“He who minds neither praise nor blame possesses great peace of heart and, if his conscience is good, he will easily be contented and at peace.” (Thomas a Kempis)
In the passage above, Thomas a Kempis addresses what can confuse us and how we can easily lose our peace of mind. We must learn to handle praise. Certainly, genuine praise is uplifting. Yet spiritual teachers warn us of the danger that, when we receive praise, our focus may increasingly turn inward toward ourselves. Following such a path can lead to a growing lack of freedom. This occurs when we, so to speak, “build ourselves up” with this praise and even begin to derive our inner worth from it. But this would make us dependent on other people, and as a result we may find ourselves seeking their praise and even feeling disappointed when it is not given. Our heart is no longer undividedly focused on God, from whom true peace comes. We have forgotten to attribute all praise to the Lord and have, so to speak, claimed it for ourselves.
Reprimand, too, can confuse us. It can throw our emotions into disarray and preoccupy us to an excessive degree, so that it occupies our thoughts for a long time. We then find it difficult to distinguish between the legitimate aspect of a rebuke—which is meant to serve as a corrective in our lives—and the emotional reactions it triggers in us. The result is restlessness in our hearts, and we may remain unsettled until our inner peace is restored. Here, too, it is important to enter into dialogue with God and accept the situation as He intends it. Even unjust criticism, which naturally provokes our indignation and our desire for justice, requires inner restraint when, for example, it concerns only us and does not involve matters of conscience.
Accepting praise or criticism with a certain equanimity preserves our peace of heart.