Vachon Imagined

I read a wonderful post from a fellow blogger this morning about criticism. He outlined what happens within us when criticism arrives—something we can all recognize if we are willing to pay attention.

We contract.

We defend.

We become afraid.

Not of criticism itself, but of what it awakens within us.

This is an area where I have struggled throughout my own life, so perhaps it is no surprise that I see it in my son. He is only ten years old, yet when I corrected a math problem yesterday, I watched it happen in real time. Fear. Anger. Panic. His body reacted long before his mind could explain why.

Where did it come from?

Him.

That may sound obvious, but it is the beginning of all healing. The moment we stop searching for the cause outside ourselves and begin observing what is happening within, something changes. We are no longer trying to win an argument with life. We are simply learning to see ourselves clearly.

Without judgment.

Without defense.

Without fear.

That is the gift of self-awareness.

Yet self-awareness without humility becomes another story we tell ourselves. It becomes another identity to protect, another idea to polish. Humility invites us to remain present with what is, rather than what we wish were true.

Our bodies are remarkable teachers.

They tell us everything we need to know, if only we are willing to listen. Before the mind begins explaining, justifying, blaming, or defending, the body has already spoken.

You feel it.

You do not think it.

After reading the post, I called my son into the room. I asked him to return to yesterday’s moment when I corrected his math problem and he became angry and defensive.

“What did you feel?”

He immediately told me what it meant.

I smiled.

“No,” I said gently. “Not what it meant. What did it feel like?”

His mind had rushed ahead to the story. I was asking him to stay with the experience.

He paused.

Then, with the honesty only a child can offer, he looked at me and said,

“Anger.”

“Ah,” I said, smiling. “Yes. My sweet child… you felt anger. Bravo.”

Not because anger is good or bad.

But because he had finally seen it.

Once he could name the feeling without becoming the feeling, everything softened.

From there, we walked back through the moment together. Not to erase the past, but to experience it differently. He was free to respond instead of react, to see what had happened without condemning himself for it.

That is the practice.

Mental clarity.

Body awareness.

Spiritual alignment.

We stop resisting what we are.

We stop punishing ourselves for what we feel.

We allow the feeling to move, instead of becoming imprisoned by the story wrapped around it.

And in that space, something remarkable happens.

We become available again.

Available to receive.

Available to learn.

Available to love.

The feeling was never the enemy.

The story we built around it was.

For those interested in reading this eye-opening post: How to Take Criticism Positively | Amin Academy