How To Avoid Becoming A Highly Defensive Person
16 May
Defensiveness is extremely contagious. When someone responds towards you in a defensive way, that jolt of angry defensiveness is often the automatic response. If you follow your own inner lizard, with it’s own worries of being insufficiently loved and excessively criticised, you may find yourself lashing out in response. And of course, it doesn’t take much foresight to see that this is likely to result in a war of words.
It’s easy to say that we should stay out of reptile mode, but that’s hard advice to follow when some highly defensive person launches an attack – especially if that person has any power over you. When your highly defensive boss, parent or business partner launches an attack you may not be able to stop yourself from getting upset in return. So what can you do? The answer is not to go lizard, but to go turtle.
One reason the Roman Empire was able to conquer much of ancient Europe was because of a military maneuver called the turtle. In battles, regiments would cluster together, the soldiers in the middle holding their shields above their heads, while those on the sides shielded the unit’s front, back and sides. They’d march along like that, pretty much indestructible to the weapons of the time.
But how can you put up an emotional shell and go turtle? It isn’t easy because mirror neurons in the brain fire in resonance with the feelings of the people around you. If you and I were talking, part of your brain would organise itself to match part of mine and vice versa. When you’re with a loving person, this is wonderful – it creates that very moving sense of a wonderful shared experience of joy. With a highly defensive person, it creates wars straight out of our evolutionary past. To avoid all out war, you must pull your sensitive social neurons back into their shell.
The good news is that once you’ve realised what’s happening, that the highly defensive person you’re talking with can and will take offense to the smallest thing, it’s not that hard to stop yourself following suit. Try this – think about an occasion when a highly defensive person blew up at you. Remember the shock, the anger, the urge to lash back. Got it? Good. Now picture your living room painted fuchsia with orange accents. Then try and work out if 713 is a prime number.
Did you notice how your mind lets go of emotional reactivity as it tackles visual or analytical problems? Artists and scientists are notoriously eccentric because their mental work diverts them from social connections. When you’re listening to a highly defensive person rant, train yourself to start thinking about painting your bedroom, quantum mechanics or start totting up your expenses from this month.
This will help you retreat into your inner turtle space to feel safe from the salvos and so that you don’t mirror the aggression of the highly defensive person. It will also help you converse with the highly defensive person without being destroyed.
Two Chairs Counselling is a specialist counselling practice focused on providing counselling for career-orientated women struggling with issues of self-esteem, self-confidence and relationship difficulties live happier, more fulfilling lives.
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