve. But this is especially true for people if you are like me and you are highly sensitive and you're at work and you're having, maybe, a performance review, or when someone else happens to just randomly offer up their opinion, whether it's wanted or unwanted. So when that feedback is negative and unexpected, highly sensitive people not only feel their own emotions, but they might feel someone else's emotions as well. So not only are we feeling those emotions, they're stronger, they're deeper, and I thought it would be helpful for you guys to just know how you can handle negative feedback more easily. This episode will also be beneficial for people who live with extra sensitive family member or a friend or a coworker anybody you know who wears their heart on their sleeve. So let's just go ahead and get started.

Megan Devito:

Let's start by talking about what a highly sensitive person is. This doesn't mean somebody who is controlled by their emotions. It doesn't mean somebody who is weak. What this really means is it's an external stimulus, like a beautiful painting or a gorgeous day or what someone is saying, or it might be internal stimulus, like they're deep thinkers, they're creative and they come up with these really passionate stories inside of themselves. Sometimes those come back and bite you, but they tend to be more sensitive to conflict or tension. They can feel energy, they read a room like nobody's business. And this is also about 15 to 20% of the population. So we're not talking about a small number of people here. We're talking like a pretty big chunk of the population.

Megan Devito:

If you are a crier and you're embarrassed that you're going to like tear up in public, don't worry, there's probably somebody not very far away that also feels the same way, because we are everywhere. But because of this extra sensitive nature that we have and we are more sensitive to criticism, or we respond by maybe shutting down, pulling away. Sometimes highly sensitive people also pick up self-destructive habits like drinking their feelings away or smoking their feelings away, or people pleasing or even lying to avoid criticism, even when it's meant to help them or benefit them. It can really come back to bite you when you don't know what to do with it. So I'm working with a woman right now who runs her own business in her community and, due to the nature of running a business, most of the time there's going to be competition between your business and someone else's. I know this as a coach. She knows this from what she's doing as well, and that's a good thing. It allows you to have choices. It allows people to pick one type of person they want to work with over somebody else, and it's not a problem unless you're using your business and the feedback you get about your business maybe someone's personal preference against yourself. So if you are using another person's opinion or someone's feedback about your business as a reason to judge yourself or to bend over backwards for everybody and in this case, for this particular person, but not only for her.

Megan Devito:

She's also very sensitive, but she has in the past really questioned her creativity and the entire premise of her business is she runs a very creative business and she has these fears about what other people will think about her or think about her business, and so we've talked in the past about are they talking about you or are they talking about what they like about your business versus what they like about someone else's business? Is it really personal? So that's just a conversation that we've had. This isn't entirely a negative feedback situation, but because she fears any negative feedback and takes it so deeply and personally when she just really hasn't had that experience to speak of and we can debate whether that's good or not too, because always feedback whether it's good or bad is beneficial. You can take positive feedback and use it for yourself.

Megan Devito:

You can take negative feedback and use it for yourself, but she has this fear of the feedback and she hasn't received negative feedback, but she's already anticipating what that's going to feel like, and part of that is overthinking, yes, but part of it is also being highly sensitive, and sometimes, when you are highly sensitive, you can start overthinking about ways to prevent, ways to fix, what you have to do to not experience that negative feedback, preparing for feedback and working on it, on what she wants to believe about herself, what she wants to believe about who she is as a person, who she is as a business owner, and we've talked about and practiced what she believes and knows to be true about herself and about her business, despite what anybody else says or might think. And we've rehearsed how are you going to handle if somebody says something about your business? How are we going to say if somebody badmouths you? So we're practicing ahead of time. This is something that, as a coach, we can run these simulations or these practice skits on the side and just say, okay, let's just practice how you would handle that? What would you say to somebody who had negative feedback for you? So we've been taking time to kind of wet the ground instead of putting out fires, by building her up, preparing without over-preparing, out of fear, and then setting boundaries, and boundaries around her fees, boundaries around the exceptions that she makes for who gets to work with her and who doesn't. And then, what scholarships do you want to offer to be able to serve more people? We've also spent a lot of time finding evidence that she is the best in her business and without outing her on this podcast, because that's not my intention, she knows that I would put her up against anybody else in the country for what she does.

Megan Devito:

She's amazing, but that doesn't make up for how sensitive she is or how sensitive her nervous system is. So one of the things that she and I will continue to work on is her accepting that her sensitivity and her compassion aren't weaknesses and her thoughts aren't truths. They feel threatening sometimes, and if you are highly sensitive, you probably understand what I mean by that. You start feeling, oh gosh, that felt really. That felt mean I feel, you know, I feel shamed, I feel guilty, I feel whatever it is that you feel and you start internalizing that and it does feel threatening to you as a person and sometimes we push back, sometimes there's these reactions.

Megan Devito:

So what we can also work on what she and I will also work on is managing emotions, and managing emotions is just talking about the feeling that you feel inside of your body. So, do I feel guilty? Do I feel sad? Do I feel bad? Because sometimes when we say if I'm working with someone, I'll say well, tell me what that feels like in your body, and the word that they can come up with is bad. And when you are highly sensitive and somebody gives you negative feedback or even constructive criticism, it can feel bad. But anxiety also gets described as bad frequently when I'm talking with people and bad is just like a bubble. But what's inside of the bubble so bad? Tell me what bad means.

