Healing Space | Saying things you don’t mean to

The defensiveness you use as a mode of attack often comes from an underlying fear, a need for self-protection. (Illustration by Suneesh K.)

Note to readers: Healing Space is a weekly series that helps you dive into your mental health and take charge of your wellbeing through practical DIY self-care methods.

We’re constantly saying too much, using harsh words, or being meaner than we intend to be. The best example of this is in an argument with a spouse or partner or parent. We seek out someone’s vulnerabilities and their fears and push the buttons that will give us the most satisfying reaction. There are a number of reasons for this. Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud famously said there are no ‘slips of the tongue’ or parapraxis. Every word we say instead of another reveals an underlying emotion, it need not be an insult, this is true even when you call one child by another child’s name. It can indicate preference, hierarchy, proximity, and this is why sensitive children can get offended by what feels like an ‘honest mistake’ to you.

In an argument the limbic system, which is designed to protect us, adopts a posture of defence. It sets the body on high alert and prepares to take down what’s coming at us, the perceived threat. In an argument, this is typically the opponent’s words. The limbic system’s goal is to keep you safe, so it will retrieve from your arsenal whatever is most likely to disarm the opponent. That’s often the harshest thing you can say in the heat of the moment, what will certainly inflict pain. Ouch.

The defensiveness you use as a mode of attack often comes from an underlying fear, a need for self-protection. The limbic system is designed not to reveal your flaws. If you were being attacked, you wouldn’t want your enemy to know you were afraid. That would make you seem weak. Hence, you hide your flaws, uncertainties, weaknesses in that position. Your heart races and pulse pounds, muscles in your forehead, jawline, shoulders, and arms clench, maybe even your fingers and fists. Your posture is pumped to fight and you feel ‘confident’ but really ‘aggressive’. While this may protect you, it doesn’t allow you to find an end to the argument. Your brain is not looking for a solution, it is only looking for an escape route. Such arguments rarely end productively. They escalate with increasing barbs and insults thrown at each other until either side stands down defeated. This is what is meant by ‘ win the argument, lose a friend’. The cost is always the relationship because the wounds caused are too great.

How can you identify and avoid such pointless and harmful arguments? To begin with, ask whether you are certain the opponent is your enemy. They may also be responding from fear, or anger or sadness. Where does their stance come from? You will very rarely arrive at ‘a desire to actively harm me’. Most people who attack do so to protect themselves—you will never be a greater priority to anyone than their own safety. So, what do they fear? If you can’t figure it out, ask them. Do they have a past experience that causes them to feel you will harm them? Where did they get this belief? Are they internalizing an external socio-political environment? What is their biggest fear? What do they stand to lose and how does that make them feel?

Asking questions to get to the root of the issue is a far more useful exercise than confronting with your own assumptions about why the opponent is doing what they are doing. When you see where they are coming from, you can both find middle ground or ways to achieve what you want without overriding their needs. Now, you have shifted to solutions mode. This process of asking and answering also tweaks your threat perception of the ‘enemy’. Your limbic system is no longer telling you to use your heavy artillery to inflict maximum damage. When they are no longer antagonistic, you can find ways to compromise or agree.

Now, the nature of the entire argument has changed. You can now take the conversation mindfully forward, it is no longer an argument. Mindfulness is not just a mode of meditation. It is a way of living that gives you insight into your bodily response, your emotional state and how you express the feelings associated with it. When you argue mindfully, you realign the nature of the conversation and consider the larger impact to the individual who is the opponent and beyond them. You thus choose your words carefully, to create an outcome you desire, and not to alienate and conquer an ‘enemy’.