Someone makes a joke.
Everyone else laughs.
But your mind starts racing… “Was that about me?”
Suddenly you feel anxious, jealous, or even a bit hurt—and you can’t shake it.
Chances are that it’s not the first time you’re experiencing this, so it must feel disconcerting, annoying or maybe even hopeless.
If you’ve ever wondered how to stop feeling jealous or insecure, you’re not alone.
Many people continue perceiving themselves based on the past experiences in their lives whereas that attitude deserves an upgrade. It’s an old pattern playing up and I’ll do my best to outline it here with the possible ways to go about it.
What’s Really Happening
Why do I take criticism so personally?
You may take criticism or a joke personally because your brain is trying to protect you. Your brain perceives this social interaction as a threat and its roots are in your earlier life’s experiences.
When you’re very young and something annoying or burdening or even scary happens in your childhood home, you cannot simply pack your toys and move out. This means you’re fully dependent on your parents or primary caregivers. When you really think about it, it may become quite terrifying how dependent we are as children.
When you’re this dependent you will change your own behaviour to suit the needs of your parents/caregiver. This is in order to not lose shelter, nourishment, warmth and clothes - the needs you have to survive.
A tiny fraction of the obvious and subtle rules could have been:
- Caregivers saying: “What will people say?” so that you’d behave according to the social norms of being quiet, good boy/ girl trying to perceive the others’ opinions;
- Caregivers saying: “But the neighbour’s son is so active/ well behaved/ diligent/ etc and look at you, so lazy/ untidy/ slow.” so that you wouldn’t become a “family’s disgrace”;
- Caregivers threatening to leave you or give you to a policeman or an unpleasant relative if you misbehave according to what’s expected in the family;
- One of caregivers felt threatened by your talent, meaning, were envious and so did not allow you to excel;
- Caregivers did not want you, a 9 months toddler, to become spoilt, so left you, a distressed baby, to self-soothe so that you’d become an “independent toddler”…
Instead of continuing beating yourself up for being so sensitive, look into the source of your discomfort and become a better friend to yourself. I’d suggest doing this with a therapist, life coach, mentor or someone who has your best interest at heart.. It’s a tender and challenging but rewarding work you’d be doing on yourself and the reward is an increased self-awareness.
It's wealth no one can take away from you.
If you do this inner work, your fight/flight/freeze/fawn responses calm down and you will gain clarity; your emotional flashbacks and triggers will become rarer and your mental as well as physical health will improve. Essentially, you will be taking your life in your hands, even showing off what you can create.
Psychological reasons for extreme sensitivity to feedback:
- Work with my clients seems to circle around low self-worth and the inner critic because of the social conditioning from my clients’ past. In overt and subtle ways, their developing selves were either a source of caregivers envy, emotional discomfort, a reason they lost their patience, their needs and wants were ignored on multiple occasions signaling that they were not important enough.
- Fear of rejection or not being “enough” is especially prominent in families of violence and addiction. I had a client who grew up in a chaotic household and he was doing what was possible to make sense out of the unpredictability. For example he was good at school, helped bring up his younger siblings, became a negotiator between parents and elder siblings, sometimes, he would even dissociate when it became too much.
- Comparison and jealousy loops torment those who were compared to the neighbours’ children, that girl/boy at school, their cousins or maybe someone on TV. Again, the innate agency and uniqueness were disregarded in clear and subtle ways at the early stages of a client’s life and an external example was pushed on a developing self.
- People who come to see me often suffer from overthinking as a control mechanism. They think that if they predicted all possible outcomes, they at least thought of them thus creating safety in their minds. Or they do that because they don't want to get negative feedback because if they did, they would feel incompetent and short-sighted.
How It Shows Up
Signs you might be stuck in this cycle
These examples below are common themes I see with my clients and through my own self healing journey. Although they are not a definite diagnosis of ill mental health you may relate anyway and wish to address it with a person you trust:
- Replaying conversations for hours
- Feeling hurt by jokes others brush off
- Comparing yourself and feeling “less than”
- Needing reassurance
- Sudden jealousy or insecurity
- Threatening your partner to leave them
- Feeling sorry for yourself
- Not asking for a pay rise or a promotion
- Pleasing others
- Not asking her out
- Instead of addressing the issue with a person, gossiping with a colleague/ neighbour/ course mate about them
- Addictions
- Blaming everything and everyone for the quality of your life
- Thinking that people are against you
- Thinking that something is wrong with you or you’re weird
- Getting too anxious to express your opinion in group settings
- Finding excuses
- Avoiding behaviours
- Procrastination
- Calling yourself lazy or dumb
- Being rigid in your thinking as opposed to curious
- Being easy to guilt-trip, push-over or manipulate
- Not feeling genuinely happy for your friends’/ partner’s success
- You’re violent to or you manipulate/ abuse your partner/ children/ parents
- Self-harm
- Body image issues
- Add your example
How to stop feeling jealous and insecure
Practical support
1. Pause the story
Notice the discomfort in your mind and ask yourself: “What am I telling myself right now?” Then answer the question and be as open and humble as you can.
