Standing Strong in Your Skin: Somatic Practices To Handle Criticism

“What we think, we become.”

― Gautama Buddha

Criticism pierces our hearts, every barbed remark another cut shrinking our sense of self. The wounded soul recoils threatened to its core. But what if we approached critiques as opportunities to expand, rather than diminish, our integrity? By turning inward, we can transmute poison into medicine - becoming stronger from what should break us.

Somatic sciences illuminate techniques to absorb negativity without internalizing it. By mindfully observing our physiology, we interrupt habitual pathways leading to suffering. With care, we relax each clenched muscle until truth flows freely again. For in the end, no words possess power beyond what we grant them. The choice remains with us - to remember our worth, regardless of detractors.

Surviving the Vicious Onslaught

Few human experiences trigger our primal threat responses - fight, flight, or freeze - with the ruthless efficiency of criticism. Even when unfair or untrue, disparaging words wound our most vulnerable places. Physiologically, our nervous system interprets critique as attack, going haywire in protection.

Faced with criticism, some reflexively accept its twisted projections as truth. Self-esteem withers; dreams feel naïve. Others desperately resist feedback, exhausting energy arguing or saving face. Whether we absorb negativity or fight it, inner peace becomes casualty. Our biology records trauma’s imprint through chronic tension.

Under duress, it’s easy to forget we possess power to respond consciously, rather than reflexively react. But by turning inward, we can defuse knee-jerk habits leading to suffering. Somatic practices return us home, to the seat of truth within.

The Mind-Body Connection

Somatic psychology recognizes bodily awareness as central to regulating distress. When upset, we can pause and scan our inner landscape - where do we feel tension, breath shallowness, or constriction? Our physiology provides clues for where soothing touch is most needed.

Noticing clenched jaws or knotted shoulders, we breathe softly into these places. We visualize our muscles as streams, carrying criticism’s tension into the earth. We relate to discomfort with care, but refuse to let it inhabit us.

By returning attention from mental anguish to the body’s signals, we cultivate choice around responding, rather than reacting. In stillness between stimulus and response, wisdom makes itself known.

Methods to Restore Equanimity

When destabilized, practices like breathwork, meditation, and mantra chanting access an oasis of tranquility beneath egoic distress. Inhaling and exhaling slowly for five minutes overrides physiological panic. Affirming our basic goodness overrides distorted self-narratives.

We release stories swirling around criticism and arrive once more into presence. Here we touch again the inner light that no words can dim - our essential nature, whole and secure. We rest in our worth, no longer tossed about by external tempests.

Discharging Toxic Energies

For absorbed negativity to find release, somatic modalities like shaking, dancing, singing, or creative expression help expel fight-flight-freeze energies trapped during criticism.

By physically discharging latent arousal from harsh interactions, we prevent chronic residue from accumulating within the body’s tissues. The organs and nervous system reset to homeostasis. We discharge toxicity without passing it on.

In the end, the body forgives all through its wisdom movements. Our flesh holds memory of how to return to joy if we patiently unlock its secrets. With care, we lift each weight until lightness remains.

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Retraining Our Neural Pathways

Remarkably, somatic practices also repattern our brain’s threat responses over time. Instead of instinctively reacting to criticism as a danger, we gradually restore higher processing.

Before, a critique immediately activated the amygdala’s alarm system. However, somatic calming techniques strengthen prefrontal regulation, allowing us to respond thoughtfully. The more we do so, the more this pathway is reinforced.

With training, we relate to critique as information, not attack. Our nervous system unlearns old habits that no longer serve. We become poised observers, gathering truth while letting falsehoods wash away.

Transcendence Through Presence

When anchored inwardly, opinions lose their burning sting. Rooted within our being, criticism cannot unsettle us. Our intuitive discernment filters input for wisdom, discarding dross.

Integrating body, mind, and spirit aligns them into integrated forces. From this centered state, we hold even extreme negativity with compassion. We see the suffering and fear within critics’ arrows, drained of power to wound us.

For embodied presence relinquishes the need to react from ego. With mindfulness, we hold space for all that unfolds in sacred light. And when judgment comes, it bypasses mind armor to reveal naked truth waiting patiently beneath.

Conclusion: Rising Beyond

Over time, somatic practices develop the ability to stay centered amid life's inevitable criticisms. By mindfully relating to physiological signals, we return to inner stillness again and again.

In the end, we possess the tools to master resilience in the face of any outer turmoil. As the Buddha said, “What we think, we become.” Our destiny emerges from the wisdom or fear within us, never from external critiques.

With enough care, we transfigure criticisms into offerings at the altar of truth. For when judgment comes, if we can stay present, it soon passes - leaving us more luminous in its wake. Our skin becomes a sanctuary, protecting the sacred fire alight within.

Photo credit: Vicky Sim @Unsplash