Welcome to Heal Yourself, Change Your Life. My name is Brandy Gillmore, and after recovering from my own life-changing injury, it’s become my mission to share with others the same discoveries I made that changed my health and my entire life. Our minds are truly incredible. The placebo is proof of this.
Each week I will take this simple awareness to a whole new level. I’ll even coach live callers to free themselves of physical pain using only their mind, and then I’ll provide you with a combination of practical and spiritual insights that you can use to master your mind, your emotions, and your energy to help you heal your health, yourself, and your life.
Let’s begin.
Hello and happy beautiful day to you. Welcome to this week’s quick IQ episode where we talk about insights and questions. And today I want to talk about getting radical healing results, also about the topics of criticism and the impact that they can have, and also some things that you wanna do to change to be able to really heal yourself and heal your relationships and your life.
Radical Healing and the Role of Mindset
And so part of the reason this is coming up is that if you think about last week’s episode, I worked with a beautiful volunteer, Daria, who has MS. And if you listened to that episode, then you’ll recall that she had been working on trying to heal herself in every way she could for over six years. And when her and I started working together at the beginning of the session, I asked her, you know, what physical symptoms she was experiencing.
And she had numbness at her hands at about a level six. And if you listened to that episode, you’ll remember that as I helped her to shift her mindset, the numbness in her hands literally went away. And of course, you see people releasing pain and creating all kinds of changes, so we can see the mind-body connection.
Now, of course, for her to be able to maintain those results, she’ll really need to rewire the mind at a deeper level and follow through to make it a real lasting change. And that’s when I see the body heal itself.
Understanding Criticism and Its Impact
And so part of the reason that we’re talking about criticism today—and self-criticism—is just because it is so common for people to care about others and then those other people to feel criticized by it.
You know, if you think about going back to the last episode, one of the patterns that we had talked about was the pattern of feeling like her mom was criticizing her. But then also, the more that we really unpacked it and looked at it even deeper, there’s also a feeling of feeling like her mom really, really, really cared for her and really wanted the best for her.
And I have seen that so often, by the way, where mothers—or even fathers—might want the best for their children so much that they’re trying to give them feedback. And feedback feels like criticism. It feels like wounding.
And by the way, this is not just moms. In fact, maybe you’ve heard the slang, the new slang term “mansplaining”, where men are, you know, giving unsolicited feedback.
And I see that all the time. In fact, I’ve been playing pickleball for the last few months, and it’s kind of something that you’ll see—like, it’s kind of a little bit of a joke because a lot of times, you know, there’s some mansplaining going on. And even—it’s kind of divine timing—but even last week there was this beautiful, beautiful being, wonderful guy—honestly one of the most caring guys in the world.
But what he’ll do is he has a tendency to mansplain pickleball. And he really wants to help. And by the way, you can’t help but love this guy. And at the same time, he—in the middle of a… like, he’s just trying to help.
And so my point is, all of the time, men and women might have this tendency to want to help and yet, all of the time, what can happen is on the receiving end, somebody will feel criticized or hurt or whatnot. And a lot of it has to do with really respect around giving advice or giving information.
Because when we stop and look at it, this topic may seem so simple because you see it all the time. You literally see people giving unsolicited advice to others all the time. And what happens is that so often, just like our beautiful volunteer, people then start to feel insecure if it’s not done right. They’re feeling insecure or defensive or frustrated.
You know, going back to the original mansplaining definition—where basically it’s a man explaining something unsolicited—a lot of times it’s something that somebody already knows, but they’re kind of like telling you like you don’t know it.
And again, it’s not men, it’s not women—it’s all around us. And so on that note, if we think about the awareness that this can affect your health, your life, what do you wanna know from this?
Shifting the Habit of Giving Unsolicited Advice
First and foremost, if you are somebody who does have a tendency to give unsolicited advice, you may wanna just ask somebody, you know: “Hey, can I give you a tip?” “Can I point something out?” “Can I share something?”
Because I cannot tell you how often I have seen this backfire in people’s lives. I have worked with women with breast cancer who maybe felt like this in their relationships, where they were giving advice to everybody—giving advice to their children at 20 years old, at 30 years old, at 40 years old—and their children, grown children, were tired of it.
