40 Tips How to Stop Being Defensive Why We Become Defensive

In this article you will learn the following

- What makes us defensive - 26 causes

-40 tips How to Stop Being Defensive

-19 tips How to Stop Making Other People Defensive

-34 Behaviors people display when they get defensive

-8 negative impact of your defensiveness on your life

Why We become defensive

How strong is your self-awareness - Do you know who makes you defensive and with whom you are comfortable.

Most of us can get defensive with some people and in certain situations.

When we feel defensive - we react in very disempowering manner and acquire a very un-resourceful emotional-mental state.

Our defensiveness can get triggered - when we are facing - a difficult or an arrogant, or a toxic person - whom we find difficult, challenging and uncomfortable to deal-with dealing with.

We can also become defensive when we are criticized, rejected and ridiculed by others OR when we are feeling ashamed, hurt, embarrassed, guilty and scared.

If you get Defensiveness often - then it would have a big negative impact on the quality of your life, on the quality of your relationships, on your growth as well as on your success.

What is defensiveness - it is our automatic subconscious emotional response and our default mechanism - it comes into action - when we feel bad about our self, we feel ashamed, we feel insecure, we feel powerless and we feel powerless to cope with a person or a specific situation.

In the beginning we used these Defensive behaviors to deal with our highly uncomfortable feelings - later it manifest without any efforts on our part.

Defensiveness has a very strong link with our deep rooted emotional insecurities as well as pat abuses and traumas.

Defensive behaviors may make you feel better temporarily - BUT - it will make you feel worse - sooner eventually.

You can also identify others who get defensive by recognizing the signs and behaviors people display when they feel threatened.

What makes us defensive - 26 causes

• 1.If you were bullied in your childhood - you may yourself turn into a bully as a result of your defensive behavior - to avoid feeling powerless
• 2.Similarly childhood abuse as well as a trauma can make your defense mechanism choose a negative behaviors to feel powerful and comfortable - albeit - temporarily only
  Your deep rooted fear can create defensiveness - when you face similar situations
• 3.If you are not assertive by nature - you may use - passive-aggression as a coping technique
• 4.Defensiveness can happen - when you are feeling ashamed, embarrassed and guilty
• 5.Defensiveness can be your reaction to feeling anxious
• 6.When you are hiding something - this makes you react defensively
• 7.When someone is attacking your values, your character or your persona - you may become defensive
• 8.When you are feeling helpless, powerless and lost - can bring defensive behaviors
• 9.Defensiveness can also be a sign or symptom of a serious underlying mental health disorders
• 10.Your being belittled, demeaned, disrespected and insulted
• 11.When your authority is challenged
• 12.Your being close-minded to criticism
• 13.When you face Real and Imagined Dangers
• 14.When you perceive a negative outcome
• 15.When you are anticipating Conflict and drama element - so your subconscious goes for a shut-down emotionally to avoid the situation or may match fire with fire by your lashing out
• 16.When you feel that your reputation and self-Image taking beating
• 17.When you feel Embarrassed, ashamed or guilty
• 18.When you get caught off guard or surprised by someone
• 19.When you have huge EGO
• 20.When you Are not receptive to feedback
• 21.When you are feeling socially anxious
• 22.You might react defensively because your family or friends do
• 23.When FEELING MANIPULATED or being taken advantage or being used
• 24.When you find it difficult to admit that you are wrong
• 25.Some personality disorders can trigger defensiveness. Disorders like Paranoid Personality Disorder Narcissistic
• 26.Personality Disorder and Avoidant Personality Disorder may cause people to feel like they are constantly under threat of attack or mistreatment

