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 scenario that maybe does not warrant it,” marriage therapist Linda Carroll, LMFT, writes at mbg. “Moderately 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 advised mbg, “In these moments, we’re held throughout the grips of the ego, which acts as a barrier to genuine communication and connection.”
Earnshaw provides there are literally only a few situations wherein we really must defend our viewpoint. “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 house to the opposite individual doesn’t imply you’ll by no means get house to share when the time is correct.”