Jack Hopkins: The Unseen Armor of Indifference to Criticism

Have you ever been stung by a harsh comment and wondered why it hurt so deeply? Join me, Jack Hopkins, as I reflect on the power of self-acceptance to disarm the barbs of criticism. Through a tapestry of personal stories, like the time my wife chuckled at a negative online remark, we'll unravel the societal pressures that teach us to take offense. I'll share how my daughter's confident response to a peer's comment about her birthmark sparked a thought-provoking discussion on why some words can wound while others slide off us like water. This episode promises to take you on a journey that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the transformative impact of embracing our own truths.

As Mother's Day approaches, let's also connect with the enduring influence our mothers have on our lives, even amid life's complexities. I'll recount my visit to my mother after her stroke, intertwining it with childhood memories and the unexpected wisdom gleaned from "your mama" jokes. You'll hear about the lessons of mental strength I've passed on to my children, illustrated by my daughter's interaction with her teacher, which underscores the significance of indifference to unfounded criticism. This conversation isn't just about toughening up—it's an invitation to honor the deep connections with our mothers and to consider how acknowledging and understanding our roots shape our capacity to face adversity with grace.

*** This was originally created as a video for the subscribers of The Jack Hopkins Now Newsletter https://www.JackHopkinsNow.com 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to the Jack Hopkins Show podcast, where stories about the power of focus and resilience are revealed by the people who live those stories and now the host of the Jack Hopkins Show podcast, jack Hopkins.

Speaker 2: 0:19

Hey, this is Jack Hopkins for your Friday night Jack Hopkins Power Minute, which is actually your early Saturday morning Jack Hopkins Power Minute, because I went for a midnight walk, so excuse the lovely attire, it's dark, I wasn't going to see anybody and I have my old favorites I think I've had this shirt 16, 17 years and it's one of those when I need to just throw something on and go. Nobody's going to see me. I throw this on, but I guess if I was worried about somebody seeing me, I wouldn't be wearing it for this Jack Hopkins powder. Anyway, let's get down to what I wanted to talk about Now. I'm going to say something here in just a moment that if your ears are sensitive and you are easily offended, you may want to turn away right now, or put your fingers in your ears. To turn away right now, or put your fingers in your ears For the rest of you, I hope you find this as amusing and funny as I did earlier today.

Speaker 2: 1:32

But the long story is my wife, who very rarely, gets on and looks at my post or scrolls down through the comments, the threads, or scrolls down through the comments, the threads, maybe once a month when she's run out of literally everything else to do to occupy her time. She will. And today she's scrolling down through and she just busts out laughing and I said what the hell's the matter with you? And she literally had tears in her eyes. Long story short, when she could finally speak, she's pointing to her phone and saying somebody called you a fat cunt.

Speaker 2: 2:15

Now I immediately start laughing too, but I want to explain why, why that was the response and the way we process things around here. But I want to go back to yesterday to really set this up, because my daughter, my 11-year-old daughter, came home from school yesterday and she's telling this story about something that had happened at school, where this other student, her age in the same grade, said something to her about this growth on the side of her head that she's had since birth and it takes up probably something about the size of her hand, which, for 11, she's got pretty good size hands, hands. So it's a pretty big patch of darkly pigmented skin and it's raised up. It's pretty bumpy, I mean it's clearly observable, it's benign.

Speaker 2: 3:16

It poses no threat and the way she's been raised in this household to think about the things that other people might be offended by is that if somebody is saying something about you that is true and you have accepted that it is true and are not in denial, then it can't hurt your feelings. It can't hurt your feelings. Now, if somebody says something hurt, that is tied directly to the degree to which you are in denial about that or don't like that aspect of you and therefore have not accepted that truth or that fact. So, unlike a situation where, maybe with another child, where another child comes home and it's like, oh my God, I'm upset, this girl said this thing about the patch of skin on the side of my head. I want you to do something. She came home talking about one of the teachers who had heard it and had come to my daughter and was trying to, you know, kind of console her, like you would normally have to do with an 11-year-old girl who had some type of for lack of better words, let's call it disfigurement and somebody was making fun of them about it. But my daughter looked at her quizzically like okay, I'm fine. I mean, I do have this thing on my head. Can't you see it? It's there, it doesn't bother me, it shouldn't bother you. And this ding dong that said something about it. Well, that's her problem. And it caught this teacher so off guard.

