Client comments make you feel awful for months?

How can mindfulness help?

I recently received negative comments on a Facebook post, and while these upset me, they didn’t de-rail me as they would have previously. 

As a vet, I held on to any slightly negative comment for months. MONTHS.

If you’re new to mindfulness, it can be hard to see how “awareness in the present moment, without judgement” could help with letting go of negative comments.

So let’s break it down.

1. I was aware of the negative thoughts, as they were happening

Have you ever tried to stop a habit like swearing or saying “like”? It’s really hard, because you do it without realising that you’re doing it. 

You can’t change without awareness. 

So in this example, I was aware that the comments hit me in all my vulnerable bits, AS IT WAS HAPPENING. 

So I didn’t 

• fire back an angry response without thinking

• start mouthing off about how rude it was to my husband while getting myself even more emotional 

• Mentally spiral on how all my university colleagues would read it, think “this person has a point, we shouldn’t trust Lucy” and then I’d lose my job.

(none of which, spoiler alert, would have helped). 

2. I stayed in the present moment

Tell me honestly, how often do you mull over a difficult encounter for hours (days, weeks, months) after it’s happened?

Does that help?

Or does it just make you feel rotten and more likely to get upset if someone else touches a very slightly sore bit?

With mindfulness, I was able to generally* not think about the comments unless I was actively replying to them.

*I say generally, because I found this scenario particularly challenging - but with mindfulness, I also NOTICED when the comments snuck back into my thoughts - so I could politely tell them to shove off.

3. I did the above WITHOUT JUDGEMENT

This is the clincher.

When I noticed that I was upset, I didn’t judge myself for that. 

I noted it FACTUALLY. 

Photo by Hartono Creative Studio on Unsplash

I thought: “OK, that’s made me feel sick. And? It’s totally reasonable to feel crap after a comment like that”. 

A very different vibe to “pull yourself together! You always knew you’d get negative comments at some point! Why are you so upset?! Get over it!”.

With mindfulness, we look at EVERY thought and see what judgement, belief or opinion we’re applying to it, until we’re looking at the world totally honestly and objectively. 

Which means I also quickly realised the comments weren’t valid. Hurtful yes; a true reflection of my coaching, no.

And if they had been valid? I’d have accepted that without judgement too.

No adding extra untrue thoughts like “that makes me an awful person” and “no-one will trust me again”.

Which, side note, makes you more like to actually improve when criticised.

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The result of all this?

Even when it was hurting, I felt REALLY proud of myself.

The negative comments haven’t held me back. I’ve actually learnt from them.

And apart from the first night (when I was also coming down with a sickness bug 😭), I haven’t lost sleep over it.

I’ll finish on a question.

When have you taken something personally, especially if in hindsight you know it shouldn’t have upset you as much as it did?

How would mindfulness have helped?

And, if you’re feeling brave - share your examples in the comments, and I’ll provide specific guidance on how mindfulness can help.

Sending love,

Lucy

PS. This is just one example of how mindfulness helps in day-to-day life.

Breaking down how mindfulness helps (eg in each of these 10 scenarios) is exactly what happens when we work together. 

You have me in your pocket (virtually, of course) for 12 whole weeks. 

Rather than working through hours of video content on how to not be offended when a colleague disagrees with you, you learn as you go. 

It’s the difference between learning how to do something in lectures at college vs learning on the job as an apprentice.

Want to learn more?

I’ll offer you a money-back guarantee if I think I can get you forgetting about that negative client comment and going to bed proud (or whatever your personal life goals are). For real.