Showing posts with label criticism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label criticism. Show all posts

Tuesday 21 January 2014

Being More Positively Expressive on the Net


Written by Mathew Naismith

Note: I was asked a couple of questions in relation to the quote, I will insert this at the end of the post in bold.  

Hopefully the following might help a few people deal with others that are more about control when trying to converse with others on the net.  It’s fine avoiding these people but spiritual awareness isn’t just about our own awareness but the awareness of all collectively I believe which means at times we may have to deal with controllers when conversing with others.  Spirituality to me isn’t about taking control but releasing it. Recently I became involved with a spiritual site that was all about knowledge & knowledge on it’s own is all about control because anything I put on this site about wisdom was quite destructively ridiculed.  Is this sites concepts wrong in some way? No because it’s like any belief or view others abide by, it’s each to their own, this site just wasn’t for me so I found out.

On this site I experienced quite a lot of high cap replies which denotes yelling & aggression which would explain the destructive criticism I was receiving from these people. High caps are fine if we are trying to point out a particular point however we should beware that we could be displaying an aggressive stance & even if we weren’t others might take it this way.  This is a good thing to remember when conversing with anyone on the net.  There is also a big difference between constructive & destructive criticism, the links below give a good outline of the difference of constructive & destructive criticism.


Extract:  Destructive criticism aims to destroy the target of criticism, by making the destructive criticism (e.g. "you should shut up and follow the program"). The aim is to show that the point of view of someone else has no validity at all, or lacks any merit.

Constructive criticism aims to show that the intent or purpose of something is better served by an alternative approach. In this case, making the criticism is not necessarily deemed wrong, and its purpose is respected; rather, it is claimed that the same goal could be better achieved via a different route. Constructive criticisms are often suggestions for improvement – how things could be done better or more acceptably. They draw attention to how an identified problem could be solved, or how it could be solved better.

We can deduct here that constructive criticism is more of awareness but destructive criticism is of control.

The link below gives some very helpful hints in being more constructive in our replies. We can also see from this when others are being destructive within their criticism which at times is hard to detect. The following info will also help with this by allowing us to detect sooner if a person is being constructive or destructive within their criticism. This will help us determine if the discussion is worth going on with before it gets totally out of hand.


Extract: Most people are very thin-skinned and easily upset when it comes to receiving criticism.

Even when criticism is constructively intended, the receiver may be sensitive and respond with feelings of anger, sadness, or guilt, especially when the criticism is delivered in a way that tends to arouse defensiveness such as sending it in the form of a "You-message." (See "I-Statements" below.)

This is because when people receive messages that start with "You," such as "You didn't do this," "You never do that," "You always do the following," it is natural for them to feel attacked and take a defensive or even a retaliative position.

Fortunately, there are several excellent methods for giving constructive criticism that are unlikely to trigger bad feelings.


If we incorporate the word you with high cap letters this will enhance the effectiveness of destructive criticism used. We should also remember here some people converse in this way deliberately, spammers are a good example of this.  


I hope this will assist anyone wanting to express their own free thinking & awareness to others on the net, hoping they just might help others become more aware. Spiritual awareness is about the awareness of the collective not just of the individual so feel free to express yourself more confidently.  Now get out there & express yourself away.


+Deb Putman I wasn't always positive either Deb.

Is there a reason why we attract negative people & responses? A very good question & should we feel obligated to help? Just by being positive is helping even though they feel threatened by this positivity.

A positive person attracting a negative person is a positive sign from the negative person because they feel threatened for some reason so a question mark goes up. Once they feel threatened something is telling them there is something wrong here but of course it's usually the positive person who is in the wrong according to them & they will pull out all stops to prove so.

The conscious self is telling them someone else is at fault but the subconscious self is telling them wait a minute I'm at fault. When I get a seemingly negative response from a negative person it's really a positive response because they have just become aware of a difference. It's a start & that is all we need to do because the subconscious usually does the rest but of course that isn’t always the case.

There is an old saying that goes like this,"You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink"..   

Sunday 19 January 2014

The Shephard & the Sheep


Written by Mathew Naismith

I’m not a story writer by far so please excuse any syntax errors.  

“What are we doing, where are we going, is it important?” said the Shepherd to the sheep, “Does it matter” replies one of the sheep, “we are all sheep waiting for time to pass so we can go home”.  “What” said the Shepherd, ‘we are not all sheep, I have no wool on my back or am I one of the flock as you are. The sheep looked down & up again shaking it’s head, “you say you have no wool on your back because you are not a sheep but you are wearing my coat that has been carried for you upon my back. You say you are not of our flock but you are my friend, we all belong to the same flock until the day’s end & this my friend will never happen”.

The Shepherd was bemused in a funny way to what the sheep had said. Smiling “I’m not of you as you are not of me, we are different “said the shepherd, “how can I be of your flock when I’m not like you?”  “Nothing is the same” said the sheep, “we are all different even us sheep to each other but that doesn’t make us not a part of the same flock”.  The shepherd even more bemused in rapture thinking that the sheep is wrong, “I am a part of the human flock, you are a part of the sheep flock, what is the same between us? Once you pass you will go to where the sheep lay, I will go to where the humans lay, that is very different  wouldn’t you say?” “No” said the sheep “there is but one flock upon this Earth & it’s called eternal life”.

Becoming slightly irritated now because of the sheep’s stance the shepherd replied back to the sheep, “you are utterly wrong, SHEEP, we are masters of all life so how can we be a part of the same flock laying down in the same pastures after our passing, this is foolish to think this but what can you expect from stupid sheep I suppose!!” Undeterred the sheep replies, “Who is more foolish, the sheep talking to a human or a human talking to a sheep? Bemused in an even more perplexed & irritated at the sheep’s response the shepherd replies, “You think you are clever but you’re not, you are my flock I’m not yours, if you were so clever why am I not of your flock?”

Smiling as only a sheep can, “What is it riding on your back again”!!



Recently I posted my post titled A Wise Man Wise on a spiritual site I’ve never been on before, before I even got a chance to respond a few of the people on this particular site were arguing quite intensely between each other about my post.  Anyway me being me I thought maybe it’s not always like this, how wrong was I.

As the shepherd had obvious little respect for the sheep, these people were quite aggressively & destructively criticising each other & the post, making comments on my own post only escalated this unbecoming behaviour. I really didn’t think people on a spiritual site would be so disrespectful of each other’s views in such away.  Sheep we are not for the sheep from the story above know we are all different but of the same flock no matter how different we seemed but the shepherd thinking he is above such creatures couldn’t see this.

Eventually everything I wrote after this on this site became a target for destructive criticism. I don’t mind constructive criticism but to be on the receiving end of so much destructive criticism was very disappointing for me. As in the story, the sheep had a freer way of thinking than the human but this ended up infuriating the shepherd because he thought he was right but especially in the end the free thinker within it’s wisdom proved a very good point.  The story ended there, not because the shepherd didn’t have an answer only because what would the point be in listening to more pointless arguments.  I could imagine the sheep just walking away bewildered at the short falls of the shepherd.


One of the points to the story is voice your free thinking, we can’t & don’t all think the same but it does no harm to speak out if by any chance you can help others become aware of what you’re aware of.  Maybe we can help or maybe we can’t but one should always give it a try to help others become aware of something they may not be aware of but should be aware of.