These are excerpts from the author’s book “Deep,” which contains eight of his small books published in the form of Wisdom Literature covering different aspects of life: Facing troublemakers, dealing with pain, personal financial issues, gastronomy, reading, criticizing, inspiring, and feeling always good to go.

Series 6: Criticizing.

Criticizing Sensitive People

• Sensitive people are usually adept at paying attention to criticism that concerns them, even if it is not directly intended for them. With sensitive people, it is best to offer criticism directly, smartly and kindly, as much as you can.

• If sensitive people ask your opinion about their behaviors, and you have a comment on them, don’t tell them everything is fine. On the other hand, do not rush to confront them frankly with your opinion if that opinion is a bit harsh; try to choose appropriate phrases to direct them to ways to improve and praise the positive points in their work or behavior, wherever such points are found.

• Your behavior and previous attitude with sensitive people will determine how they will receive your criticism. It is wise to be honest and kind to people in general; this will benefit you and them in one way or another.

• If you happen to deal continuously with a sensitive person because of work or other reasons, it does not make sense to think about the way you criticize them every time. The relationship between you must settle on a pattern that generally allows receiving criticism, when needed, or at least adapting to the actions and behavior of the sensitive person in general.

• Don’t assume you should blame the sensitive person every time because of their personality. Check yourself in any situation, at least from time to time. It may not be the sensitive person’s responsibility; it could be that you could not clearly identify and judge the situation.

• If you are a sensitive person, take the initiative to improve your way of accepting criticism. This will help you to accept yourself better, just as it will help you to accept others and life around you.

• In parallel with your work on improving your sensitivity to criticism, use it to predict the areas of criticism that others may have for you, and work to avoid those areas as optimally as possible.

• If you are very sensitive to criticism, take advantage of that in self-criticism, provided that you are positive with yourself and that you are not turning into someone who performs excessive self-flagellation.

• It is not wise to alert people who are sensitive to criticism that you know this about them and that you treat them with caution for this reason. No one likes to confront them and make them aware of what others consider to be their faults, no matter how “nice” the approach may be (as those who call attention to others’ faults think).

• When dealing with a person who is sensitive to criticism, realize that they are not necessarily aware that they are sensitive to criticism. We often see ourselves as normal, regardless of what others think of us.