Tips for Listening without Defensiveness | Assertiveness Skills

hey there everybody and welcome to this presentation on listening without defensiveness i'm your host dr donnelly snipes in this presentation we're very simply going to explore what might cause defensiveness and identify some strategies to enhance assertiveness and reduce defensiveness CEUs are available for this presentation at AllCEUs.com/Listening-CEU so let's start at the beginning remember that all behavior has meaning i know i've said that a bazillion times i'm going to say it a bazillion more when people become defensive it's often a behavior that indicates they don't feel safe for some reason and it could be they've had

prior learning experiences of unsafeness in relationships they've communicated with somebody who was either verbally or physically aggressive or invalidated their feelings and validated their emotional or cognitive boundaries and they have learned to communicate with others based on that relationship they've learned to communicate with others in a defensive or aggressive manner another reason for defensiveness could simply be discussing triggering material if you're discussing something that is very close to your heart or very traumatic for you then you may guard it and you may become very defensive about it a lot of people become very defensive if

somebody criticizes their parenting style for example because that is something that is very personal to them and it feels invasive when people criticize it defensiveness as i mentioned is a type of aggression when we are defensive basically what we're saying is my thoughts and feelings matter yours don't and that is pretty much the definition of aggressive communication so what can we do about it the first well you can do these in any order first thing i would say is work on enhancing self-esteem we need to create safety and one of the main reasons that people

become defensive is because they feel that they are being invalidated or they fear they're going to be rejected by enhancing self-esteem you are able to recognize your worth as a person even if you make mistakes even if other people don't like you or agree with you a hundred percent of the time the next thing is to recognize the difference between criticism of you and criticism of your behaviors a lot of times people don't like something that you did or the way you handled a situation it's not that they don't like you they are criticizing your

behaviors and it's important to separate the two just like a child can do something that is wrong and we say you know little child that was a bad choice we don't say you're a bad child because the child is good but the child made a bad choice and that's what we're talking about here when we are receiving criticism from people we need to hear are they saying that they didn't like a behavior that i did or are they being aggressive and saying that they don't like me which takes us to take what's useful and leave

the rest even the best constructive criticism may not be accurate in your perception so and and this is one of those phrases that we say a lot in addiction recovery because everybody's recovery process is a little bit different so not every tool that i give people not every observation that i make is useful sometimes it's off point and it's important for people to be able to take the information hear it if it's useful great use it if it's not let it go and recognize it was just one person's observation be realistic nobody is liked by

everybody it's just the way it is there is not a person that i've ever heard of who is liked by everybody i've even heard criticisms of mother teresa and the pope so nobody is liked by everybody and nobody's behavior is going to be liked by everybody all of the time we make mistakes we're human we're fallible we're gonna do things even if we think we're doing right we may do things that other people don't agree with and that's okay they don't have to as long as we're not violating their rights or hurting them in some

way or hurting somebody else if we are doing what we think is best then that is something that we've got to sit with nurture multiple sources of support when you are in a discussion with someone when you have differing points of view with someone it is less threatening if you get into a discussion with them and you disagree even if you start fearing that they are going to reject you because of it if you've got other sources of support if that is your only source of social support then it's a lot more threatening if you

are risking that person abandoning you if you have other sources of support family friends acquaintances colleagues whatever then that makes it a little less or can make it a little less threatening it doesn't mean that it won't hurt like heck if that person decides to cut ties and abandon you i'm not saying that but i'm saying if you have five fingers and you lose one of them you can still do most of the things that you used to do my grandfather lost two of his fingers when he was in world war ii and he learned

how to do most of what he needed to do with just three fingers he relied on those three fingers to help him through set and maintain boundaries and these are all kinds of boundaries physical boundaries when we are having a discussion when we are relating these are my physical boundaries with regard to touch etc affective and cognitive boundaries these are my feelings these are my thoughts you don't have to agree with them but they're mine and i am not going to let you take them from me i am not going to let you try to