40 Tips How to Stop Being Defensive​

• 1.Become Aware of Your Defensiveness
• 2.Identify triggers - of people, situation and events that makes you defensive
• 3.Anticipate When You Are Likely to Become Defensive - in near future event or meet with a person
• 4.Acknowledging Your Feelings of hurt, worry, stress, shame, guilt, insecurity, fear, embarrassment and anxiety
• 5.Practice to delay Acting on Your Feelings on impulse
• 6.Identify and revisit your values and Align Yourself with Your Values
• 7.Identify and revisit your long-term goals
• 8.Tell the other person how their comments make you feel and why you feel hurt - using I statements
• 9.Assertively request respect when they are crossing the line of decency and respect
• 10.Avoid getting sidetracked - Stay on topic and focus on finding solutions
• 11.Boost Your Self-Esteem, Self-pride, Self-awareness
• 12.Take Responsibility for whatever actions you need and choose to take
• 13.Improve Your Communication Skills
• 14.Learn learn learn - upskill, enhance knowledge, be aware about what is happening in the world
• 15.Become a great problem-solver
• 16.Identify and master through practice - effective stress, anger, anxiety
• 17.Practice suitable and effective relaxation and stress-management tools
• 18.Practice to enhance your emotional and social intelligence - createflexible methods of coping with different people and situations
• 19.Enhances your emotional self-regulation
• 20.Develops supportive social and personal networks
• 21.Learn to Walk away from relationships, people and situations if it is not worth
• 22.Don't compete to satisfy your EGO
• 23.Learn to Accommodate other's needs within reason
• 24.Compromise when you are dealing with your loved ones
• 25.Find ways to Collaborate -Decide if you need to address the conflict and WHY -Prepare for the conversation -Focus on the relationship -Understand your position -Consider why the other person is behaving this way
• 26.Learn graceful ways to cope with feeling defensive.
• 27.Learn to buy time and postpone crucial decisions-making as well as discussions
• 28.Listen -Seek clarifications -Ask how you can help -Fix the problem
• 29.Set and enforce heathy boundaries
• 30.Respect others boundaries
• 31.Use the CBT technique of STOPP - Stop! Take a breath Observe yourself and the situation Pull Some Perspective Practice what Works
• 32.Practice Active Listening -Seek first to understand, then to be understood
• 33.Don't go for countercriticizing
• 34.Don't bring the past - this is not the time
• 35.Acknowledge your partner's perspective -Even in the midst of an argument, it is important to show your partner that what they told you is understood by you
• 36.Take the time you need in order to truly process and evaluate what they told you -Know your limits and express them If you can't have such a conversation right now, it is preferable and more respectful to directly say so
• 37.Avoid using BUT statements
• 38.Don't try to resolve all the issues - identify the most critical ones
• 39.Be open to new ideas -Acknowledge and thank your partner for talking with you about the issues
• 40.Practice not get drawn into becoming Defensive - especially When You are Being Attacked, provoked or Criticized

19 tips How to Stop Making Other People Defensive

• 1.Make Requests - Don't Criticize
• 2.Suggest through asking question - so as to give credit to them
• 3.Stop your urge of Trying to Control people and situations
• 4.Know and Acknowledge Your Own Mistakes, Blunders and failures
• 5.Instead of passing judgement or complaining - suggest solutions and resolutions
• 6.Show Concern and Empathy
• 7.Ignore the other person's defensiveness and focus on problem solving
• 8.Find something that you can agree on before trying to problem solve so that you start on common ground.
• 9.Being honest is not the same as being defensive -Defensiveness is an impulse
• 10.Learn to deal with criticism
• 11.Know how to bounce back from rejection
• 12.Understand that Resentment can't do you any good
• 13.While taking action pause and review what impact is there of your response in real-time
• 14.If you are being criticized - Look for the grain of truth in what they are saying -Put the feedback in context
• 15.Bottom of Form
• 16.Stand up for yourself assertively YET respectfully
• 17.Learn to express yourself without getting defensive - by Not being overly emotional
• 18.Have a sense of clarity about what you are saying plus accepting of the fact the other person may not agree with what you are saying
• 19.Don't take it personally - what others say and do

34 Behaviors people display when they get defensive

• 1.Feel compelled to take action immediately
• 2.Blame others for all the wrongs
• 3.Make excuses
• 4.Explain too much why they did something - without there being the need
• 5.Give too much information - without any need
• 6.Give secrets of others - which was shared with them on confidentiality
• 7.Shrug-off taking responsibility and ownership and accountability
• 8.Disengaged with people and from the situation - Stop listening
• 9.Justify their actions and behaviors
• 10.Bring up past things that the other person did wrong or talk out other's past mistakes - which does not have any relation to the current situation or conflict
• 11.Avoid talking about the current issue
• 12.Attack the other person to discredit them
• 13.Projection -Shifting the blame to the other person for whatever you are being criticized about AND Attributing your thoughts and feelings to another person - like I am not angry - it is you who is angry
• 14.Give others silent treatment
• 15.Give Narcissist gas-lighting
• 16.Use Dominating, aggressive and controlling behaviors
• 17.Show outrage on being questioned or challenged
• 18.Play Innocent victim
• 19.Blame yourself in such a way to make the other person feel guilty and to elicit sympathy
• 20.Break and throw things
• 21.Yell and shout to intimidate
• 22.Throw tantrums
• 23.Bend the truth to justify their irrational behaviors
• 24.Take out their frustration from another problem on someone not involved or responsible for their emotional-frame
• 25.Respond dramatically
• 26.Make false promises
• 27.Exaggerate and twist facts and figures and lying
• 28.Disregard others healthy boundaries
• 29.Manipulating, Superiority Critical behavior
• 30.Withholding information/ secretive behavior
• 31.Having No accountability
• 32.Lack of eye contact, turning away, not speaking up
• 33.Avoiding others
• 34.Resistant to what others are saying

8 negative impact of your defensiveness on your life

• 1.You may make other people feel bad unintentionally - which will also make you feel miserable
• 2.You may make situations and people more tense and hostile than warranted
• 3.You discussions escalates into an argument or a fight
• 4.You may find that the Problems are never resolved - instead the same issues gets repeated again and again
• 5.Your goodwill takes a beating
• 6.You may feel like an outcast and unable to fit-in any where
• 7.You may find yourself focusing more on negativities than in positives
• 8.You may find other people refuse to help you or stonewall you - because of your defensiveness

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