2. Separate fact from interpretation
What actually happened vs what you assumed. It’s worth it to remember that people generally are preoccupied with themselves. So, if they say something seemingly offensive, chances are that either they are having a bad day, or they are being their silly/ ignorant/ eccentric selves or they are solving their problem. E.g. a colleague who you think snitched you to your manager saying that you’re not delivering what you were asked for, may not be a snitch and may not want to get you in trouble at all. It could be that they needed information or a tool to complete their task. It looks like you were bogged down with other demands and there was someone else who could meet their needs. Hence, it’s not a reflection on you that you’re slow or careless or not accommodating.
3. Regulate your body
- Breathwork, grounding, stepping away. You need to figure out what’s the best way for you to regulate your tensed up nervous system.
- Do you already meditate?
- Do you practice movement meditation?
- Do you lead a conscious and aware life-style as much as you can?
- Are you aware of your calm place or a secure person who you can think of and get an immediate grounding feeling?
- Are you practicing eliciting the Inner Observer?
- Do you practice gratitude?
- Do you practice 4x4 breathing?
- What do you already do to help yourself?
4. Build self-awareness
Notice patterns without judgement and please remember that it wasn’t your fault that you developed them. I’m not kidding. It’s because at the time, you needed to cope and make your life liveable by being creative and adapting yourself in this weird world. Now, it’s very important, realise that you aren’t a dependent child anymore. This means that it’s your responsibility to create a life on your terms. It’s not going to be easy but I promise that it’s worthwhile.
5. Reframe sensitivity
From “I’m too sensitive” → “I’m aware and I can feel safe”. It’s your Inner Observer that will help you reach internal safety. Be sensitive to yourself to know yourself better. You just need to make it your daily practice and build your life how you want it, from safety, from self-respect, from curiosity and patience you can become your best friend.
Building Strength Over Time
How to develop emotional resilience
Instead of punishing yourself for being too much or too sensitive, I’m inviting you to be curious and patient with yourself. It’s much more satisfying in the long run than numbing your feelings with weed or binge-watching Disney+. Being curious about your values and emotions is an investment of time, which you won’t regret. Be sure that it’s going to take time because your programming happened during a prolonged period of time; you developed limiting beliefs and they settled in your subconscious to automatise your behaviour, so your de-programming will take time too.
Your Inner Critic is most likely going to come up disguised as fear or anger so be patient with it and understand that it only wants to protect you. The difference is that you’re slowly realising that you’re not a child anymore (a.k.a. not dependent anymore) and you want a different quality in your life. So be compassionate, patient and curious. Be there for yourself as your best friend, especially in the moments of mild and acute emotional and physical discomfort. You can learn to feel things deeply but not be controlled by them.
What books or courses recommend strategies for dealing with criticism sensitivity?
Books:
- “Too Much” and “Boundary Boss” by Terri Cole for over-functioning empaths and people pleasers
- “How to Do the Work”, “How to Be the Love You Seek” by Nicole LePera
Mindfulness and nervous system regulation:
- Youtube channel “The Great Allowing” by Sam Miller
- Free meditation course: https://courses.tarabrach.com/courses/mindfulness-daily
Journaling or reflection practices:
- Workbook “How to Meet Your Self” by Nicole LePera
Summary
Do remember that you’re not too sensitive as it’s your past’s patterns that get activated and they try to protect you. Use that sensitivity to be attuned to the one and only – you. It’s because you will be with yourself till the last day so it’s only wise to know yourself better. There’s nothing wrong with you and the discomfort you’re feeling is your neglected parts that yearn for attention from someone who’d do the best job – you! And when you turn to yourself with curiosity, things will start changing, for the better. Learning how to stop feeling jealous and insecure isn’t about becoming someone else – it’s about feeling safer being yourself.
If you wish to explore this topic with someone who has your best interest at heart, do get in touch and we’ll discuss further.
