Does negative criticism, put downs, etc have to hurt?

[charlieHungerford]

If tomorrow you were either the butt of someone's joke, or someone said something negative about how you look or about your personality, does it have to hurt?

I know from past experience that people saying nasty things about how I look for example absolutely devestated me, I felt like a freak, but does this have to hurt?

What do you think?

 

[van_sp]

No way. That's the reason we're typing away in this forum. If someone says, or acts in a negative manner towards us, and it bothers us, the sole reason it bothers us is that we're buying into it.
We need to first be ok ourselves, and whatever physical aspect/s of our bodies that we're not happy with, and change or accept those things first. We can't change what we look like, we can improve what we look like by dressing better, or losing weight/working out, but some things we can't change, so we should choose to accept them. Right now we're not. It's a shift in thinking.
The real us is actually inside our bodies, and not our bodies, everyone will get old and ugly.
We need to love ourselves now, fat, ugly, good looking, tall, short, skinny, social phobic, however we are, and not mistakingly compare ourselves to an image we create in our mind of someone else, or a future "us" thats been cured.
No matter what our goals, I think the fastest way to achieving them, is through self love. Rather than saying I will be happy when I have more friends, or I will be more confident when I lose the weight, just start loving yourself now, every day, every time you beat yourself up or think a negative thought, catch it and change it.
Once we get to a point that we are ok with ourselves, other people will not be able to affect us so easily, we will have a boundary that will keep shit out, and the good vibes in. And when people see us not giving a rats ass about a judgment they made on us, they will ultimately come to respect us. And we, in turn, will have even more respect for ourselves.
No matter which route we take it has to start with self respect, and self love, so we might as well quit wasting time and start loving ourselves now.

 

[charlieHungerford]

Thanks for replying, I didn't think I was going to get one!

You are totally right that it doesn't matter, but we believe it does.
I kind of think that we started off so sensitive about negative feedback that we took it so hard and so hurtful that we have based all of our opinions on this negative view of being judged negatively. But the fact is that it doesn't matter. We have all heard negative comments about other people and not really taken much notice, we have had negative comments made about us, but what does it matter now?
I was made fun of by a woman at work a couple of years ago, she was pointing out parts of my appearance and making jokes about how I looked. It hurt me so much, I was so ashamed, I felt like a freak, I felt like I must be so ugly and was so upset that people I liked were hearing all of this, they must be thinking 'yeah he is ugly' or whatever.
The fact of the matter is that it doesn't matter. It was only so hurtful because I believed negative comments are so hurtful. But what impact does that situation where some loud mouth woman was taking the piss out of how I looked? The fact is everyone on earth will have a % of people that may think critical of how they look. I have even heard people criticise models, attractive celebrities, etc. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, just like people like different personalities. I mean look at those rough people who are horrible and you would hate to know, they have friends. People who are nice have friends, etc. Everyone likes different things, if people do not like us, well you have to expect it because we know that some people won't like us, but that doesn't matter because there are plenty of people out there who will do. Don't dwell on those who think negatives of us, move on from that, what do they matter to us - they don't like us, so they are irrelevant to us! I mean we care about people who matter to us - like family and friends, we don't care about people we don't like, so why waste our time worrying what people who don't care about us think of us?

I am not sure that loving oneself is the answer. I mean I totally agree that make the most of yourself is so important, but is it possible to love your appearance if you are clearly not satisfied, if you have had loads of put downs about how you look? Personally I don't think you can ever change completely how you see yourself, I mean I look ok I suppose, but have had lots of negative comments. I will never have a positive confident image about how I look, I just don't think I am desirable or women would find me attractive. But, I don't think the answer lies with loving oneself, I think the answer lies with realising that what people think and negative comments, people thinking negatively of yourself doesn't matter. That is what we fear - people thinking negatively of us, not what we think of ourselves. I think from the word go we lost the plot as to the reality and how important negative comments about us were. We took them so hard and so hurtful, but the reality really is that they do not matter. We need to become thicker skinned, we need to address our beliefs on the importance of what people think of us, it doesn't have any impact on our lives in reality and as for negative comments - yeah they are not nice but is there any need to fear them? If they happen they happen, no amount of worrying will stop that, but what does it matter? If someone thinks I am ugly or that I am not good enough well so be it, its one person. That doesn't make it a fact. What impact does what you or I think about anyone matter? It doesn't matter.

I think the answers to beating SA involve getting out of this mindset that we believe what people think of us and people thinking negatively of us matters and is so important. It doesn't matter, it doesn't mean anything. One must not take negative comments hard, everyone can be criticised or judged negatively, no one is perfect, we are humans, we are all unique, flaws do not really exist because we are human and everyone has flaws. Some people even have two heads, some people are like 2 ft tall, some people have mental ages of 3, this is just human nature. For us to worry about being boring or we are not good looking enough or whatever we worry about, its just bloody stupid really.

We definitely need to put things back into perspective about worrying what people think of us and how sensitive we are to people thinking negative things of us, negative criticism, etc. So what? It doesn't matter!