UnF*ck Your Brain: Feminist Self-Help for Everyone 475. Coaching Hotline: Feeling Defensive v Accepting Feedback & How to Know When You've Coached Yourself Correctly
Mar 17, 2026
People call in about feeling instantly defensive and how to tell when inner coaching has worked. The conversation reframes defensiveness as a thought and explores building self-acceptance to evaluate criticism calmly. It also covers spotting genuinely useful feedback and recognizing when you already have the answers and just need to manage your thinking after deciding.
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Defensiveness Comes From Your Thoughts
- Feeling attacked by feedback is caused by your thought about it, not the feedback itself.
- Kara Loewentheil explains that clients' complaints are subjective models and don't inherently reflect personal failure.
Build Self-Acceptance Before Evaluating Feedback
- Do build self-acceptance first so feedback stops moving your self-worth and becomes neutral to you.
- Kara says when you disconnect your self-regard from others' thoughts, both positive and negative feedback stop affecting you.
Kara Uses Social Media Feedback As Practice
- Kara describes receiving lots of public feedback and feeling neither uplifted nor harmed by it.
- She uses social media comments and emails as examples showing detachment makes responses neutral.
