Law of Attraction in Action: Criticism

This is the 16th post in my series on the Law of Attraction in Action, inspired by watching Louise Hay’s You Can Heal Your Life, the movie, expanded version. You CAN use your power to attract all that you need. I do it every day!

When I was a doormat, I took criticism to heart and let it annihilate my already low self-esteem. If someone said I was wrong, I was wrong. If someone said I was fat, I was fat. The messages in the criticism I got became my reality. I put it out to the Universe as my truth and the Law of Attraction reinforced that. Has someone called you dumb? Too short? Not attractive enough to find a good romantic partner? Incapable of getting promoted too far? Not good at doing things you want to do?

Your response to criticism controls your reality. If you accept it as true, it becomes true. If you refuse to listen or to accept it as true, it isn’t accurate and doesn’t cloud the sunshine in your world.

DoorMats take everything people say personally. Since we want to please, we feel we must accept what the person says. That keeps you stuck more in DoorMatville. Criticism becomes like poison darts through your happiness. Accepting criticism as truth molds you into the person you attract with the Law of Attraction’s help. For example:

* If someone says, “You’re fat,” your perception can make you act like you’re ashamed of your body and feel unworthy, or feel a nice kind of curvy. I was a fat girl until I decided I’m a sexy chick with a hot, curvy body. You may need to lose weight but that doesn’t make you fat. Only believing that you are makes it true.

* If someone says, “You’ll never get anywhere,” you can believe it and not get anywhere or refuse to accept it. Then the skies the limit! I used to feel limited when people told me my limits. I unhappily taught school for years when people said this was the only thing I could do. Now anything is possible in my world!

Limitations must be signed off on by you. Your only limits are what you accept and send to the Law of Attraction to bring back to you. I finally realized that just because someone thought I couldn’t do something or wasn’t good enough or thin enough, it mean it was true. It’s YOUR choice, not your duty, to accept what others say about you. It’s YOUR choice what direction your thoughts send you on.

If you use it as motivation to prove the criticism wrong, the Law of Attraction supports it not being true.

I always loved writing but some of my teachers didn’t like what I wrote. In sixth grade, my teacher signed my autograph book saying that someday I’d be a famous author. I hoped I would. But it got confusing as I got older–like being on a seesaw as some teachers gave me good grades for my writing while others didn’t. In college, I wrote a paper for an English class and my professor praised my writing. I actually turned in the same paper when I switched schools and had similar assignment. The second professor tore my writing apart. It was the same writing!

Criticism for a component of your dreams can keep you from realizing them.

After college I gave up on the idea of writing professionally for years, questioned my ability and wrote just for fun. One day I found my old autograph book and saw Mrs. Patrick’s prediction of me being a famous author. No way! I still didn’t think it was possible. As my music business and self-empowerment workshops became more successful, people pushed me to write books on the topics. I balked, explaining I wasn’t a good writer. But a seed was planted .

Eventually I decided to see if I could develop a book. I jumped between ideas until I had parts of several written. A friend knew a literary agent and offered to take one to him for feedback. He tore my writing apart. OUCH! I stopped writing again. But the seed remained. I read a little of his criticism and found some helpful advice. Using it did make my writing better. Then I read On Writing Well by William Zinnser. It truly taught me how to improve my writing. The confidence I got from implementing the lessons helped me to persevere and get published!

Another valuable lesson sunk in: There will always be people who like, or don’t like, what you do, especially if you’re in a creative field. Don’t give them power over your thoughts!

I don’t like a lot of the music played incessantly on the radio but plenty of folks do. I’ve read many books and gone to see movies that got trashed in reviews, and liked them. And I haven’t liked many that had 5-star reviews. Criticism is an opinion. Not fact! It’s an opinion that’s YOUR choice to believe or not. No one likes or agrees with everything.

What counts is what YOU think.

People who criticize often need to put others down to feel better about themselves, even if they speak under the guise of “trying to help you. They may not mean to hurt you, but that still doesn’t make it right. Have compassion to recognize the place it comes from and the awareness that enables you to form your own self-image.

Not adopting what people criticized about me helped my efforts to grow into a strong woman who loves her life, and, most importantly, herself! You can grow stronger by recognizing and deflecting critical word darts hurled by other. Give yourself the power to choose your destiny by doing so!

When you let the Law of Attraction know who you really are, you can grow into the person you CHOOSE to be. I sure did!

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