And so they pushed their mom out of their life because they just couldn’t handle all of the unsolicited advice all the time. Or they limited her. And then, because the mom didn’t understand or didn’t realize—because in her mind, she’s just helping, she’s being helpful, she’s doing a great job, and she’s helping—what happens is, I’ve seen this so many times where a mother has been basically pushed out of the family dynamic because of this, and she doesn’t realize why.
And so I’ve seen sickness and illness happen from this hurt and this wounding on both sides. And it may seem so simple—it’s just unsolicited advice—and yet, when it’s given in a way where people feel criticized, or people feel nitpicked, or it’s at the wrong time, or without permission or whatnot, just like in our last week’s episode, people can feel insecure or defensive or afraid of somebody else.
And I see it all the time. And I’m saying moms, but again, this happens with fathers as well—all the time.
The Advice Giver’s Blind Spot
By the way, a lot of times what happens for the person who’s giving advice: they might not even realize it. Like I was mentioning about pickleball—this gentleman who’s so nice—he just has no self-awareness. And he’s like, if somebody doesn’t take his advice, he’s like, “Well, they just can’t take the information,” or “Oh, they think they know it all.” Or like he’s offended if they can’t take advice—or his unsolicited advice.
So he thinks the person has some issues. And so, just, he lacks the awareness of it. But this is the thing, right?
It’s men, it’s women. So I don’t want to point the finger at anybody. And by the way, it’s not really—not at all—about pointing the finger. It’s about healing. It’s about healing relationships.
And again, the reason this is coming up is just because when we stop and look at last week’s episode, and I just see this all of the time—so much.
And if you are, again, if you are somebody who does give advice all the time, you could do it in a different way to respect boundaries or prepare somebody for it. Where you say, “Hey, by the way, can I give you a tip on that?” And if somebody says no—respect that. And so that’s one simple thing that you could do.
The Other Side of the Dynamic
Now, on the flip side, of course, if we get feedback in life—if you get feedback—don’t take it as criticism. Just being able to take it and receive it and take it and receive it, but also being able to set healthy boundaries around it.
So even communicating to somebody who says, “Look, I’m happy to get feedback, but can we do it later?” Or, you know, setting up healthy ways and a healthy dynamic in a relationship so that everybody can flourish and that it’s not wounding the relationship.
And again, I know what can come up in this place is that for somebody who’s always feeling criticized, there’s gonna be some people who are listening to this who are going, “Oh my gosh, I always feel criticized by my mom or my dad or whatnot.” And then there’s gonna be other people who are typically the advice givers who are gonna go, “Gosh, people just can’t take information.”
And really, ultimately what happens is sometimes—especially if somebody’s in the middle of doing something—that whole hurt, that wounding, that nitpicking can come up, and it can feel real.
Unpacking Self-Criticism and Deep Patterns
By the way, there are so many patterns regarding this as well. So if we unpack this even further, one of the ways I see this show up all the time is people being wired to criticize themselves.
For example, a simple but obvious example that I use all the time is someone might say, “Oh, I look horrible in this shirt,” and someone else says, “What? Oh no, you look great.”
What happens is if someone criticizes themselves and then it’s met by a compliment—“Oh no, you look great”—or reassurance, what happens is there’s like a positive and a negative getting linked up. And the mind will want to continue to criticize itself. It gets rewarded for it.
It’s like a dog goes outside and goes potty outside—you give it a treat, right?
Another example, with the mind, is if—unfortunately—a cutter, someone who’s been through trauma, cuts themselves and feels relief or euphoria or control or safety from cutting themselves. They got it linked up. The correct, healthy wiring is if somebody felt cut, that would not be a good thing. It wouldn’t feel good—it would feel bad. We don’t want to do that.
And so criticizing ourselves? We would want that to feel bad. That’s not what we want our brains to do. We don’t want our brains to be wired to cut ourselves or criticize ourselves. And yet sometimes people will feel like it keeps them safe from other people criticizing them too. If someone says, “Oh, this isn’t that great,” they might say it because they feel like if they can criticize themselves first, then they’ll save themselves from other people doing it.
This again shows up in so many different ways—and I see it all of the time. And of course, setting up a healthy dynamic around this is key.