you know invalidate them and i am not going to let you impose your feelings and thoughts on me i can recognize and validate your thoughts and feelings as yours and at the same time recognizing my thoughts and feelings as mine and that is really hard to do if you're not used to doing it because if we are angry you know we want people to understand why we're angry and agree with us not just validate i can see that you're angry so it does take some getting used to and we'll talk about reprogramming that default mode

network at the end of the presentation environmental boundaries not as important when we're talking about preventing defensiveness but it's always good to feel respected and when you feel respected by the person you're communicating with it is less threatening you feel safer so environmental boundaries mean this is my stuff if it's at work this is my desk these are my these are my drawers you don't go through them i don't go through yours if it's at home you know whether it's your diary or your whatever you have things that are yours and your environmental space that

you expect people to respect and relationally relational boundaries as i think about them are who i'm allowed or who i feel comfortable having friendships with so i may have boundaries i may have some friends that my significant other doesn't like and that's okay you know he doesn't have to like them but if they're my friends i am not i am going to set the boundary and say they are still my friends and you don't have to hang out with us however i am not going to kick them to the curb just because you don't like

them so physical affective cognitive environmental and relational boundaries can all be very helpful but it's important those people that are in your social support network you have to feel safe with you have to feel like you can trust them to be there for you you have to have drum roll please a secure attachment to they have to be consistent responsive attentive validating encouraging and supportive give the respect you expect to get when you're talking to somebody whether it's at work or whether it's in a personal relationship when you're having a discussion especially a tension-filled discussion

about something it's important to practice strategies that are assertive that say my thoughts feelings and needs matter and your thoughts feelings and needs also matter and let's find a way to compromise so give the respect you expect to get if you don't want people to be snippy and defensive with you then you probably want to try not to be sniffy and defensive with them if you want people to listen and hear you out then you probably need to listen and hear them out and we'll talk about some strategies to do that in a second try

to be empathetic and curious if you passionately disagree about something what is informing your decisions about this situation and what's informing their decisions maybe you have two different information sources and they may be at opposition it doesn't mean that one is righter or wronger than another one it means they are two different points of view this comes up with politics religion health care even things like quality time you know what does quality time look like to one partner versus another what does effective communication look like to one partner versus another so it's important to be

able to be empathetic and curious explore alternate explanations and i usually identify three explore three alternate explanations why someone might be critical or short with you today maybe normally you get along and today they happen to just be really antagonistic so that may lead you to ask why what's different today or there may be somebody who is regularly antagonistic with you you feel like they regularly throw you under the bus and it's important to step back and consider does it have to do with you did you do something to offend that person or make them

feel threatened or is it their stuff and maybe you remind them of somebody from their past or remind them of some shortcomings that they have and so their projection is what they are reacting to not you but what you represent to them sometimes people will give us feedback that can make us feel like we're being criticized or and put us on the defensive now remember the first thing you want to do is try to separate the criticism of the behavior from the person okay so are they criticizing me as a person or criticizing the way

i do something okay that's the first thing because it's less threatening if they just don't like the way you do something it's still not comfortable it's still not pleasant but it can be less threatening but then also consider what where it comes from is it well-meaning and intended to be constructive feedback or does it come from a place of unhappiness and fear themselves where it's intended to be destructive feedback is it intended to cut you down and make you feel bad or is it information that they think somewhere in their mind that it's helpful and

they're trying to be accommodating you know sometimes we'll have relatives that may come over and give us unsolicited advice and that can feel like criticism or sometimes it comes out as criticism and they intend it to be helpful advice so it's coming from a place of caring but it may be presented in a way that is less than compassionate so consider where it came from and pick your battles sometimes people are as they are and some people tend to be more provide more feedback let's say uh provide more feedback than others and that's just the

way they are it could be the way they were raised it could be they're coming from a place of unhappiness there's a lot of reasons that people may be engaged in excessive feedback but it's important to recognize is getting defensive and getting into a discussion about this or an argument about this going to do any good is it going to be beneficial or just a waste of my energy so play that tape through i had one family member who used to come over and every time they came over they would have to say something um

