The number one destroyer of intimacy

“You never listen to me!”

“You only think about yourself!”

When uttering these words, you may feel as if they are true. As if the person you are criticizing is never ever listening and is always thinking about her- or himself.

What if that simply isn’t true? 

You may be blaming a person you care about because you have hit what Gay Hendricks calls your “Upper Limit”.

We hit our upper limits when life becomes better than we ever thought it could be. Better than we think we deserve.

It sounds like that would be just wonderful. Why would we ruin it?

Because we get scared. We think life is supposed to be one way, and then when it goes on to be even better, when it stretches beyond the box we thought we would live in, we get terrified.

To protect ourselves from the unknown we pull life back to what we expect it to be by “self-sabotaging”.

Criticism is one way of “upper limiting” yourself. It is also the number one destroyer of intimacy in close relationships. By blaming your partner, you are pushing him or her away, denying yourself of their love.

If you tend to criticize people, you most likely criticize yourself as well. You criticize yourself and make your life smaller than it could be.

Gay Hendricks calls criticism an addiction.

Are you addicted?

Stop criticising one day to find out.

You are worthy of love.

You are worthy of a wonderful life.

When you fully realize this, you can break through your self-imposed Upper-Limits.