If you find yourself feeling like you always have to defend yourself or protect yourself from what others say, you might consider whether you struggle with defensiveness or not. Let's chat about how to depend less on defensiveness as a coping mechanism.

Show Notes:
Do you feel like people are always attacking you (verbally & emotionally, not physically) or inferring that you’re wrong? Or maybe they are just pushing back on you in whatever you’re saying or speaking about. But it feels like you are always having to defend yourself, right?

Well, I want you to consider whether or not this is because you’re being too defensive.

When we feel like we are being attacked, it’s hard to really listen to what someone else is saying to us, whether it’s constructive or not. You feel under attack, so of course you don’t really care what they are saying & push back. Defensiveness is all about feeling attacked & needing to emotionally protect ourselves from situations where our insecurities might be exposed or our identity, values or worth are being threatened. 

And defensiveness can be seen in a few different ways. Let’s go over those really quick right now: 

• Flat-out denial is the most classic example & you find yourself not accepting what the other person is saying, whether it’s that you’re not responsible for what happened or nothing is wrong at all.
• Projecting your feelings onto others is literally attributing those to someone else because you don’t have the emotional ability to accept & process what you’re dealing with. Someone will call you out for acting a certain way & you will say they are acting that actually, not you.
• We can also be defensive by rationalizing the situation by finding ways to change the truth to better fit our motive & justify any of our behavior.

All of these & a few more not listed here are ways that defensiveness can be seen on a daily basis. But today I want to talk about how we can work on becoming less defensive & a little more vulnerable.

1. Honor Your Feelings - Validate that you may be feeling hurt by what is being said & understand that it’s ok to feel the way you’re feeling. Your feelings are valid & important & not a problem. There is a reason you are feeling this way.
2. Practice Not Reacting Immediately - Your feelings may lead you to want to say something defensive, which could be mean or rude & probably unnecessary. But just because our feelings are valid doesn’t mean we need to act on them. It’s helpful to take a beat & think about whether or not our reaction is in our best interest & will help with the issue.
3. Ask Follow-Up Questions to Understand Where They Are Coming From - Instead of instinctively attacking what they are saying, find out why they are saying it. Dig a little deeper into the reasons behind their words to better understand.
4. Figure Out a Conclusion Together - You might not always be able to do this with the other person, but it’s important to end with a resolution in mind. Figure out what needs to happen next, whether that is owning up & taking responsibility for what happened, apologizing for blaming someone else or admitting that what has happened is a bigger deal than it was previously made. 

Thank you again for listening & I hope this episode was helpful.

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