helpful or sometimes it was just all out critical but once they said that once they had their say once they made their observations they were done with it and my husband pointed out to me this pattern and said you know what just let them come over let them say their piece and let it go because then once they get it out of their system everything is fine um and i've seen the same thing to uh with another relative we have between two other relatives and they don't discuss it you know the the one relative can

be somewhat a cantankerous and the other person is just lets it go just says you know what that's just the way she is and it's important to recognize when getting into a an argument or a discussion about something might be futile now that's not to say be passive that's not to say don't have respect for yourself but it is important to pick your battles and say is this worth the energy evaluate your beliefs about what it means to be wrong to make a mistake or to not be liked what does that mean why are those

things threatening or devastating to you what do they represent do they represent rejection okay what does rejection represent because most of us i dare say all of us but at least most of us have experienced rejection have experienced failure and it's never fun don't get me wrong however some people can experience rejection and pick themselves up and go all right that didn't work and other people are incapacitated by it so if you happen to be incapacitated by fear of rejection or very troubled when you fear rejection or feel like somebody's being critical it's important to

examine what you're telling yourself what does it mean in the big scheme of things what does it mean if this person doesn't like the way you clean your house or parent your kids or whatever it is that they're criticizing think back and try to identify at least 10 times that you've gotten defensive i think most of us can do that for each one what was it about why did you feel threatened why did your your hackles go up so to speak um was it because it reminded you of the past you were projecting because this

whatever was going on the way somebody said it or what they said reminded you of the way your mom your dad your ex used to say something so that triggered that memory so and triggered that reaction so you were reacting to something from the past that this person happened to remind you of were you reacting because you were mind reading you assumed that you knew their intention when they said something you assumed that they were trying to be hurtful hateful critical when they may not have been and you know god love him my son is

one of those people who is very analytical and if i say the sky's blue he is going to say it's aquamarine if i say a flower's yellow he will say it is some slightly shade of yellow different shade of yellow or something i mean so it's important to recognize he likes to debate he likes to look at things his own way and he has a hard time taking other people's perspectives and if i mind reading and i say something and he immediately contradicts me which is kind of a daily thing if i mind reading i

might say he's being disrespectful and he's trying to challenge me when in reality all he's doing is brainstorming other potential explanations for something now is that the best interpersonal skill well no but he's not meaning you know go back to where where is it coming from he's not meaning to be malicious he's just not empathizing at all and he's talking from his logical mind also look are there any themes when you look back over the things that you get defensive about sometimes there are themes that come up maybe it you get defensive about your parenting

or you get defensive about how you do your job or you get defensive about how you dress whatever it is you know if there are themes then you want to examine why is this theme so sensitive for me why is this such a touchy topic that i tend to get defensive when people bring it up so what do you do when you talk to people and we're going to assume that this applies to you know important relationships so with your family with your children well obviously their family with your significant others with your friends you

may need to set ground rules when you get into a discussion or an argument whatever you want to call it there are certain things that are fair game and certain things that aren't don't mind read don't assume you know that what somebody's going to say which also means don't finish their sentences let them actually finish their sentence you might be surprised that what you thought they were going to say wasn't actually what they were going to say stop projecting and this is way easier said than done but it's important to really get a handle on

it and recognize when you are reacting to somebody because they remind you of something from your past as opposed to reacting to them in the present my mother you know our caregivers always have little hot buttons that can trigger us later in life but my mother used to have this look and she would [ __ ] her head and put her tongue into the side of her cheek and i would know every time she would get that look that i was in deep doo-doo so when people do that i feel like i am that six-year-old

again getting ready to get yelled at and i can get defensive it's important for me to recognize those non-verbals as well as you know verbals and topics um from my past that may be triggered that may trigger that inner child if you will that reacts like a six or a seven year old instead of a you know 47 year old one person and one thing at a time when we become defensive we often want to interrupt we hear what we think somebody is starting to say and we want to cut them off and clear it

