Feedback Thoughts

I have a lot of trouble with feedback.  With all the messages surrounding us about "not being afraid to be yourself" or "daring to be different", it's sometimes hard for me to tell which feedback is constructive criticism I should follow or which is thinly veiled criticism.  Often, I feel personally attacked even with the most benign feedback, which I know is not something I should be feeling.  I really appreciated the ideas about overcoming the fear of feedback by building a new habit chain regarding feedback.  I have tried to do so in the past but still find it rather difficult to not think that I am being victimized.  Hopefully, in the future I will be able to take criticism effectively and realize when it is truly meant to help rather than to break me down.
Feelings of rejection definitely contribute to my negative thoughts when given feedback.  It feels as if the people are just trying to insult me rather than help, but I am trying to work on that as well.  I know that they are not truly rejecting me but actually helping me.  I also appreciated the suggestions when faced with actual rejection though as I often fear rejection when approaching new acquaintances or when speaking in front of the class.  I am also very prone to beating myself up when rejected, so next time I will try thinking of all my good qualities rather than focusing on what I could have done differently.
At first when I was reading the articles about giving feedback, I was rather surprised because I always felt like I gave good, constructive feedback.  However, after thinking about it more I realized that I often did exactly what both articles said was bad:  tried to mitigate my criticism by constantly praising how "smart" or "good" the work was.  I liked the ideas about praising hard work rather than cleverness and also about opening up a dialogue and being present rather than doling out empty praise.  In the future, I will try to say what I truly feel about somebody else's work constructively rather using empty words.

How I feel when given feedback.  Web Source.

Story: Vengeance

Vengeance

                Almost every culture has a legend about a vengeful female demon.  The Chinese speak of nu gui, females who have been sexually assaulted and return to seek their revenge, the Spanish whisper about La Llorona, a woman in a white dress who killed her children after her husband has an affair, and in Cambodia they talk about Krasue, a decapitated beautiful woman.

                Do you ever wonder why that is?

                I am the original scorned woman, and all of those myths originate from me.

                When I was young, I was the delight of my family.  I was the most beautiful person in all the land and with my powerful father I could have had any man in the kingdom.  I was content and everyone served me.

                But the heart wants what the heart wants, and everything changed when I met him.

                Rama was the most beautiful man I had ever seen, more beautiful than my brother or my father.  He had the most gorgeous brown eyes that felt like they were staring into my soul. . . I can still see them when I dream.

                But I digress.

                I waited days to speak to him, spying on him through the trees as he hunted and swam.  Every day I fell more and more in love with him until one day I knew I had to do something.

                So I appeared to him and asked him for his hand in marriage, never thinking that he could turn me down.  After all, no one had ever done that.

                He did worse than reject me though; he outright laughed at me.  He refused to even consider my proposal saying that he would never betray his beautiful wife, Sita, pointing at her through the trees.  I protested saying that she was nowhere near as beautiful as I was, but he only laughed again.

                I hate being laughed at.

                Stalking away from him, I vowed revenge.  Nobody would hurt me this way and get away with it.  If I couldn’t have what I wanted, neither could he.  I would take away that which he loved most—his wife.

                Not one for patience, I flew at Sita immediately when I saw she was alone, hoping to cause as much damage as possible.  To my surprise, someone stopped me and threw me back.  When I stood up again, I could feel blood dripping down my face, and I screamed.

                “What have you done to me?!”  My face, my beautiful face, was gone.  Crying tears of humiliation, I ran and swore revenge anew.

                I persuaded some demons to attack Rama and his brother and carry off Sita but somehow they managed to defeat them all.  How I did not know, but I knew of one more way to carry out my revenge.

                I called on my brother, one of the most powerful demons, to help me.  With his cunning and my wrath, I knew we could never fail.  All I had to promise him was the girl.  I agreed readily.

                She wasn’t the one I wanted anyway.

Rama spurns Shurpanakha.  Web Source.

Author's Note:  I didn't take many liberties with the plot of the story except for using the version where Rama doesn't tell Shurpanakha to seek Lakshmana and instead he intervenes when she attacks Sita.  I also drew parallels between her story and other folktales featuring vengeful women.

Bibliography:  Public Domain Ramayana.  Web Source.

Reading Notes: PDE Ramayana Part B

• I am very happy that Bharata was forgiven by Rama and that he was so dutiful and tried to follow him into exile.  I'm glad he didn't end up wanting to be king and trying to overthrow Rama.
• I wonder what happens to Manthara in the end?  She wasn't killed by the other brothers, but will she eventually get her due?
• I am very curious about how good of a ruler Bharata was.  He obviously never forgot that Rama was supposed to rule not him, but was he a good ruler too?  Maybe he would have been even better than Rama.
• Rama kind of brought Shurpanakha's wrath down on himself.  Although if he had outright rejected her, the same thing probably would have happened too.  I really want a point of view from her though as the sad rejected girl.  She kind of reminds me of those demons or witches who swear revenge on men who spurn them.
• The golden deer reminds me of Artemis's hart from Greek mythology!  Completely different story though but it's funny that two very different cultures have a golden deer playing large roles in their folklore.
• Poor Jatayu.  Often in American or western folklore, vultures are represented as evil harbingers of death and doom, but in this story he is seen as a noble and heroic figure, something I found very interesting.
• Kabandha is definitely one of the coolest demons I've seen.  He just looks so funny!  I think it's weird that we see so little of his story.  He was turned into a rakshasa but why?  What did he do to deserve that punishment?
• Shabari also interests me a lot.  Why did she have to stay behind the whole time?  Just to prove her devotion?

Kabandha.  Web Source.

Bibliography:  Public Domain Ramayana.  Web Source.

Reading Notes: PDE Ramayana Part A

• I did not know that Rama was an avatar of Vishnu and Sita was an avatar for Lakshmi which is why they're fated to be together.  Cute love story.
• Since Vishnu is all four sons of Dasharatha how does that work?  Are they all different aspects of his personalities?
• I cannot believe that one of the wives had 60,000 sons.  She would have had to be continuously pregnant for 45,000 years!  That's longer than Ayodhya's reign.
• I'm really distressed by the fact that all of her sons died.  Not only was she pregnant for 45,000 years but also none of them lived for very long considering everything.  They did eventually get to heaven but they still all died.  I would really like to know her point of view.
• I find the emphasis on Rama very interesting considering all the sons of Dasharatha are avatars of Vishnu.  I want to know more about the other sons.
• Since all four sons of Dasharatha are Vishnu are all of Sita's sisters Lakshmi as well?
• Not condemning Rama since I might have the same instinctual reaction as well, but I'm wondering why he blamed and decided to reject Bharata?  He didn't ask for his mother to try and raise him to heir apparent.  He didn't even know this was happening.  Everybody begins blaming him as well as his mother too though even though he was just a victim of his circumstances like Rama.
• The story of the reason of Dasharatha's death really saddened me.  What a tragic mistake.  I can understand why the father blamed Dasharatha but it really wasn't his fault either.
• Honestly I'm not sure why Dasharatha decided to honor Kaikeyi's request.  I mean she would have killed herself but is it worth exiling your oldest son?  I don't think anyone would have judged him for saying no to that.

Four sons of Dasharatha.  Web Source.

Bibliography:  Public Domain Ramayana.  Web Source.