A person whose wisdom and insight I value highly (and who often gives me nuggets to ponder) said, recently:
It’s definitely a step on from my, ‘offence is a choice’!
I did some pondering about the implications of this.
So the scenario is that someone else has done something to trigger uncomfortable emotions in you.
If that thing is making you unsafe, you are being bullied (feel like you really can’t defend yourself from their harmful actions) or their behaviour is beyond reasonable (and not just human messiness) then obviously the best thing to do is find safety, address the behaviour directly and/or seek help to prevent further harm.
Proviso aside, what about when someone does something that just offends you?
When we’re not overly conscious of our responses we can do a number of things. Our negative emotion can make us defensive, make us unable to act, become unclear about what our needs are (or lose sight that we have the right to express them), avoid the situation or person again, go and moan to someone etc.
If we choose to leave the situation un-addressed we might be able to eventually, ‘let it go’. However, if it remains unaddressed and festers we can sometimes make all kinds of speculating judgements and assumptions about what the other person is doing, often without any input from the person who ‘offended’ us and we can easily lose the objectivity of what actually happened (or maybe we didn’t really have it in the first place!) For example, we might think:
- They should know better (they clearly didn’t, help them to ‘know better’).
- They don’t care about me (possibly, but that’s their issue).
- They don’t like me. (ditto – and this is one for ‘rejection management’ We really, really can’t expect everyone to like us.)
- They deliberately did that because they knew it would upset me. (Maybe, unlikely though unless it was perceived retaliation or they are a psychopath – again their issue!)
- They were totally insensitive (which they might have been but it’s in the realm of human messiness and getting things wrong!)
- If they cared, they would have apologised (they might not even know they have offended you!)
- Etc.
For one, we’re probably giving them more credit for thinking about (and having an opinion about) us than they are likely to be bothering with.
But also with each assumption we make, we have fabricated a way in which they can have more power over us. The power we can give another to continue to trigger our negative emotions- amazingly when you think about it – without any further input from them. And then it becomes about resenting and blaming them for that power we’ve enabled them to have over us: for all the fabrication we have made about how they got it ‘wrong’ in our view or how they didn’t do what we think they should have done!
It takes awareness and emotional intelligence (very linked) to navigate our ‘offences’ and here I will just repeat what I have written in other places.
When offended (proviso above aside)
- Don’t make it about the other person (they are irrelevant really in this process) – this is a great opportunity to learn!
- Start by noticing the emotion.
- See the emotion as a call to action (possibly to address an issue ‘out there’ or work on your own perspective.)
- Work out what ‘sensitivity’ has been triggered.
- Consider the feelings, thoughts and beliefs that are entrenched with this sensitivity e.g. a feeling of rejection, a belief nobody listens to you, a feeling you can’t express your needs, a feeling you’re not good enough, the thought, ‘people should not do that’ (consider if it’s something, someone else might never have a problem with), etc.
- Accept that sensitivity (don’t judge yourself for having it), make yourself more aware of it (‘own and take responsibility for it’) and in future look out for it being triggered again – nearly always with less potency as we ‘shine’ the torch of awareness on it!
- Check to see everything has been processed. If you’re still needing to talk about it, it’s probably still a bit ‘stuck.’