up right away that's not helpful so the talker gets to talk and the talker stays on point talking about one thing at a time not a whole list and done me wrongs but talking about whatever one issue they want to discuss right now once you resolve that issue you can move on to the next one if you've got the energy but one issue at a time and that person talks until they said what they need to say use objective language when you are talking instead of saying you're lazy say i feel frustrated when i come

home and you've been home all day and there are still dishes in the sink and your underwear is in the middle of the floor i live with teenagers what can i say um but that is objective if i say you're lazy or your room is a disaster that's not objective they may look at their room and go looks fine to me so it's important for me to say when i see when i go into your room and the bed is not made and there is dust an inch thick on every flat surface that stresses me

out that causes me stress and i would appreciate it if you would it would help me feel a lot less stressed if you would make your bed and dust your shelves at least once every two weeks so providing objective statements about what it is that's bothering you have a safe word and a de-escalation plan if you feel like you're getting defensive or being attacked introverts like to think about something process it and then tell you about it it's just the way they operate extroverts like to talk it out we think while we talk so it's

hard for us to process something unless we're actually talking so let's just imagine an extrovert and an introvert in an argument the extrovert wants to talk it out the introvert gets the input and wants to process it for a minute and then talk it out well that creates a problem if the introvert wants to leave to go sit down and process the information the extrovert may feel abandoned or ignored so it's important that you have a plan in place where if the if either party needs to take a minute or ten minutes to get their

thoughts together or to de-escalate that you have a safe word and you have a plan and you know that okay if i say you know chocolate cocoa puffs whatever your safe word is that i am going to go take a break but i will be back in x minutes let's say 10 minutes that lets the extrovert know that they just have to bide their time hold their piece for 10 minutes and then you will reconvene that keeps that person from feeling abandoned and that allows the introvert or the person who needs the time out time

to get their bearings get re-grounded and not feel like their emotional boundaries are being violated because the extrovert continues to or the other person continues to pursue them when you are talking with one another listen to hear and understand there's a big difference and i will refer you to my math classes when i was in graduate well even elementary and high school um math i would hear everything that professor said you know no problem i'm sitting there i'm listening i'm taking notes i am not understanding a lick of what they're saying though i can repeat

it back to them but i have no clue what i'm saying i might as well be speaking a foreign language and a lot of times that's what communication appears to be between people because one person is talking and they're saying something and this person is passing it through their interpretive filter you know how google has the google translate well it's kind of like that's what people do in real life you have the receiver taking what the talker is saying and passing it through their own filter and it comes out different it's not a hundred percent

accurate if you've ever put something into google translate especially if you've put a larger document into google translate it gets things mostly right but there are some things that are not accurate and that's really what we're talking about here is making sure that not only you're hearing what's said but you're understanding what is meant by what is said once you hear and understand take a moment to breathe and reflect if you feel your stress level rising now it's important to hear regardless of whether you're an extrovert or an introvert you're the talker you're the receiver

whatever the talker needs to be able to talk until they're finished they put a period on that final sentence and then there's maybe five seconds or even more of silence the person who was listening takes a breath validates the other person's experience i hear that you're feeling frustrated about what's going on or i hear that you're angry um okay and then summarizes what they think they heard from the other person i hear you're frustrated about this what i hear you are upset about is blah blah blah blah blah if the person says exactly well great

then you can move on if they if the person says no where'd you get that from or you totally missed the point then you want to back up and say okay help me understand but if the person says yes formulate a response using i statements i statements work a whole lot better than use statements when you're saying i feel this way or i would like this or my anxiety gets triggered that is less antagonistic and that feels less threatening to that person than saying you did this you did that um and you can even get

it from the the the non-verbal gestures you versus i the other thing that's important with i statements is we are respecting their boundaries we're saying i feel like we're also not saying you made me now somebody can do something and it can trigger a feeling in you but what you do with that feeling is up to you for the most part and i know in the comments you'll come back with all kinds of exceptions i know there are exceptions but for the most part when you're talking about two adults one person can't make another person

