If you’ve ever felt a pit in your stomach when someone important to you said, “Can I be honest with you?” this blog is for you.

Because it usually isn’t the criticism itself that does the damage. The real damage is what happens inside of you in the milliseconds that follow, the internal cross-examination, the message you think you hear, and the speed with which you either collapse into self-doubt or rise into self-defense. Your mind starts telling a story, only now it has one more detail.

There’s a sequence I see all the time.

External criticism shows up, sometimes fair, sometimes clumsy, sometimes completely wrong. But self-doubt is the primer, the doorman that invites in duress: maybe they’re right… maybe this means I’m failing… maybe this exposes something about me.

Then self-criticism rushes in to bring you a step further; the familiar voice that doesn’t correct you, it condemns you. It doesn’t say, you could do this better. It says, you are not good enough.

And once you’re there, the feedback isn’t just feedback anymore. It’s danger.

That’s where a basic, yet deeply complicated divide shows itself: security versus insecurity.

Criticism Is Information, Until You Make It Identity

If we’ve ever worked together in therapy, you’ve probably heard me say some version of this: the most influential relationship you have is the relationship you have with yourself. Not because other relationships don’t matter, but because this is the one you cannot leave. You live inside your own voice all day. The tone of that voice becomes the emotional climate you live in.

Which is why the way you handle criticism is rarely about the other person’s words alone. It’s about your inner posture.

Secure people can hear criticism as information. Insecure people experience criticism as threat.

And I want to be clear: security and insecurity aren’t fixed traits. Yes, early experiences matter, but these are also habits of thought; patterns you practice, reinforce, and can change. The difference shows up most clearly in one central distinction.

Secure people can separate content from meaning.
Insecure people tend to fuse the two.

The content might be: “You were short with me.”
The meaning becomes: “I’m going to be rejected,” “I’m screwing everything up,” “I’m not safe.”

And once criticism becomes meaning, you are no longer processing feedback. You are managing threat.

Collapse or Counterattack

When insecurity is the operating system, criticism tends to trigger one of two reflexes.

Some people collapse inward. They spiral into self-doubt and then punish themselves with self-criticism. They rehearse the mistake, magnify it, and treat it as proof: See? This is why you’re not enough. It’s quiet, but it’s corrosive.

Others go the opposite direction. They counterattack. They explain, justify, blame, dissect tone, attack motives, bring up the other person’s flaws, anything to regain footing. Not because they love conflict, but because self-doubt feels unbearable, and defensiveness is a quick way to anesthetize it.

Different behaviors, same motivators: fear and shame.

Underneath both responses is the same belief: if I’m wrong, I’m unworthy. And that fear makes criticism feel like a verdict, not a cue for growth.

Defensiveness Is the Tell

The simplest way to understand negative emotion is that it’s your nervous system signaling that something is wrong. But not all negative emotions function the same way, and learning to distinguish between what I call primary and secondary negative emotions can be one of the most useful tools for personal growth, and for healthier relationships.

Primary negative emotions are sadness, hurt, fear, and anxiety. They’re vulnerable by nature, and when they’re expressed cleanly, they tend to create connection. Secondary negative emotions are what we reach for to protect ourselves when vulnerability feels too risky: anger, defensiveness, resentment, jealousy. And those almost always create distance.

Just consider your own response. If a friend says, “That hurt,” you’ll probably lean in. If they come out swinging, you’ll probably brace yourself. Same underlying pain. Completely different relational impact.

Defensiveness, specifically, is one of the clearest signs of insecurity because it reveals what the nervous system believes is happening. Defensiveness says, “This isn’t a conversation. This is danger.” And once your system registers danger, you stop asking, Is there something useful here? and you start asking, How do I get safe?

That’s why insecure self-talk tends to shift quickly into one of two scripts. When criticism lands well, the script is, “I can do this better.” When it lands poorly, the script becomes, “That person is a jerk.” It’s not that the person giving feedback is never wrong, they certainly can be. But the immediate need to invalidate the messenger is often an attempt to restore safety by regaining control. It’s self-protection disguised as confidence.

Data vs. Diagnosis, and a Foundation of Worthiness

Secure people treat criticism as data.
Insecure people treat criticism as a diagnosis.

Data can be evaluated, integrated, and used to inform better decision making in the future. But a diagnosis feels definitive. A diagnosis is something we feel compelled to resist, or else surrender to as conclusive and final. So the work is to keep criticism in the category it belongs in: information, not identity.

And this distinction has an interesting parallel in the Christian tradition. The New Testament differentiates between conviction and condemnation, which is essentially the spiritual version of data versus diagnosis.

Conviction tells the truth in a way that leads to repentance, repair, and restored relationship. Condemnation tells the truth, or half-truth, in a way that moves you toward hiding, despair, and self-protection. And shame is rarely the soil where good fruit grows.

From a Christian perspective, security is ultimately rooted in identity. If your worth is grounded in something stable and eternal, something given rather than earned, then feedback does not have to threaten your existence. You can be corrected without collapsing. You can be refined without being destroyed. You can say, “I was wrong,” without hearing, “I am worthless.”

That is humility and peace, not humiliation and pain.

A Simple Practice: Separate Content From Meaning

The next time you’re criticized, slow down just enough to ask:

What is the content of what they’re saying?
What meaning am I assigning to it?

Then add a third question, the one secure people ask naturally:

What part of this is useful?

Not “Was their tone perfect?”
Not “Are they also flawed?”
Not “How do I prove my case?”

Just: what part of this can make me better?

That question is security.

A Question Worth Sitting With

When someone offers you criticism, what happens first?

Do you move toward curiosity, or toward protection?
Does self-doubt open the door?
Does self-criticism rush in to “help”?
Do you collapse inward, or lash outward?

And here’s the deeper one: what does being criticized mean about you?

Because that meaning is the difference between growth and defensiveness, between self-reflection and self-attack, between insecurity and security.

Be well.