Feedback vs Criticism

Yesterday, I spoke defending each persons right 'to be'.

Nothing in life is an absolute. So how does this work. What are it's differing ramifications.

An obvious one would be, you can be you, long as you do not negatively impinge on another's space. That I'd think is pretty apparent, and even sacrosanct.

At the deeper level, does it mean we don't express opinion, don't share feelings, don't express expectation, don't talk of behavior, don't talk of traits.....don't enter the other's space ever ?

No, not saying that. In fact not at all.

To understand this, let's look a little deeper into what a relationship is (or could be)... be it between spouses, friends, partners, parental, any relationship.

A relationship at a core level is ideally about a space that empowers, that supports, that enables ...one that has at it's core 'mutual learning and growth'. ( Most relationships we see are living out the life of detail, akin to 'existing'). It's like someone said 'taking black and white photographs of the very colorful scenes of our lives'

Based off this ideal space of  'mutual learning and growth', to empower and to enable would become pretty core. And that is something that can happen primarily through 'feedback'. Thus feedback becomes not just a good to have, but almost an obligation we carry.

It's beautifully explained by the Johari window. We need others to help us recognize our blind spots, our areas of growth.

We need Feedback

An indicator could come from 'what is the motive behind the feedback'.When we find ourselves in a position of wanting to point out an area of change, do we do it as 'my need' or 'for the other'.  If the feedback is something that will enable the growth of the other, it is not just okay to give, but almost becomes a moral responsibility to give. Can I confront with care. That's when it's a shift from criticism to feedback.

Criticism comes from arrogance  (you are wrong, I am right...and is the most common way of parents, spouses, teachers). Paradoxically, it's the most common and the most unsuccessful, in fact producing more resentment, than change or growth.

Feedback on the other hand is 'I see and I care, so I tell'. It comes from a space of genuine love and care. A space that recognizes the need of the other and not ones own. It is not common.  It requires a genuine extension of oneself, and is more likely to be beneficial and successful.

If done right, and received right. 

It's like what Scott Peck says "the final and possibly the greatest risk of love is the risk of exercising power with humility. There are a significant number of individuals who for one reason or another have learned to inhibit their instinctive tendency to criticize or correct, but who go no further, hiding in the moral safety of meekness, never daring to assume power

To fail to confront when confrontation is required for the nurture of spiritual growth represents a failure to love equally, as much as does thoughtless criticism"

Can we have a space of love and nurturing that allows for feedback. It becomes then the responsibility of each to express, and to listen, within that ambit, and then the whole space reverberates with an energy of positivity and growth.

Worth an aspirational goal you'd think?