Dissolve Criticism.

The Power of a Thank You to Dissolve Criticism


Byron Katie, the originator of The Work process which helps people to find more peace in their lives through a simple questioning method, teaches that Defense is the first act of war. When you have a person firing criticism at you, the moment you start to defend yourself, you have kicked off war between you and them. War requires that there be at least two parties opposing each other.

There is a very simple process which can disarm your critic within minutes! Before you place yourself in a situation like this again however, you may want to read a former blog I wrote -Finding Balance in Your Life. In this blog you'll learn a process of owning and being at peace with any negative trait another person could accuse you of.

With that process done, the next time you find yourself being attacked verbally by someone who is accusing you of all sorts of wrongdoings, simply say "Thank You". When you say the Thank You, contemplate inwardly that we all have, and own every human trait - negative and positive - in varying degrees. From my former blog's recommended exercise, you will realize and have found how you do actually demonstrate somewhere in your life all negative traits you could possibly bring to mind.

Empowered with this inner experience of being okay with negative traits, as your attacker hurls abusive judgments at you, your response becomes a simple "Thank You, Thank You, Thank You." The truth is that nothing can be showing up in your life that doesn't exist in your own thoughts. Quantum physics is proving this.

Physicists tell us that everything we could possibly imagine exists in what some refer to as The Field - the quantum field of all possibilities. They tell us that everything exists as a wave - spread out over space and time - a probability amplitude. This means everything exists merely as a possibility UNTIL we put our attention on The Field. Then the wave becomes a particle (takes on a form). It is the quality of our attention that is bringing a certain probability in the field of all possibilities into material existence.

The implications for us in this knowledge is that whatever is materializing in 'our world' is simply showing us the quality of our own thoughts or inner attention. Somewhere within us, we are holding our attention on that particular state which is manifesting before our eyes. By thanking our aggressor, we are thanking him/her for showing us what thoughts are still active within us. Since we have already made peace with this aspect of ourselves, there is no 'fight' to be had. We can totally agree with the person and thank them for showing us what we still hold within ourselves.

An interesting dynamic happens within the aggressor when you practice saying Thank You to him/her for enlightening you to your inner thoughts. Within minutes, as their onslaught receives none of the expected response from you, they are left with their own anguish, hatred, lack of peace. There is nothing for them to do but BE with themselves. You are not feeding their need to share/spread the burden of their unhappiness with you. They must experience it fully themselves.

I have seen this dynamic work amazingly well time and again with the end result being that the aggressor simply goes quiet as they see for the first time in their life that they are the creators of their own experience. They may resist your behavior for a little while trying desperately to make you feel as unhappy as they are. However, very quickly they will go quiet as they realize there is nowhere to go but within themselves to find resolution with this troublesome state of mind.

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Posted by Michelle Graham