Patterns from Childhood That Reinforce Criticism
Another way I can see this all the time—a pattern will show up like this: I’ll see people who have a belief and a pattern even since childhood. Maybe it’s a pattern at age seven that says something like, “My mom is always mad at me,” or “I’m always in trouble,” or “I’m always being criticized.”
And then what happens? If that’s a pattern, it’s like they also grow up and tend to do the very thing that leads to that. In other words, I’ve seen people before who feel like, “Oh, my husband is always criticizing me,” or “My wife is always criticizing me,” and it’s like—they literally do the very things that would upset their spouse or partner over and over again.
So their actions can also create it. And so, on this topic, I want to invite you to look at this in your life because I have seen parents who’ve had children who were sick—and part of the contributing factor, if we look again back at last week’s episode, was a lot of feeling criticized, feeling attacked. Not because it was intentional, but because all the time, the other person is saying, “I’m just giving feedback,” or “I’m just helping.”
But it’s this unsolicited advice that can feel jarring, or it can create insecurity. I’ve seen children who—when they’re getting so much feedback—start to feel insecure, like, “Oh, am I not enough? Am I not okay?”
Healing Relationships and Setting Positive Intentions
So I want to invite you to look at this in your life—and especially with the ones that you love, and even for your own health—and just notice if it’s showing up for you. And if so, I want to invite you to evaluate: What would it look like to shift this? What would you want to change? What would make this show up in a more healthy way in your life, in your love, in your relationships?
Just food for thought. I want to invite you again—what is a positive way that you could move this that might feel better for yourself, but also for others?
And by the way, if you missed last week’s podcast episode, I strongly recommend listening to it. Our volunteer, Daria—just an absolute gem, a beautiful, beautiful being—and hearing her just get the numbness out of her hands and the changes she made…
Criticism was one of those patterns. There were others as well. But just hearing her, laughing with her—it was a really beautiful episode. And I just wanted to go deeper with this topic because it is something I see all of the time.
So whether it’s criticism toward self, or toward others, or whatnot—even if you’re somebody… sometimes I’ll see people at work where they don’t have the ability to just take feedback. So then instead of—it’s a job, something they need to know how to do—they can’t take feedback. Everything feels negative.
So maybe in your case, maybe that might be the situation for you. Can you take feedback in a healthy and productive way, where you’re not taking it personally, but you’re taking it productively? Especially if it comes to a job or something that you need to perform at. You know?
Food for thought. That’s the insight I wanted to share with you today on this Quick IQ episode.
Share the Love and Spread the Healing
And that said, as always, I ask you to take just a quick moment to hit the share button on this episode. Share it with somebody you love, somebody you care about—or somebody you don’t even know. Because the more that every single person in our world is happy, and healthy, and loved, and loving—the better this world is for all of us.
And so please do it. Take just a quick moment to hit the share button. And please do make a point to have a most loving, wonderful, incredible rest of your day. And I look forward to connecting with you on the next episode. We’ll see you.
Thank you for listening to Heal Yourself, Change Your Life.
All the time, people reach out and say how much these episodes have given them hope, or touched their heart, or helped them stay positive in hard times—or even woken them up to a completely new level of awareness of how amazing we all really are.
If today’s episode touched your heart or expanded your mind in any way, please do me a favor and be sure to share it with those you care about—or those you know who really need it. As more and more people become empowered, it really will change our world for the better.
That is the point and the power of these demonstrations—to create a radical shift in our world consciousness by showing everyone what we are all capable of.
And of course, each volunteer will really need to follow through to reinforce their programming, to maintain their results. But the point is for you to see that you really can create rapid results in your health and your life if you really understand how to use your mind.
You are incredible.
And I do want to be clear though that most people will not get results this fast on their own. I make it look very easy because of the discoveries that I made. You’ll want to remember that there’s so much more going on in our minds at a deeper level than people realize.
That said, if you want to send me any questions or comments, come visit me on my website at brandygillmore.com/podcast. And if you’re currently experiencing physical pain and would like to be a volunteer on the show, you can sign up there as well.
Lastly, please remember—if you do have any health issues, you won’t want to avoid your doctors. Instead, you’ll want to continue seeing them and make it your goal to blow their minds with what you are capable of with your mind.
Thank you.
