Okay, so how do you avoid being defensive when there’s a disagreement? Yeah, that’s tough. That’s tough again. I think it’s important to acknowledge that you’re coming from a different place than the other person. So, we have to let go of the expectation that we’re all going to naturally agree on the same thing. You’re coming from a different place, you’re gonna have certain expectations, and they’re coming from another place—they’re going to have different expectations. When you see them as having different expectations, we won’t react as much because we’re not confusing their expectations with our expectations of ourselves. Our expectations of ourselves come from ourselves, and when we allow the other person to have different expectations and then you acknowledge it and call it out, and say, “Okay, so are you expecting this from me? Because I expect this from myself.” When you make those distinct from each other, we no longer have to immediately defend ourselves. We no longer have to protect ourselves if we make those decisions.

And if the person is still coming at us, okay, that’s where you need a boundary. That’s where you say, “Please stop. Cool the jets. Take it easy.” And essentially, what it really comes down to is, no, I don’t want that kind of behavior coming at me the way it is. No, don’t yell at me. No, don’t get hostile. No, don’t engage with me with that kind of intensity. That’s necessary if the person keeps stepping over the line and keeps putting it on you. And when you say no, see how the person responds to that. Now, if they keep pushing in and saying, “Well, you’re wrong to tell me no,” okay, we’ve got some issues to look at there because they’re not respecting who you are.

So, the no is an element that is supposed to wake a person up to what they’re doing, and hopefully, they are. So, this kind of layers into becoming aware of each other and saying, “You’re like this, I’m like this.” If the person keeps stepping over the line, saying no, saying, “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” there’s a point here where you’re not supposed to be pushing past it. And if they don’t respect that and they go even further, well, there are some deeper issues to look at. So, those are kind of the different levels we can look at where we can feel defensive: unhooking ourselves in the first one, hopefully getting to a place where we can mutually respect each other, and then saying no. If the person is still coming at us, and ultimately no, it gets deeper and deeper to the point where, I don’t wanna be involved with you anymore if they’re not respecting it.