When we understand what criticism is really about, we find that it is one of the most powerful tools for self-realization and growth—if you want to know the truth.

Here are some steps on how to use and understand criticism for your highest benefit: •

• When someone says you are wrong, unkind, unclear, and uncaring, etc., feel what that feels like. Settle into it before you strike out; experience those emotions. Ask yourself: “Is it true? Could they be right?” Wait for the answer. •
• After the criticism, ask yourself, “Was that stressful or painful?” If the answer is yes, then this is a sign that you believe that the criticism is true and that you haven’t dealt with it or gone deeply enough yet.
• If you want to end the war in your own life and mind, you may decide to gently go deeper as you inquire and discover the truth of the criticism within yourself. This is where all war ends. 

No matter what anyone says to you, or about you if you experience stress, then you are the one who is suffering from your hidden secret—the secret you hide even from yourself at the moment—and the mind will do its job at this point, which is to attack. Your own mind’s attack is the cause of stress.

Stress is the signal that it is time to ask you, time to inquire; it is an opportunity for you to know the truth.

Stress is always an opportunity to experience forgiveness with the people you judge and those who judge you and to end the stress within you.

Forgiveness cannot be found anywhere else.

Forgiveness is when you realize that what you think happened didn’t.

Being honest with yourself and being vulnerable can be the end of the illusion of being manipulated in any way.

An inquiry is a direct internal path to freedom from lies and buried secrets, and therefore, freedom from the fear of your lies being discovered.

©2014 Byron Katie International, Inc. All rights reserved. thework.com Rev. 20 Aug. 2014

The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism. Norman Vincent Peale