Stop being so defensive!

Have you had that criticism leveled at you before? If you have, you'll know it's a Catch-22 situation!

But if you do feel that you are too defensive, too sensitive when given constructive criticism then you may be missing out on valuable feedback.

If someone is too defensive they are basically always on the look out for emotional attack. The trouble is when we are constantly on the lookout for something we tend to keep finding it! If you continually think that someone is 'getting at you' then it becomes very hard to actually learn and develop.

Possible reasons for over-defensiveness

If you feel you are too sensitive to criticism you many have been brought up believing that no one should ever say a bad word about you. More commonly however, people who are over-defensive have been criticized a lot in the past, and defensiveness has developed as a self-protection mechanism.

In this case of course, you need to learn how to discern between an attack on you, and a complaint or instructive comment.

Defensiveness springs from the emotional not logical brain.

Being overly defensive is an emotional response not a logical one. In fact quite often we know that perhaps we are over-reacting but the emotional part of us seems to take over. Hypnosis is a great way of calming the part of the brain down that responds instantly and automatically before proper thought gets a look in.

Having more access to your thinking brain rather than just being swamped by the emotional part will give you more choices of response to people and events.

Defensiveness predicts relationship breakdown

Psychologist John Gottman studied married couples communicating and found that he could predict very accurately just by listening to a few minutes of conversation which couples were destined to destroy their relationships and which ones would survive long term.

He found, amongst other factors, that if one of the couple seemed to be highly defensive then this in itself meant the marriage was much more likely to break down over the next few years. (1) Being too defensive wrecks all kinds of relationships including working ones. Sure you need to defend yourself if someone is on the attack but there's nothing worse than people feeling they have to tread on eggshells the whole time so as not to upset you. It's hard to want to be around someone who is highly defensive as they come across as rude and aggressive themselves.

This hypnotic download Stop Being Defensive will relax you deeply around times where before you had been too focused on fending off attacks that weren't there. When you are no longer defensive your life will be so much freer and easier and you'll be able to focus on what's really important.

Download Stop Being Defensive below and enjoy the world becoming a friendlier place.

Gottman, John, Why marriages succeed or fail, Bloomsbury, 1998 pg 112-114