Recall a time when you were in a conversation and when something bad or negative came up, you felt the other person was pointing fingers at you or referencing you or making you feel guilty for the negative result. Your inner being was screaming NO, its not ME, I didn’t do it, why do you always point fingers at me and the self-talk went into overdrive and you started lashing out at the person in front of you trying to defend yourself..Sounds familiar? or too familiar?
Well, going back in history and evolution, humans were born with the innate need to defend and protect themselves from wild animals and other externally dangerous situations in pre-historic times when we lived and survived in the wilderness. We were programmed to have a flight or fight response, meaning either escape from the predator or danger we are facing or fight it physically with instruments and other weapons as needed. Over time, we progressed as a civilization and made leaps and bounds of progress but our inner flight or fight response still remained. However, instead of predators or external dangers, we started perceiving danger in words from other humans, we started defending ourselves from these words or started verbal fights. The original self-defensive mechanism that was programmed in us for our physical survival, has now turned into a internal self destructive gremlin at times, taking offense at every small opportunity, in the name of self-preservation.
In order to avoid the flight or fight response from turning into a inner critic, surfacing constantly to ‘protect’ you, there are certain measures and tools that you need to have in your back pocket to begin with. Eventually over time, these tools should be ingrained in the fabric of your living and should be a part of you!
- The first thing to remember is, it is NOT about YOU always!!! The words that are coming at you, may not be necessarily all about you. Sometimes, people like to talk in a way as to direct blame away from themselves, but that does not necessarily mean that they are directed at you. When faced with such a situation, take a deep breath and remind yourself that the other person is possibly directing blame away from themselves, but not necessarily targeting it towards you.
- People buy what you sell – meaning that if you are portraying yourself as a person with low self-esteem and constantly trying to defend yourself, people will subconsciously pick on you more!! counter-intuitive as it may seem, that is how it works! Instead, put on a strong self-esteem attitude and stand strong and stop defending yourself. Brush off comments with a laugh and remember that it is not directed at you, and see how the picking on you miraculously lessens over time.
- Take a step back – and think if something in your past is triggering such a response from you. For some people, taking a walk back in memory lane and trying to figure out the incident and the response and all the details helps them to see, why a similar reaction is unwarranted now. For other people, the particulars of the incident are not necessary, but just remembering that they are reacting to a memory in the past and not the current situation, is a wake up call in itself to stop responding in a defensive manner.
- Put yourself in their shoes – For a change, stop thinking about yourself and how YOU are feeling small and ill-treated or mis-represented or other similar emotions. Take YOU out of the equation and take your self-story out of the picture. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes and think about where they are coming from with their words, why they are saying what they are saying and how probably they need help more than you! Donning these lens, will give you a huge relief and energize you to find ways to help the other person if needed, because as humans we are wired to feel good when we help others.
- Win it your way – Remember that winning a verbal fight is not the end objective and that is not the WIN to be after. At the end of the day, as humans, one of our deepest needs is to love and be loved. In the process of being self-defensive in order to win an argument, you are moving away from your end objective which is to make meaningful connections with other humans and to love and be loved. That is the WIN you should go after and strive for. When you keep your primary and innermost need at the forefront, self-defensiveness automatically will walk out of the door!
What situations trigger self-defense in you? Can you use the above listed tools to change your response to similar situations in the future?
