Let’s be trustworthy—we have all been defensive earlier than. We hear a criticism from a companion, we really feel they’re calling our character into query, and so the knee-jerk response is usually to leap to our personal protection and clarify why we did not say, do, or imply what we’re being “accused” of.
“To be defensive is to react with an overprotective mentality to a state of affairs that maybe does not warrant it,” marriage therapist Linda Carroll, LMFT, writes at mbg. “Reasonably than listening with an open coronary heart, we reply with our metaphorical shields up and weapons drawn.”
Defensiveness is an issue as a result of not solely are we not listening with the intent to know, however as {couples} therapist Elizabeth Earnshaw, LMFT, beforehand informed mbg, “In these moments, we’re held inside the grips of the ego, which acts as a barrier to genuine communication and connection.”
Earnshaw provides there are literally only a few eventualities wherein we actually have to defend our perspective. “A number of realities exist,” she notes. “[When people get defensive], they battle to see that listening and validating don’t imply agreeing, and that giving area to the opposite particular person doesn’t imply you’ll by no means get area to share when the time is true.”
