Finding Faults I

When someone is constantly finding fault with the actions of others, they are acting from a Parent- Child basis in the belief that I’m OK, You’re not OK.

Such people are often merely mimicking the bahavior of their parents when they were children. This can be an indicator of a strong tendency to look for what is wrong, rather than what is right. Highly critical people act out of this belief.

If someone has improved or has some other achievement deserving praise, the first response to criticise any lack of perfection, no matter how far-fetched.

A mother may criticize a child for never washing the dishes. One day the child washes the dishes. The mother immediately complains that the dishes haven’t been washed properly or dried properly or some other fault. Will the child wash the dishes again?

This ambivalent behaviour leaves the Child figure feeling that they can never do anything right in the other person’s eyes and there is therefore no point to trying to please them, for they will never be pleased.

Once there was a mother who always complained that she had to pick up socks for her children, because they simply left them lying on the floor. This went on for many weary years, until one day she realized that she wasn’t picking up socks for her children’s benefit. They didn’t mind the socks being on the floor. She was the one who liked to see a tidy floor.

She changed her attitude, stopped complaining, and simply enjoyed the pleasure of seeing a clean floor when she had finished picking up. The children then felt guilty because she was no longer complaining and it was no longer an act of defiance, but purely inconsiderate behaviour and started picking up their clothes after themselves!

This experience led the woman concerned to develop a new approach to life. Her name is Byron Katie, and the book is “Loving What Is”. – well worth reading.

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