You know how you just get defensive sometimes even though you didn't really
mean to? Today, at Live On Purpose TV, how to stop being defensive.
Don't be defensive, don't, don't be defensive! How you feeling?
Is that weird? It's like if someone is attacking you,
your natural response is defensiveness. You know what, folks?
This is because of our brain. Here's the good news, your brain loves you.
Doesn't want you to get hurt, doesn't want you to be under threat so there are
natural mechanisms built into our brain that cause us to have what we refer to
collectively is the fight-or-flight response. Fight-or-flight response is
simply there to help you stay safe and it kicks in anytime there is a threat.
Now the thing about your limbic system and the defensive response in your brain
is that, it does not discern between a threat that is real and a threat that is
perceived, it's all the same thing to your brain and so it kicks you into a
chemical fight-or-flight response either away. Now that's good to know.
Here's another thing about the limbic system, that mechanism in your brain
because it can't discern between a threat that is real and a threat that is
perceived, it's going to respond to either one and when the limbic system is
active, we've got brain scan studies that prove this. There's actually a decrease
in blood flow to the prefrontal area of your brain, the frontal cortex is the
part that is in charge of logic, problem solving, rational thought so what it's
doing is, shutting down our thinker as it fires up our fight-or-flight response.
That's important to know especially if we're responding to threats that are
perceived rather than real. I have a friend who
likes to say that fear is false evidence appearing real.
That's kind of a fun acronym for fear. F.E.A.R.
False Evidence Appearing Real and a lot of things do.
Quick example, when you go
to the movies for example, if you're in a movie that gets kind of intense, right?
You notice yourself gripping those arm rests a little more tightly and my wife
laughs at me because I dodge stuff and it's not even 3D but my limbic system,
that defensive mechanism in my brain is picking up on cues that cause
me to react in those ways. So I think the first thing about not becoming defensive
is to understand that your brain will naturally kick you into a defensive
posture when it perceives a threat.
Okay, so what are we gonna do about this?
Let's look at it from a different angle for just a minute, from a social standpoint,
defensiveness validates accusation. Let me say that again..
Defensiveness validates accusation. What that means is, if you become defensive,
it actually validates in the mind of the person who's accusing you or threatening
you that what they're accusing you of is actually true. It's fuzzy logic, you guys,
but it works that way. Picture a couple, for example, where she says to him,
"So where were you last night?" And he gets defensive, "What do you mean? What are you
talking about? What are you accusing me? I didn't do anything!"
Does his defensiveness help his case? Now why is he being defensive? In her mind,
he's being defensive because he's got something to hide, in his mind he's being
defensive because he's being attacked so defensiveness validates accusation and
it tends to create problems in our relationships. What can we do about it?
I think the first step is that we need to manage that fight-or-flight response.
Manage the fight-or-flight response. This is simple, folks, it's brain science.
What you want to do is calm down that defensive mechanism in
your brain that's causing the fight-or-flight response and activate or
reactivate the prefrontal part of your brain where you're doing all the logic
and problem solving. That's the part of the brain that we need to effectively
negotiate relationships. Quickest way I know to do this is through breathing, alright?
Just take a few minutes and breathe. Now you can actually train and
conditioned your brain to respond differently by practicing breathing.
Here's what I mean and I learned this technique years ago. There's a lot of
different kinds of techniques but this is one you can try. If you don't
have another one, you simply breathe in through the nose
and you want to fill up your lungs, just kind of stretch them a bit so in through
the nose and hold and you want to hold for maybe 10 seconds or so just did
enough to give it a little bit of a stretch and to feel that effect and then
exhale slowly through your mouth, purse your lips, restrict the flow here a
little bit so that your exhale tends to be about twice as long as your inhale.
Nice and slow and they push it out a little at the end because usually you
leave some of your lung capacity in there when you exhale, push it out and
then you can breathe even deeper the next time.
Hold, just for a little bit and
then slowly out through the mouth.
Do that two or three times and notice how you feel.
Mmm, I feel good just doing a little demonstration it to you here. It changes
the dynamics, the neuro physiological dynamics of your brain and it causes a
relaxation response. What that also does is it redirects the blood flow up to the
prefrontal part of your brain and that's the part you're going to need to handle
the problem or the situation in a more effective way. So manage that
fight-or-flight response. Now a little word about the opinion of other people.
What other people think about you is none of your business, honestly.
And does it affect you? Yes, it might especially if that person is close to
you, like it's your boss or it's your spouse or it's your child.
So some people's opinions may matter more than others but here's the thing,
everything that someone else thinks about you is simply feedback. What is
feedback? Feedback is information, period. Information about what? Well some of it
might be about you but most of it is about them. In other words,
it's information about the person giving the feedback. Here's what I mean, what if
someone comes up to me and says, "Dr. Paul, you're an idiot." Okay, well does that mean
I am an idiot? Not necessarily. It is feedback, it is information.
Information about what? Well is it about me or is it about that person?
Here's the most accurate way to interpret it. It means that that person
experiences me as an idiot. Okay, now why is that important?
Because that may or may not have anything to do with me. This is a way to
distance myself psychologically from the attack which means I'm less likely to
become defensive, right? So understand that the information is about how that
person experiences me. Now what can I do with that feedback? There's a lot of
things I might do with it. I might take it in and say, "Well that person's an idiot."
That probably wouldn't be helpful either. I might take it in and I might
say, "Hmm.. That person experiences me as an idiot. I don't know, I'll check" And then I
go inside of myself and I start to look around a little bit, no, I might just
think what is it in my behavior that has that person experiencing me as an idiot?
See, this is called metacognition. It's thinking about our own thinking. So we
don't just run off to the races with the fight-or-flight response. We take a
moment to stop, calm our own defensive reaction so that we can actually start
thinking about what's happening and in the thinking about it, we might find a
way that we can make an adjustment or do something that upgrades the situation so
that I show up differently in my relationships. Feedback is information
and it's primarily information about the person giving the feedback. Take some
time to calm your fight-or-flight response so that you don't have to show
up as defensive. Defensiveness validates accusation, watch out for it.
So being defensive, we all do it. Hopefully, you got some good ideas today from
Live On Purpose TV about how to stop being defensive.
You can subscribe to the channel right down there.