What to do when my partner criticizes me?

It is so hard and feels so personal when we experience criticism by the person we love. Even if he are mindful, meditative, aware and so forth, it seems that the closer we are to someone, the deeper it affect us when they say something to us. And somehow all our personal practices 'go down the drain'. Suddenly, we find we are pouting, sulking, we feel rebellios or we want to defend or strike back with some comment...

Or not?... How does it work for you?

When we feel we are criticised there is usually an experience of rejection of our core essence. Thus, we tend to revert back to defense strategies, which we are comfortable with. Often they are the same strategies, which we used as children, when we felt disapproval from our parents as they expressed criticism to us.

It is very easy to deal with criticism, yet, at the same time it is the hardest thing, as the reaction to it is momentary and before we know it, we are gone and not connected any more to ourselves or our parner.

But here is something we can do... Breathe, first and foremost! Then stop and sense what is happening inside. Most often than not, there is an experience of anger and grief/sadness. We feel sad we are being rejected. Check what it feels like for you, too?

And then, we can do many things, we can keep on breathing and relaxing into the uncomfortable experience. And also we can release the emotion, which resulted from the interaction. Here is a easy tool to use to release. You can sense, feel or acknowledge to yourself (and your partner) verbally what are you experiencing. Then you can use a sound corresponding to the emotion you are experiencing to release it. See below the sounds for each emotion/organ. This is an easy practice, which you can do standing or sitting at any time. It takes just a moment. You can do it immediately or at the end of the day, as you recall the experience and the emotion you experienced.

But why?

As you take a shower at the end of the day, it is important to cleanse your energy and emotional body. Unprocessed, unreleased emotions tend to accumulate and over the long run lead to both withdrawal and resentment towards our partners (as they 'cloud our vision'), as well as energy stagnations, which might over time turn to physical ailments.

Here are lso two videos, which show how to perform the sounds.

Shorter:

Longer:

Let me know your experience and most of all Enjoy!!