Relational Field Theory
Criticism Isn’t About You — It’s a Diagnostic of the Critic’s Structure
I’ve been thinking a lot about criticism lately — not the helpful kind, but the kind that lands sharp, sudden, or strangely intense. The kind that feels bigger than the moment. The kind that seems to say more than the words themselves.
And here’s the realization that finally clicked:
Criticism is rarely a reflection of who you are.
It’s a diagnostic of the structure the critic is living inside.
People don’t respond to you from your architecture.
They respond from theirs.
If someone lives inside a rigid, binary structure, everything becomes:
- too much
- not enough
- right or wrong
- good or bad
Their criticism is simply the sound of their structure hitting its limits.
If someone lives inside a transactional structure, everything becomes:
- useful or useless
- rewarding or disappointing
- reciprocal or threatening
Their criticism is the sound of their expectations collapsing.
If someone lives inside a shame‑based structure, everything becomes:
- embarrassing
- inappropriate
- “too emotional”
- “too direct”
Their criticism is the sound of their own fear echoing back at them.
In every case, the criticism tells you far more about their confinement than your expression.
This doesn’t mean people are bad.
It doesn’t mean they’re malicious.
It doesn’t mean they’re trying to hurt you.
It simply means they’re responding from the shape of the structure they’re carrying — the one they may not even know they’re inside.
And once you see that, something shifts.
You stop collapsing.
You stop shrinking.
You stop taking every reaction as a verdict.
You start recognizing that your expansiveness isn’t the problem.
Their confinement is.
Criticism becomes information, not identity.
A map, not a mirror.
And that shift — that tiny, quiet shift — is often the beginning of freedom.
Survivor Literacy 
What do you think?