Process Defensiveness and Recognize When we Feel the Need to Defend Ourselves
It is difficult to bring ourselves out of a heightened emotional state to try and consider how or why someone has acted in a certain way, but it is the key to allow us to bring ourselves out of a defensive spiral.
Try to recognize when you are making assumptions about someone's intent. If we, instead, try to remain objective and approach these things with curiosity we can often find a better solution!
Some techniques to try:
Use grounding and self-soothing techniques that will help to break out of big emotions, and dysregulation.
Ask yourself "What are the consequences if I don't respond right away? Are the stakes high?" You may not be able to think of any!
If feeling defensive on someone else's behalf – Ask yourself "Are they even there to be directly affected?"
Ask yourself "Is this an appropriate time and place to address my hurt feelings?" If so, still take time to make a measured approach.
We answer these questions so that we can always try to give ourselves time to respond and not react.
Many of us have trauma responses that result from specific triggers. Some additional things to keep in mind are:
The time you take to evaluate the situation should also be used to measure the severity of what triggered you vs. the severity of the emotion you are having. A large gap here could be a hint that your response is trauma related.
Remember that traumatic wounds that we've experienced probably aren't the fault of the person who triggered us. People can still be accountable for the impact of their actions and behavior, but it's not fair to hold them accountable for the excess impact of our trauma.
If it does come time to address an issue, try to appeal to someone with compassion. Explain how something affected you, and how a more neutral version of their actions might have looked. If at this point, they still do not acknowledge your hurt or point of view. It may be the case that there should be some additional boundaries with your interactions to and from that person.
Remember that there are still appropriate times to defend ourselves in the moment such as:
When prior established boundaries are being blatantly crossed.
The validity of your feelings and thoughts is being questioned. (gaslighting) Though we should always try our best to respond, as described above, with curiosity and try to clarify what people mean when these things are being perceived.
Contributors: Kaitlyn, Kathaniel, Nik