Some things stick in your mind as if they happened only yesterday, whilst others simply fade into insignificance. Inevitably those which stick are the ones which triggered the strongest emotional reaction. One of the learning curves of growing up is that of dealing with criticism.

Parents have to find a way in which to guide their children to steer away from doing certain things. You tend to say "no" or "don't" many, many times, especially to a two year old who is intent upon exploring their surroundings and expanding their knowledge of the world in which we live. You don't always manage to provide this guidance in a way which is super-calm! Sometimes your tonality will display a little of your own emotional frustration as your tolerance levels are continually put to the test.

Last summer we were on holiday with some members of the family whose son was at that time just two years old. We encountered a particularly stressful situation when we discovered that one of our rental cars had spontaneously ignited over night and was completely burnt out, together with the child seat, stroller and goodness only knows what else.

We are all usually pretty calm in temperament, but inevitably the day was a little stressful when trying to get from A to B and attempting to sort out the car situation in a country where you do not speak the language. At one point, "dad" was on the phone trying to use French-English and the two year old (who was tired and hadn't had as much attention as he might have liked) began to cry; no, actually he bawled!

His uncle bent down, put his finger to his mouth and said "shush". The bawling escalated to unbelievable proportions and mum had to take the child and make a rapid exit from the room. None of us thought much more of the incident, until six months later dad was showing his son some photographs from when he was a little boy. One photo showed this little boys dad and uncle sitting on a sofa together. He immediately asked "Did uncle Lorin shush you too?"

Just think how deeply he must have taken to heart that "telling off". This is a wonderful demonstration of the fact that we do not like to be told off. We instinctively like to please and we seek approval. And yet we have to learn to take guidance, without taking it personally; we have to learn to take criticism without seeing it as such - rather we have to learn to focus upon its constructive intent. This is one of the most important learning curves which we have to go through, usually in the first seven years of our life.

If you still feel unusually upset in the face of critical assessment, it is never too late to learn how to detach instinctive emotional reactions to such critical commentary. You can train your mind to perceive it in a different light with a little bit of help from hypnosis.

Hypnosis is also a very powerful ally when one wishes to build self confidence. It allows access to your inner mind, to your subconscious mind, where your instinctive beliefs and expectations are stored. At the end of the day, if you wish to change how you feel you need to be able to change the way in which you instinctively think. Hypnosis allows you to do exactly this.

Roseanna Leaton, specialist in hypnosis mp3s to build confidence.

P.S. Discover how to focus your mind with hypnosis. Grab a free hypnosis mp3 from my website.