feel or do something indefinitely you know you can reward it you can control it you can ask for it but you can't necessarily make anybody do something they have to want to do it and again that's especially true when you're talking about adults when you're talking about children um you know obviously you may have a little bit more pull but ultimately if little johnny doesn't want to put away the dinner dishes and he sits down in the middle of the kitchen you know you may not be able to make him do that he may prefer

to endure a punishment but i digress so i statements you may say something like i feel like my thoughts or feelings or experiences are being invalidated or trivialized when you say so if somebody is talking has talked in the past about their childhood or their traumatic experience and in the present the other person makes light of it or minimizes it in some way or it seems to minimize it in some way then that person may come back and say i feel like my experience of this was invalidated when you said xyz the person may say

instead of getting defensive the person may say i feel anxious about sharing my thoughts with you because you know basically preempting the defensiveness saying you know i really don't want to go here right now because i feel anxious about sharing them i feel like it's going to be a threatening situation for me and i know that if i get into a situation where i feel anxious where i feel threatened i'm more likely to be defensive so i feel anxious about sharing my thoughts with you because that opens up a dis possibility of a discussion or

my anxiety gets triggered when you raise your voice now that's still owning it my anxiety gets triggered i'm not saying you triggered it i'm saying my anxiety gets triggered but it could be because you came from a childhood where when your caregivers or somebody raised their voice really bad things happened so currently when people raise their voice it may make you feel unsafe and defensive or it may make you feel like that little child that used to get chastised by their parent other strategies find areas of agreement you may disagree on some aspects of a

situation but you also may agree on other aspects of a situation you know how to achieve world peace people have different ideas about how to do that and it's important to hear where you've got commonalities and also where you've got differences you might be able to learn something from other people who have a different point of view look for ways to collaborate instead of conflict if you have an idea about something and somebody else has an idea about something how can you make them work together which cr is a way of creating a win-win another

way of creating a win-win that's not really collaboration is saying something like you know i feel very stressed when you're supposed to be at home at five o'clock and i don't hear from you and you know you don't roll in until eight o'clock it would really reduce my stress if you would text me if you're going to be running late you know that's creating a win-win because it's saying it would make me happy if you do this and if i'm happy then i'm less stressed which is good for you too pick your battles i already

said that one the mnemonic device for this is think is what you're saying truthful is what you're saying helpful doesn't you know or is it something that can be helpful to to the person or is it irrelevant you're just being nitpicky to be nitpicky are you saying it in a way that's inspirational or are you saying it in a way that's critical and demeaning you know when i would talk to my staff i would talk to them and i would try to make it inspirational i know that we can make this happen i know that

you can achieve this let's work together to figure out how to fix this situation instead of saying you really screwed up and you better fix it you know there's inspirational and there's critical is it necessary and is it kind sometimes we've got to provide necessary feedback that may be helpful and we want to make sure we say it in a way that is not only inspirational but it's kind and that really helps defuse defensiveness apologize when necessary sometimes we're still going to get defensive and when we get defensive it makes the other person or can

make the other person feel threatened and may put them on the defensive so by recognizing when we've been defensive when we've behaved aggressively and we apologize we stop it and we apologize we are helping the other person recognize that they are safe we are not going to intentionally violate their boundaries finally engage the executive control network there are three networks that are important in attention the executive control network is just what it sounds like the executives the ceos the cognitive area the salience and emotion network is the network that pays attention to all of the

stimuli in the environment it's just constantly scanning and the default mode network is the habitual way of doing things when you drive to work in the morning or well let's say you drive to work a lot of times if you've driven to work a dozen times before you probably know what you're doing and you may get in the car and drive to work and not even really think about it you know where to turn you know what you're doing it is automatic you're on autopilot you're in default mode when we are in fight or flee

when we are that hpa axis is activated we are in a default mode we are in a protective mode we're not thinking we're just fighting or fleeing to stay safe so the default mode is opposite the executive control network when executive control is in engaged the default mode is not when the default mode is engaged the executive control is not the amygdala is triggered by a threat and it when this happens it strengthens the connections with the default mode network or that fight or flight response which may result in default habitual responding so when the

