We all glow once someone gives us positive praise, but it’s that one negative criticism that shoots us down into sadness. We’ve all been told to do better, or you suck. This stings, especially if it’s from someone you respect, or someone in authority.
Anyone who ignores us directly, we take it personally. This could be our parents, our partners, complete strangers on social media, our schoolmates.
We are thin skinned, as we experience the pain once we’re mocked, rejected, or ignored by the cool kids, or angrily shamed or accused of some wrongdoing.
Even if you excel, even you’re in the right and are extremely likeable, just one single voice of negative disrespect can offset you, shatter your self-esteem.
The effect of the inappropriate action or comment lingers, becomes troublesome and concerning.
Then any type of positive affirmation we receive, doesn’t seem to matter or work.
What you feel is sunk, and begin doubting yourself, your abilities, and your accomplishments.
It’s Just Human Biology
Your experience of feeling hurt while obsessing and overreacting from criticism, or being ignored, is an universal trait.
To be human, is reacting in a sensitive manner, from any attack by others, friends or foe.
It’s a result of the brain and body, naturally responding to a perceived threat as the stress juices kick in.
To understand why we become this sensitive, is by understanding the effect the verbal attack has on our brain.
How the mind and body reacts, why you become so self-conscious, and why it continues to linger.
How The Brain Reacts
That negative voice in the back of your mind, becomes especially rattled because what was activated was the most primitive sensor in the brain.
The area which alerts you of a threat, either physical or mental. The classic fight or flight response.
This primitive reaction is referred to as “the lizard brain,” as it responds the same way across the animal kingdom.
When faced with any type of perceived threat, what’s triggered is the sympathetic nervous system.
How The Body Responds
What the sympathetic nervous system activates is a series of physiological responses, which confirms and intensifies the feelings.
The stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol, are then injected into the bloodstream. The heart begins to pump faster and the breathing quickens.
This is an automatic response to any threat every time. The body then freezes, or readies itself to flee or stand up and fight, or cower and blame a low self-esteem.
This entire reaction occurs before the logical thinking brain kicks in, before the frontal lobes are alerted and become active online.
An Imaginary Perceived Threat
Once you feel your life might be in danger, is when you will experience a phenomena such as extended endurance, or even super-human strength.
Once the brain freezes, the autonomic response is serene peacefulness or detachment.
Although your life isn’t actually threatened, your well-being may be at risk.
The sympathetic nervous system then moderates this, by determining if you’re just scared or angry.
What this results in is you running away in fear, or having a strong comeback.
Why So Sensitive
What this quick and effective reaction to any type of threat did, was it helped our ancestors survive in hostile and dangerous environments, which we’ll most likely never face.
This autonomic response has enabled humans and especially other species in the wild, to survive another day.
Although the battles are different from a few centuries ago, our lizard brains still reacts the same way.
It comes in handy to alert us of any verbal or physical threats, spurring us to take action.
This allows us to instinctively slam on our brakes when there’s a road hazard, come back with a fitting witty response, or run for cover when it starts to rain.
Criticism From Others
When someone happens to insult you, it’s different from that physical road hazard, or running for safety.
Reacting to someone who’s critical, rude, or may have upset you, stems from our instinctive need to belong in a social group or tribe.
We’ve become wired to be empathetic, and attuned to the emotions of everyone we’re in contact with. We become sensitive to being suddenly bullied, abused, or shunned.
Whether your boss or parent suddenly scolds you for being late or lazy, or your partner says you’re boring and not good enough, you feel rejected or mistreated.
Why The Feelings Remain
Even if the perceived danger of the incident has long passed, what the stress response can do is leave a lasting and at times permanent impression.
It leaves a psychological dent on the thinking frontal lobe, leaving a feeling of rejection long after the event.
Once the thinking brain gets involved, what it attempts is to make some type of sense of what occurred by looking at previous patterns, determining its cause and effect.
It can then get defensive, sulk, take it personally, or assume blame.
We humans are especially sensitive to dwelling over any type of altercation with another human. What’s then felt is an ongoing negative impact as the bad memory lingers.
What this memory triggers is the sympathetic nervous system, to inject yet more stress hormones into the bloodstream.
Why The Feelings Linger
If the interaction with someone is particularly threatening or vicious, the brain continues to reenact and becomes haunted by the memory of it.
What this can result in, is it dampens the spirits while we lose confidence in ourselves.
This leads us down the path of doubting ourselves, which holds us back from deserving more.
If you happen to lead an especially stressful life, is when your sympathetic nervous system begins to overreact.
This makes you look nervous, and more susceptible to reacting defensive.