By Paige Leigh Reist | Posted: September 17, 2018

We all act defensively now and then. Maybe it’s something as simple as misinterpreting a colleague’s harmless comment about your choice of lunch as a criticism of your lifestyle, or believing that your partner is accusing you of not being family-oriented when they bring up wanting to spend more time with their mother. But why do we act this way? Why is it so easy for us to leap to the worst conclusion?

At the end of the day, we act defensive because we’re trying to protect ourselves from being hurt. It’s an instinct that speaks, at the most basic of levels, to the child that still lives within every one of us, the one that just wants to be supported, encouraged, and loved. This child is still fundamentally insecure, and still lacks a certain level of self-awareness, so every minor criticism, concern, and difficulty that arises is interpreted as a direct attack, a rejection, or a condemnation of the very person you are. And oftentimes, defensiveness is not even a conscious decision, but is a reaction that is both biologically natural and exacerbated by your socialization.

It’s natural to want to protect yourself. But leaping to defend that inner child comes at a cost.

Being defensive damages your relationships in several ways. It blocks you from real emotional intimacy, the kind that you can only achieve by really listening to your partner without letting your ego puff up and get in the way. The trust, honesty, and candour that intimate and successful relationships require is just not possible to achieve if you react defensively to every important conversation.

The habit of defensiveness also prevents you from turning your attention to the areas of yourself that would benefit from further growth, and so rather than progressing together through life as a team, your relationship stagnates, and you lose countless opportunities to deepen and strengthen your connection.

What you’re doing by being defensive is shutting yourself off from the world: the bad, hurtful things, yes, but the good things too, the things that make life worth living. Love, purpose, growth, happiness, and freedom.

So how do you stop being defensive, and start living more openly, with more humility, and ultimately, with more satisfaction? These five tried-and-true strategies will help you revolutionize your communication style and enable you to have healthy, meaningful relationships, both with yourself and with your loved ones.

How to Stop Being Defensive

Breathe

Defensiveness can feel like a physical reaction--in fact, under emotional stress, your body reacts as if it’s responding to a physical threat. If your body is tense, your mind will be too. It’s a vicious cycle that’s hard to break, but there’s one easy trick you can use to free yourself: go back into your body with your breath. Breathing with intention calms this fight-or-flight response, letting your mind take a more rational approach to the situation at hand. Deep breathing is self-explanatory, but you can kick it up a notch and reap even more amazing benefits with specialized breathing techniques like Sudarshan Kriya.

Listen

Next time you’re feeling defensive, really tune into what the other person is saying. Listen to them intently--and not just to their words. Listen to what they’re trying to communicate, and try to see the situation from their perspective. To ensure clarity of communication, try speaking their message back to them in your own words: “What I’m hearing is that…” Be careful not to jump to conclusions and willfully misinterpret things to fit your own narrative of victimhood.

Strategize

Sometimes it’s helpful to set up a few conversational rules for yourself and your relationships. Timing is important--if you know that you’re stressed when you come home from work, it’s probably not the best idea to have serious conversations right when you walk in the door. Don’t use this as an excuse to avoid conversations--if there’s something to discuss, offer an appropriate time and place in which to do so. During the conversation, don’t allow yourself to interrupt or counter-criticize. Come to the conversation with your purpose clear in your mind, and work together to find a collaborative solution.

Remember that it’s not all about you

People just simply aren’t thinking about you as much as you believe they are. Most people are focused on themselves, and worrying about what other people think of them! Don’t indulge in fantasies that hurt you, like imagining that people are speaking behind your back or conspiring against you. It’s far more likely that people are not judging you as harshly as you think.

Work on your self-esteem

When you have low self-esteem, you think every failure in your relationship or otherwise means that you are a failure, rather than a person who sometimes fails. Everyone makes mistakes. Working on inherent qualities that can’t be measured, like your compassion, your creativity, and your ability to be proactive will make you more secure in yourself, more receptive, and less defensive in the long run.

Learning to become less defensive is all about communication. It’s about how you talk to yourself and talk to others, as well as how you listen and interpret what you’re hearing. When you begin to believe the best of yourself and your loved ones, those walls begin to crumble, and your relationships will just keep getting healthier and more fulfilling.

Remember--above all, be patient with yourself! You’re a beautiful work in progress.

Paige Leigh Reist is a lifestyle writer and the blogger behind thewholesomehandbook.com.