Speaker 2: 5:43

Because we live in a society now where people almost have no other slot in their mind for what the consequences of such a remark to somebody will be. I mean, it has to be offensive to them, doesn't it? Well, no, it doesn't. And so that's how we think about things around here. And let me give you another example of that slightly different mental framework. But I will ask people and when I say I will ask people, these were clients I used to have, or friends, or anybody who's curious at this point and the situation of something like I talked about comes up, and I will ask them. I will say look, if you were walking down the street tomorrow and somebody came up to you and said you are nothing but a dirty, filthy, purple Martian, would you be mad? And they look at me and they go well, no. And I say but why wouldn't you be mad? And the interesting thing is they don't immediately know the answer to why they would not be mad If somebody came up and said you're nothing but a dirty, filthy, purple Martian.

Speaker 2: 7:18

And they have to think about it for a moment and sometimes they still can't come up with it. And sometimes they still can't come up with it. But the ones who do eventually go. Well, I guess it's because I know I'm not a Martian and I'm not purple. So I mean, why would that be offensive? I mean I may think the person's an asshole for using the tone that they used, or I might be like holy shit, I'm confused about what this means. But no, I wouldn't be angry or hurt. And we circle back to the reason why they wouldn't be angry. And we circle back to the reason why they wouldn't be angry Because they know that it's not true of them.

Speaker 2: 8:14

They're not purple and they're not a Martian, and they know that. Now you say but wait a minute, what if it's something that was true? So I have. Of course, I shave my head pretty close, but one of the reasons I do that is because I have very little on top at this point in my life and if I were to let the sides and the back grow out, I would look like Larry on the Three Stooges. For my taste it would look ridiculous. So for all intents and purposes I'm a bald guy, but see, I know that, I know I'm a bald guy, but see, I know that, I know I'm a bald guy. So if somebody were to say you're fucking bald.

Speaker 1: 9:17

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 9:18

I mean, I agree with you, I am. I am bald, not as slick of a cueball type of head as some people I see, but yeah, for the most part I am bald. Why would I be pissed off about that? I'll tell you why. The only reason if I were to ever be upset about somebody calling me bald, would be because I'm rejecting that. I'm rejecting reality. I am in denial about reality. I don't want it to be true and so emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually, with every fiber of my being, I'm rejecting that idea. You might say I'm pretending as though that not bald and says you're fucking bald. And then I feel something inside of me shatter and there's a literal physical pain sensation that occurs with that. I don't like feeling things like that. So the way I go about my life is I set it up so that I don't really have to feel many of those and if I do, believe me, it's because it caught me really off guard and it's something that I wasn't even aware of, perhaps. So the point is, as we go through the next several months, if you're going to be online, you're going to be attacked verbally. Of course, nobody can reach through the screen and punch you, but you're going to have. It's going to go back and forth and we can debate the appropriateness of that or not, but that's neither here nor there for this discussion. It's going to happen period, and I know there will be some people that that happens too frequently enough that they'll be gone. They'll and they're gone because they say I, I'm just tired of all the bullshit. Understandable, as long as they understand that what they really just said is they're not mentally and emotionally equipped to deal with and process the bullshit and so the most effective thing for them to do is to just exit, leave that situation. And we can't have many people doing that. We need everybody on the front line that we can get. We need everybody on the front line that we can get. So one solution, then, is to start rethinking how you think about things people say to you or about you.

Speaker 2: 12:42

At this point in my life I cannot think of. I really can't. I'm not saying there's not something, but I can't think of what it would be if there is. I can't think of anything that anybody could say to me that would hurt my feelings, anything they could say about me, any insult. I'm pretty self-aware. I'm as critical of myself as anybody can be, so nobody's going to be able to say something about me, however derogatory and in whatever tone they use, that I don't already know. So it just would be unthinkable then for me to be able to be hurt by anything that somebody says about me or to me that I already knew and to see that it's A plus B equals C here at the part B and have accepted.