Megan Devito:

And we start picking out those individual emotions. Because when we can take bad and say I feel attacked, okay, I feel attacked. Let's talk about what you're thinking about that makes you feel attacked. I feel sad. Let's talk about sad, let's talk about guilty, let's talk about shame and let's talk about all these emotions that are coming up for you, that are causing you to overthink what was really negative feedback that may have nothing to do with you at all. That may have entirely to do with the person who was giving the feedback. So what we want to do is pause and we want to label the emotion and decide what you think caused you to believe what they were saying was true, what caused you to believe it was a personal attack on you and what caused you to get defensive or have the reaction that you had. Then we decide together how you want to handle that emotion and this is a lot of the work I do when I'm coaching clients, along with knowing how anxiety feels in their body and how to use their intuition and their body as a guide to know the truth and to know the next best step when they're receiving that negative feedback.

Megan Devito:

What do you want to do with what this person said? What if they just said this looks great? I have a few suggestions and you took it as. They said it looks great, but they really were just being nice and they thought it was terrible and they think I should change the whole thing. Those are entirely two different scenarios, but for highly sensitive people it's easy to quickly go down that rabbit hole and get stuck thinking everything is bad because they said they had a suggestion for you. So we have to seek clarity, we have to get some perspective and, instead of believing how we're feeling because maybe our nervous systems are more sensitive, we have to remember that feelings are fickle and they're not facts. So we want to get curious about the feedback. What do you think they meant by it? If you weren't taking it personally, if you were offering that same feedback to someone else, how would you want them to take it? So getting curious instead of taking it personally or just believing all of the feelings inside of your body, is a really powerful step.

Megan Devito:

Discussing the value of what they said. You know what let's talk about. Is this valuable feedback or was this just somebody offering a random, unsolicited piece of advice? Was it feedback or was it an attack? Sometimes there are attacks that people say oh, no, no, no, I was just giving feedback. Sometimes people are just mean. But if she and I, or you and I whoever I'm coaching if we're discussing. How can I get more clarity on this, how can I really get clear on what was being offered to me? And then, of course, getting clear on whether it was constructive criticism from someone maybe your employer, maybe your best friend, maybe your spouse, maybe your aunt, whoever whoever this constructive criticism came from or was it actually that personal attack?

Megan Devito:

And I know this is a short episode this week, but I think it's really important to understand that, as a person who gives feedback, but also as a person who is sensitive, just remember that negative feedback can be really tough to take for anybody, but also as a person who is sensitive, just remember that negative feedback can be really tough to take for anybody, but it is especially difficult for people who are highly sensitive. And what that means for you, as someone who might be highly sensitive, is that because you are more sensitive to your emotions and other people's emotions too, you can become defensive or guilty or shameful, even when feedback is meant to be helpful and constructive. But in order to take that feedback and to let it go and use it to your advantage, you have to prepare for feedback in advance, you have to learn to manage your emotions and you have to learn to listen and trust yourself and your intuition. When you learn how to do those things, you don't let other people's thoughts or emotions affect your own. You get to decide what you're thinking and what you're feeling. They get to think and believe whatever they want to think, and when you learn to separate what they say from your emotions and your value as a person, the feedback becomes just words that you get to decide what to do with. So you stop feeling guilty and you open up to those new ideas and suggestions and you quit people pleasing and you start to trust yourself and to accept the feedback without it meeting your failing or your hated, and you quit criticizing yourself for making mistakes and you realize that mistakes are exactly what you need to do to be able to grow and become even better at whatever it is that you're doing. So I can't promise you that, if you work with me, that you will never be sensitive again, because you were probably just wired that way. But I can tell you that you can learn to trust your emotions and that you can stay calm without getting defensive or hurt, and that you can trust yourself so that negative feedback doesn't ruin your day or your week or however long you roll over it while you just keep thinking about it For however long, let's just make it last a lot shorter amount of time. So would you agree that being able to use feedback to help you improve without letting it tear you apart inside would make work a lot less stressful and maybe even more enjoyable and maybe fun, if that's possible? So, from one highly sensitive person to another? I swear, I swear you can do it, because I have to practice this myself.

Megan Devito:

So if you want to learn more about how working with me can help you make this happen, jump over to my website. It is megandevitocom. Hit the work with me tab. You can pull up my calendar from there and just schedule time for us to talk on the phone. Or you can always find me on Instagram or on Facebook and message me there. My DMs are always open and I'm always happy to answer questions, have conversations and ask you questions. So if I don't talk to you this week, I will be back again next week. Take care, have a great week. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the More Than Anxiety podcast. Before you go, be sure to subscribe and leave a review so others can easily find this resource as well. And, of course, if you're ready to feel calm, to stop overthinking and have a lot more fun, you can go to the show notes, click the link and talk to me about coaching. I'll talk to you soon.