Hey! My name is Hannah! I have begun a series where I provide you with responses I give in some of the fb groups I am in. As they are private groups, I don’t share what the original post says verbatim, but the general topic of discussion, I do share that for context. I’m excited to share this response with you. The topic of discussion is “A Critical Spirit Will Never Hear You”. I hope this is an encouragement to you who may be going through this type of confusion and need clarity, as well as insight to those who are trying to support their friend. I would like to encourage you to consider joining fb groups to support you and find a sisterhood of likeminded women! I have a list of resources at the bottom of this page! Tap here to skip to it!! I’ve also added another permanent section called Language for Behavior at the bottom before the list of resources!
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Original Post
Paraphrased and shortened original post to maintain anonymity of original poster.
An image was posted stating “Self-reliance and self-confidence are deadly to Victorious Christian Living encouragement for today.”
My Response
Toxic religious rhetoric. It has double meaning and makes it unsafe for those who have been scape goats and told they are sinful for holding someone accountable for their behavior. Being able to rely on your own judgment about someone’s behavior is paramount to a Christian walk and being confident that you have the ability to make sound judgment calls is vital to living a whole and abundant life in Christ. Otherwise you’re just living in doubt and treating God like a fairytale genie fairy godmother.
God gave us gifts and talents and one of them is the ability to know you are capable of something and not just an indecisive mess all the time in the name of the Lord.
People who idolize this idea of anti self reliance and anti self confidence are too the same people who idolize people who suffer for ever and find their identity in suffering and martyrdom and are extremely critical of those who find deliverance from suffering especially when deliverance is in the form of divorce.
I like to distance myself emotionally when I observe someone identifies strongly in fear, suffering & indecisiveness — like they are virtuous for being such a martyr to self. And betraying their needs and wants.
People who do this are also inclined to believe you are responsible for comforting them when they feel something about your life and when you don’t, you’re out of Gods will or worse, unsaved and need salvation…… 👀🤷🏼♀️ can’t win with a critical spirit. Gotta give it to God and moveeeee forward. 🫶🏼
A critical spirit will never have ears to hear. Only God can soften their heart and convict their spirit. I like to simply distance myself and give to over to Him. This is not a friend you want to confide in.
My two cents 🫶🏼♥️
Additional Responses
If they respond, I will place my responses to them here.
Language for Behavior
Let’s talk about the power of language in building strong boundaries and gaining clarity!
- Manipulative Behavior: When someone consistently tries to control or influence your decisions and emotions for their benefit, without considering your feelings or needs.
- Gaslighting: When someone distorts or denies reality to make you doubt your own perceptions, memories, and sanity.
- Passive-Aggressive Behavior: Expressing negative feelings indirectly, often through sarcasm, silent treatment, or subtle actions.
- Isolation: Deliberately cutting you off from friends, family, or other sources of support to gain control over you.
- Undermining: Consistently diminishing your achievements, opinions, or capabilities to erode your self-esteem.
- Neglect: Failing to provide emotional, physical, or psychological care and support, leading to feelings of abandonment.
- Bullying: Engaging in repetitive aggressive behavior to assert power and dominance over you, causing emotional distress.
- Intimidation: Using threats, verbal abuse, or body language to make you feel frightened and submissive.
- Exploitation: Taking advantage of your vulnerabilities or resources for personal gain, often without regard for your well-being.
- Control: Exerting excessive influence over your actions, decisions, or freedom, limiting your autonomy.
- Invalidation: Dismissing or belittling your feelings, thoughts, or experiences, causing self-doubt and confusion.
Using these specific terms can help individuals accurately communicate their experiences and feelings, which is a crucial step in gaining clarity and seeking the necessary support or resolution.
- Verbal Aggression: Engaging in hostile language, insults, or yelling that causes emotional harm and distress.
- Withholding Information: Intentionally keeping important information from you to maintain control or manipulate your decisions.
- Stonewalling: Refusing to communicate or engage in conversations, which can lead to frustration and a lack of resolution.
- Guilt-Tripping: Using guilt or manipulation to make you feel responsible for someone else’s feelings or actions.
- Conditional Love: Expressing affection only when certain conditions are met, creating insecurity and dependence.
- Silent Treatment: Ignoring you or refusing to communicate as a form of punishment or control.
- Minimization: Downplaying the seriousness of a situation or your feelings, making it difficult to validate your experiences.
- Boundary Violation: Ignoring or crossing your personal boundaries, leading to discomfort and a sense of violation.
- Projection: Assigning your own negative feelings or traits onto someone else to avoid acknowledging them in yourself.
Defining these behaviors can help individuals recognize and articulate their experiences more clearly.
- Deflection: Shifting the focus of a conversation away from the topic at hand, often to avoid taking responsibility for one’s actions.
