I don’t respond well to criticism…

Not to be flippant or overly dramatic, but the emotional spectrum that I experience in response to criticism is not unlike the stages one goes through when dealing with grief and loss. There’s a lot of shock, denial, anger, bargaining, guilt, depression and eventually acceptance. I would have thought art school would have strengthened my immunity to criticism, but I think it did exactly the opposite.I used to balk at my scholarly comrades who would be flipping out over their exam that they had months to prepare for and would be writing in a sea of hundreds of faces. At least if you fail the test you fail in anonymity. Try failing publicly in front of a class of fifteen of your peers! I guess that experience speaks to a larger fear of putting myself out there in general, but that’s another story. I need to be eased gently and slowly into a critique, like an old man getting into an Epsom salt bath. You can’t just dump a bucket of water over my head!

I found myself in a situation recently where I was on the brunt end of some criticism masquerading as advice. It was kind of a point by point rundown of all the things I was doing wrong, which seemed to be everything, because we were talking for quite a while. After the unpleasantness was over, I just thought, what am I supposed to do with this information? This person made it seem like I should just flip the closed sign, board up the window and skip town. Could it really be THAT bad? Damn. I suppose I'm an easy target and wear my insecurity on my sleeve, it’s pretty obvious to anyone with a shred of awareness.

My Ma always says ‘bullshit baffles brains’ and I’m starting to think this is true. I meet other business folk who seem to exude a natural confidence. I often misconstrue this confidence for arrogance and smugness, but they are simply just baffling my brain with their bullshit. It really works! But how? Is this skill innate? Can I learn it? And if I can learn it, is it going to cost me money like some bogus motivational seminar?

Other than the week I spent in the throes of some emotional episode, November shaped up to be an alright month! It seems like for every negative Nancy there are five positive, delightful souls waiting in the wings to boost your spirits. Unfortunately for me, and most others, it's usually the negative ones we tend to dwell on.

I have high expectations for December, I don’t typically like to have expectations, but I have to assume people need Christmas presents, non?

Happy holidays! xx