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Your Imperfections Are a Hidden Superpower
What happens when you acknowledge all aspects of yourself — even the flaws
Over the years, I’ve encountered my fair share of trolling, and what I’ve learned is that it’s an art. What the finest trolls know is that in order to really get under someone’s skin, the attack must fulfill two conditions: 1) some tiny part of the person believes the message is true; and 2) they’re ashamed of it.
Suppose you tell me you’d rather eat dirt than my cooking. That’s rude, but I’m not going to get defensive. This is because I’m not ashamed of my cooking: I know the insides of my pots are scorched from many a kitchen mishap. I own that truth and will continue “experimenting” from time to time.
The remarks that invoke my fight-or-flight response, that get me stammering and heated and feeling ill, are the ones that stab deep into my insecurities. After I became a new mother, for example, I struggled with frequent bouts of mommy-guilt, so even the slightest indication that I was doing a bad job felt like a dagger to my chest.
There are two broad strategies to reduce the possibility of pain inflicted upon any of us by trolls or unkind critics or even judgmental family members:
- Reduce the number of such people in your life.