Speaker 2: 13:47

See, you can know things about yourself, you can know everything about yourself, but if there are a handful of things you have not accepted and are rejecting or are in denial about, then you can be emotionally wounded and in fact you probably will be emotionally wounded or hurt when somebody targets or attacks those areas. There's no useful purpose in that for you. It's not useful for you in this political saga we are in as we work toward the most important election in US history. There's nothing useful about you getting hurt by the things that people say or the things that you hear people have said about you. There's not. The useful thing is for those things to be able to be said to you or about you and you're just like that's interesting or that's funny or whatever else in terms of a nonchalant, like fuck it kind of response that you have. Then you are free. Seriously, that's when you are free, that's when you can dive into the foray if you will and go about your business.

Speaker 2: 15:27

You know I post not a lot, but occasionally, like today because I went and spent time with my mother today, for Mother's Day is coming up and, as some of you may know, my mother had a serious stroke about a year ago. Kind of still knows me, but that's about it. Can't really have much of a conversation, but I will post pictures of my mother and I, like I did from today when I saw her, and I do that without reservation, with no fear or like oh God, I hope the haters don't come out and attack my mother hole. This may sound crass, but I don't care, attack all you want, say what you want. They don't know my mother. So much of this came to me intuitively when I was in grade school and kids would get into big spats and fights and not speak to each other for days or weeks over the your mama jokes. Those jokes never bothered me and I'll tell you why. Because most to all of the kids that said a your mama joke about my mama had never even seen my mother. They didn't know my mother.

Speaker 2: 17:20

Now, how can I be hurt, wounded, upset and angered by somebody saying something about a cartoon, animated, self-created version of what they think my mother might look like? And they had to do it because they don't know. See, that's the way I always thought about that stuff and I was like I may get pissed off. In fact I would get pissed off if you came over and stole my lunch tray or threw my milk, poured it out on the floor because I like to eat. But say something about my mother, who you've never met. Say something about me, okay, who you've never met. Say something about me, okay.

Speaker 2: 18:10

I'm glad my children have been raised to think that way and I don't think about that a lot, until moments like yesterday when my youngest daughter came home and was telling the story and we're all sitting around laughing at the bewilderment of the teacher and how interesting it is that the teacher just could not grasp that. My 11-year-old daughter was like it's okay, I do have this thing on my head, it's not a surprise to me, I know all about it and I've accepted it. That's healthy, that's a healthy and free way to live, and think Doesn't mean we won't be annoyed by somebody that we know, who is maybe a classmate at school, who is just saying those things about us to get under our skin or piss us off. We might be pissed off that they're doing anything to try to distract us, annoy us or get under our skin. Be like I'm tired of this bullshit, right. But as far as the content, if we've accepted whatever it is, they're saying that we know to be true, we won't be hurt.

Speaker 2: 19:44

Now, am I saying that's the only way or the right way or the appropriate way to raise your children? No, because I wouldn't say that to anybody. I would say it's been the right way and a very useful way for me to process the world around me and things people say for myself. But we each have to make our own determination about what's right or what's appropriate or most useful. What I wanted to do is present to you another option, another way of thinking about and processing and categorizing the things people say that you encounter in the world around you or online, because we've got a long road ahead of us, excuse me, a long road ahead of us, and I want you to be able to stay in the fight. We're at 20 minutes, so I think I will wrap this up.

Speaker 2: 21:12

I hope you've got a great weekend planned. I hope, if your mother is still alive and you have a good relationship with your mother, I hope you get to spend some time with them or at least communicate with them, either by video or talk to them on the phone and enjoy that connection. You know, I know there are some of you out there who, for whatever reason may, have had some rough patches with your mother or have had times where that connection really wasn't there, like maybe you'd hoped for it to be. And that's life, that's the way life works out sometimes, and I hope that if it's appropriate for you that on Mother's Day, even if it's for 30 seconds, mother's Day, even if it's for 30 seconds, you can just kind of close your eyes and connect with whatever part or memory or thought about your mother that you can still link up with. That still feels good and with that I say I will talk to you again on Monday, see ya.