- Selective Memory: Choosing to remember or forget certain details in a way that serves one’s narrative or intentions.
- Escalation: Intentionally intensifying conflicts or disagreements to manipulate the situation or gain control.
- False Promises: Making commitments with no intention of following through, leading to disappointment and mistrust.
- Blame-Shifting: Holding you responsible for problems or issues that are actually caused by the other person’s actions.
- Discrediting: Undermining your credibility or reputation to prevent others from taking your perspective seriously.
- Double Standards: Applying different sets of rules or expectations to different people, causing feelings of inequality and injustice.
- Love-Bombing: Overwhelming you with excessive attention, compliments, or gifts initially, only to later use these gestures for manipulation.
- Microaggressions: Subtle and often unintentional actions or comments that convey prejudice or discrimination.
- Emotional Blackmail: Threatening to withdraw love, support, or care to control your behavior or decisions.
Using these terms to describe behaviors can help individuals pinpoint specific actions that may be contributing to their lack of clarity. This awareness can empower them to assess their situation objectively, communicate effectively, and make informed decisions about seeking help, setting boundaries, or taking steps towards personal growth and resolution.
- Triangulation: Involving a third party in conflicts or discussions to manipulate perceptions or gain an advantage.
- Cycle of Abuse: Recognizing the repeating pattern of tension-building, explosion, reconciliation, and honeymoon phases in an abusive relationship.
- Victim-Blaming: Holding you responsible for the negative consequences of the other person’s behavior, shifting the blame onto you.
- Coercion: Using pressure, threats, or manipulation to force you into actions or decisions you’re uncomfortable with.
- Invalidation: Dismissing or belittling your emotions, experiences, or perspective, leading to self-doubt and confusion.
- Negotiation Tactics: Utilizing manipulation or emotional tactics during discussions to sway the outcome in one’s favor.
- Passive Compliance: Going along with requests or demands to avoid conflict or negative repercussions, even if you’re uncomfortable.
- Scapegoating: Blaming you for problems or difficulties within a group or relationship, often unfairly.
- Hostile Humor: Using sarcasm or humor to demean or ridicule you, under the guise of joking.
- Controlled Disclosure: Sharing selective information to maintain power, withholding key details to manipulate the situation.
This understanding is essential for making informed decisions about seeking help, setting boundaries, and ultimately prioritizing their well-being.
- Mental Manipulation: Using psychological tactics to influence your thoughts, beliefs, and perceptions.
- Exploitative Promises: Offering rewards, benefits, or positive outcomes to manipulate your behavior or compliance.
- Disengagement: Avoiding communication or emotional connection as a way to control the relationship or situation.
- Normalization of Harm: Downplaying or justifying harmful behavior to make it seem acceptable or typical.
- Selective Amnesia: Conveniently forgetting previous promises, commitments, or agreements.
- Emotional Withholding: Refusing to provide emotional support, affection, or validation as a means of control.
- Intentional Confusion: Deliberately creating unclear or contradictory situations to keep you off-balance.
- Conditional Approval: Granting approval, affection, or attention only when certain conditions are met.
- Dismissive Attitude: Ignoring your concerns, opinions, or emotions, causing you to feel insignificant.
- Overstepping Boundaries: Ignoring your personal limits or disregarding your consent, leading to discomfort and violation.
I pray these behavioral identifiers will provide clarity to you and empower you to address issues, set healthy boundaries, and make choices that prioritize your mental, emotional, and physical well-being.
Thank you for reading! I do hope this was insightful and encouraging! I have found a lot of healing in setting aside my ego, recognizing where I tend to default in situations that are uncomfortable or are a threat to my ego. A critical spirit lives in the inflated ego and an active avoidance of self awareness, self reflection and self acceptance.
It’s interesting how a critical spirit will condemn people for being too self-absorbed if they have self-confidence or are self-reliant, yet their mere critical nature is a result of their lack thereof.
It’s painful to peel back the layers of ego and self deprication in order to reveal who we really are.
Especially for someone who has soaked in the bath of righteous indignation for far too long, using it as a cover for their own dirty little secrets. Not everyone plots and schemes, or tries to “get back” at people who they perceive has tried to harm them, not everyone defaults into destructive behavioral patterns or harmful behaviors.
A critical person believes everyone is as critical or worse than them, they believe people to be the worst attributes possible that they can think of. A critical spirits ego is threatened by those who have a genuine heart of kindness, because critically speaking, it has to be just as fake as the critical spirits fake kindness.
The loathing and the condescension in a critical spirit cannot genuinely be kind, they seethe with genuine pain at the idea someone is being kind as it ignites the desire to prove the point that it’s not genuine.