amygdala is triggered and the more frequently it's triggered the stronger its ability to trigger that fight-or-flight reaction and completely bypass executive control completely bypass the option for cognitive control which means people react emotionally the executive control network helps you focus on the present situation in the current context you know we already talked about projection well the executive control network says okay yeah we got all those memories there but how accurate is that schema how accurate is what we're expecting based on the current context and in the current situation and is there a response that's more

in line with what i really want to do is there a better response that i can choose if i don't want to be defensive if i don't want to be impulsive what can i do the executive control network the cognitive area can help you learn new skills and alter schema so instead of constantly having that amygdala and default control network that fight or flight network kicking off the executive control network can help you learn new skills and alter those schema so instead of seeing yourself as regularly in danger and helpless you start seeing yourself as

empowered and safe in your own skin this reduces the strength of the amygdala connection with the default mode and reduces hpa axis dysregulation what can you do to strengthen these connections with the executive control network rehearsal is important envision yourself in situations you know think back to the situations in which you've become defensive before replay them in your head but this time play them out using more helpful communication skills you can also do this with an empty chair you know if you envision the person that you got into the disagreement with or you got defensive

with sitting in that chair and again replay that discussion but this time figure out how to handle it differently figure out what you need to do ahead of time to make sure you feel safe and explore using some of these other tools the nice thing about cognitive rehearsal and using the empty chair is you can pause whenever you want to and think and process it through and go okay i wonder what they were thinking or i wonder if this what what this might have triggered in them that caused them to become defensive it's also important

for you to identify and modify your outdated schema so if you are regularly getting defensive and saying things like you sound just like my dad mom ex whatever that's probably a schema that you're still projecting onto people so identify those schema recognize them but then also recognize that this person in the present is an entirely different person it's not your mom your dad your ex it is sally and form a schema about sally not about all people in general but what does sally mean when she acts this way what does sally mean when she says

this and use beta testing with this and beta testing all in caps stands for breathe first thing is to take a breath slow breath in for four or so hold for a few seconds and then slowly exhale that helps reduce your blood pressure and and start re-regulating or down regulating your hpa axis evaluate the facts in the situation you know really to take a look about the facts in this situation in this context at this time think about what your options are and if you have the luxury talk to other people about what your options

are and then act so at first this feels like a cumbersome process you're used to reacting but unfortunately when you react when you immediately act a lot of times you are reacting in the default mode and if you're watching this presentation you're trying to get out of defensive default mode responding so it's important to practice some of these skills sometimes you can even turn on the television you know turn on some um reality tv show and sometimes you can find information there to practice paraphrasing or practice some of these skills with and think okay if

i were the person on the receiving end of this conversation how would i react because sometimes you know some of those i remember way back when it started i watched one of the seasons of big brother and i remember sitting there thinking to myself a couple of times oh no you didn't oh you wouldn't talk to me that way so they weren't even talking to me and i felt myself getting defensive and triggered when you feel that way you know pause the show and go hey what's going on here what just got triggered in me

and why did i feel the need to maybe try to stick up for that person you know defensiveness is a way we protect ourselves from hurt or rejection it is an aggressive behavior but it stems from that fight or flight response defensiveness because it's an aggressive strategy also tends to make the other person feel unsafe and attacked so defensiveness is often met with guess what defensiveness creating safety is essential to reduce defensiveness having those ground rules ahead of time using objective language using i statements staying on topic etc in real life and cognitive mental rehearsal

of new skills using your executive control network is essential to enhance feelings of safety and effectiveness if you can do it in your mind you're that much closer to being able to do it in real life you're strengthening those mental connections so when it comes up in real life it's easier to pull that tool out of your toolbox by rehearsing this in your own mind and seeing it come out well you're also helping to reprogram yourself schema of the default mode network so you're starting to see yourself as capable of protecting yourself as safe and

as effective as a communicator