Receiving Feedback: Practice #3

Note: This is the third post in a series exploring practices I’ve found transformative both personally and in my work with clients. You can read my introductory post about practice here.

Criticism can sting—whether it’s from a colleague or your own inner voice. Our first instinct is often to shut down, lash out, or spiral into self-doubt. But what if we could meet feedback with clarity, curiosity, and even grace?

Wendy Palmer, who passed away recently, was a teacher and coach who helped shape the field of Embodied Leadership. She offered a practice for receiving feedback that I’ve found incredibly helpful.It introduces a somatic (body-based) shift that helps us take in and learn from feedback more fully.

Since learning this practice, I’ve discovered that it can be helpful in other contexts as well, such as navigating challenging or charged conversations, or even to help us receive praise and appreciation with grace.

This post is both a refresher for clients familiar with the practice and an introduction for anyone new who’s found their way here.

The Biology of Receiving Feedback

When we receive challenging feedback—or hear something we strongly disagree with—our nervous system often perceives it as a threat and quickly mobilizes to protect us. The challenge is that, unlike our ancestors, most of the threats we face today aren’t physical. Yet our brains still respond as if they are. Often, it’s our automatic response—not the situation itself—that fuels unnecessary stress and conflict. (This is worth considering on both a personal and global scale.)

Once our nervous system is triggered, our range of responses shrinks—largely to the well-known trio of responses:  fight, flight, or freeze. When our system feels threatened, we're far less likely to respond wisely or intentionally. While this contraction of responses can be lifesaving in the face of physical danger, it is often counterproductive when dealing with these perceived threats.

The practice I’m offering here is designed to help us organize ourselves in a way that allows us to receive feedback not as a threat but as data. When we do this, we are then able to thoughtfully evaluate and respond to the input and experience feedback as an invitation to a conversation, to learning, to reflection. We can access a wider and more skillful range of responses even in difficult or emotionally charged moments.

Start with Center

Our ability to respond wisely begins with our capacity to find and hold center when faced with a threat. From center we have choice. So, the first step in this practice, like most somatic practices, is centering.

There are many ways to find center. My go-to practice is one I learned originally from my teacher Doug Silsbee, described in this post. Wendy Palmer taught a simpler version, which is described here and you can find in this recording. I’ve also discovered that simply offering the instruction “find your center” is often enough. Intuitively, on hearing this instruction, we pause, take a breath, and can shift our state.

I strongly suggest adopting a centering practice of some kind and consciously taking a few seconds, several times a day, to center. Practicing centering is both preparation for receiving feedback and an immensely valuable practice in its own right. Practicing when we are not threatened allows us to build the muscle that gives us access to center in more challenging moments.

The Centered Listening Practice

Wendy taught us to contrast our default reaction to feedback with a centered one. Ideally, you’d do this with a partner, taking turns giving and receiving feedback. But it also works as a solo practice—using a piece of criticism you’ve heard (or told yourself) before.

1. Choose a Criticism
   Start with a real but manageable criticism—either something you've told yourself or something someone else has said to you. Avoid anything too emotionally charged if you're just starting out.

2. Step Into Your Default Reaction
   Cross your arms, slump your posture, tighten your body—embody how you typically respond to criticism. Have your partner deliver the criticism while you're in this closed state.

Notice your internal dialogue. Are you beating yourself up? Getting defensive? Just observe.

1. Shift to a Centered State
   Now, find a centered posture.

• Sit up tall and uncross your limbs

• Breathe deeply and think of something that makes you smile

• Expand your sense of space and imagine your partner (if you’re doing this with a partner) as an ally—someone who cares about you.

• Picture the words of the criticism landing not on you, but in front of you—maybe on a table or in a bowl

1. Bring in Support
   Visualize someone wise or grounding placing their hands on your back. This could be a mentor, a public figure, or someone who cares about you—your posse can include people who you know, who you admire from afar, who are living, who are no longer living. Wendy called this your “posse”—people who embody qualities you want to cultivate. Mine includes Barack Obama (calm), Michelle Obama (warmth), and my father (unconditional love).

2. Receive the Criticism Again
   With your new posture and mindset, ask your partner to repeat the same criticism. Look at it with curiosity. Is there something useful or true here?

3. Respond From Resourcefulness
   Instead of reacting, respond with openness. Try: “You might be right. What if we tried…?” or simply, “Tell me more.”

4. Reflect Together
   Ask your partner how it felt to give you feedback in both states. Then switch roles. This practice is just as powerful for the giver as it is for the receiver. When someone is resourced and open, the whole dynamic shifts.

Practice Recap

Making this practice a part of daily life can be quite powerful. Once you’ve learned the practice by contrasting ways of receiving feedback, you can simply follow these steps. And, keep in mind that this practice can be useful not only when receiving criticism, but when you’re engaged in any conversation that has the potential to be challenging, where there is conflict.

Step 1: Center. Before receiving feedback—especially if it might be tough—pause and take a few seconds to find your center.

Step 2: Open. When we feel threatened, we often collapse inward. Gently open the front of your body—let your chest lift, soften your gaze. This signals to your nervous system that you’re safe.

Step 3: Lean back. We tend to lean forward when bracing for impact. Try a slight lean back—not to disengage, but to relax into receptivity instead of reaction.

Step 4: Widen. Expand your awareness beyond the person speaking. Notice the space around you—the room, the context. This helps shift you out of tunnel vision and into a more spacious, grounded state.

What You Can Learn from This Practice

·        Your body shapes your response. When you’re centered and open, you access a wider range of thoughtful responses—and others tend to meet you there.

·        Your first reaction isn’t the truth. It’s just a pattern. Noticing it is the first step toward shifting it.

·        You don’t have to absorb criticism. By imagining it landing in front of you, you create space to evaluate it with clarity instead of reacting emotionally.

·        It’s a practice. Like building muscle, centering takes repetition. Even brief resets throughout the day help build your capacity—and over time, you’ll notice real change.

Final Thoughts

You might be wondering about how to use this practice when you receive feedback unexpectedly, and haven’t had time to center. The partial answer is practice. These four steps can happen in a matter of seconds—when we train ourselves to center in the face of a threat, we can use them to regain our grounding and choice in the moment. With time and repetition, they become more instinctive.

The other part of the answer is that we won’t be perfect. Sometimes feedback lands poorly and rattles us, sometimes challenging conversations don’t go as we hoped they would. Our work, then, is to acknowledge and embrace our imperfection—and allow ourselves to experience what we feel. That’s a practice too.

This practice isn't about becoming immune to criticism—it's about becoming more available to what it has to offer. Whether you're leading a team, navigating conflict, or working on self-compassion, learning to meet feedback with calm and clarity is a game-changer.

When you face criticism, take a breath, center yourself, and let it land in the space around you—not within you.