It’s one of the reasons you’ll see someone kind being targeted by a critical spirit, because the challenge has been accepted. To destroy them at all costs and in doing so prove they aren’t really kind at all, pushing them to the point of explosion and then pop. Point proved, they cause the person who was genuinely kind to display a response that isn’t so kind and now the critical spirit is validated and believes they are indeed right and this proves it to themselves and in a twisted way makes the critical spirit feel justified in doing whatever malicious thing they did to procure that reaction from the kind person in order to serve the purpose of “revealing the truth”.
Fuels them and confirms they aren’t in the wrong for their part in creating chaos that anyone would likely respond to in frustration.
Yet a critical spirit doesn’t see it that way. They see it as proof and like it’s an unmasking of the true evil one. The faker.
So in a critical spirits narrative, anyone kind is masking evil and anyone walking around defeated is a kindred spirit who they can join forces with to wreak havoc on kind people in order to be the majority. Ever heard someone say “well everyone seems to leave you, you are the common denominator, so you’re the problem”, or “you seem to be the common denominator,” or “if it was just one or two people I wouldn’t be so concerned, but three or more people makes me tend to believe them over you.” — critical spirits like birds of a feather flock together, they target and destroy people and others perspective of you too. They seek to anhiliate you and devour you and anyone else who is like you. Plaguing the minds of those who fall prey to gossip and enjoy the dark pleasures of sabotage. It’s scary and best to distance one’s self from someone who is critical. Observe and distance yourself.
This is not the spirit of Jesus Christ. By their fruits you will know them. A self deprecator, a self saboteur who likes to sabotage others, someone who is the greatest victim of all, a victim of everything and everyone. Never holds themselves accountable, never takes responsibility for specific behaviors. Always blames, shames and points the finger at others. They even blame others for their own behaviors and feelings. They cannot sit with themselves, the hide who they are behind their ego of justification. God loves you and will help you open your eyes if you feel critical at times. You can let go of that critical view and embrace the freedom in Jesus Christ! You are enough and God loves ALL of you! ♥️
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Resources
More Resources
- Natalie Anne Hoffman with the Flying Free podcast — episode 160 “An Emotional Recovery Tool That Changes Everything” — this episode is a game changer. I listen to it often and it has changed how I think and process my thoughts. Defines where our actions begin. How no one can make us feel anything. It’s all based on the meaning we place on things. It’s powerful to take your power back that you didn’t even know was yours to begin with. It was yours all along!
- Leslie Vernick – Enriching Relationships That Matter Most — podcast episode “Is It Abuse?”
- PlusONE Parents — podcast episode “Does God Hate Divorce”
- Jen Wilkin — podcast episode “DISTRESS & DELIVERANCE: UNDERSTANDING THE HEART OF GOD IN THE MIDST OF SUFFERING WITH JEN WILKIN”
- Bare Marriage with Sheila Wray Gregoire
- Patrick Weaver Ministries
- Esther Company
- Confusion to Clarity
- The Life-Saving Divorce—Gretchen Baskerville
- Intentional Today
- Sarah McDugal – Wilderness to WILD
- Rebecca Davis—Untwisting Scriptures
- Betrayal Trauma Recovery
- Sarah K Ramsey Toxic Person Proof Podcast
- Marg Mowczko
- Psalm 82 Initiative
- Thriving Forward
- Held & Healed: Christian Women Rebuilding After Abuse by Heather Elizabeth
- Another One Free
- Amy Gannett — podcast episode “ANSWERING YOUR KIDS’ QUESTIONS ABOUT GOD WHEN YOU’VE GOT SOME OF YOUR OWN WITH AMY GANNETT”
- Lisa Appelo — podcast episode “LIFE CAN BE GOOD AGAIN: LOSS & LACK TRANSFORMED BY THE GOODNESS OF GOD WITH LISA APPELO”
- Bailey T. Hurley — podcast episode “FRIENDS LIKE FAMILY: FINDING YOUR PEOPLE & CULTIVATING COMMUNITY”
- Nate Postlethwait
- My Response Series | Why Do The Wicked Prosper
They will reap grievously what they’ve sown, and some will not repent in this life. That is a tragedy in and of itself. - My Response Series | Self-Love vs Selfishness
Self-love involves healthy boundaries and self-respect, whereas selfishness often involves disregarding others’ feelings or needs. - My Response Series | Entitled Husband & “Crazy” Wife Dynamic
“No one is perfect” – Husbands attempt to gaslight his horrible behavior as his Wife simpling being unrealistic in her expectations of him. - My Response Series | “My Ex Is Crazy”
How someone talks about someone is telling. Someone who is unwilling to meet their partner’s emotional needs or engage in constructive communication is unsafe.
The Family Treat 