3R Forumula for Empowerment

Excercises

Handling Insults

Learning to be calm when you are disrespected is a superpower!

The above quote making rounds lately on the internet struck me close. Like most of us, I too have had insults and demoralizing attitudes thrown my way.  Looking back, I recognize how at times, I reacted to insults with anger and harsh words of retort. If I was not able to give a clever rejoinder then the best way to cope with an insult was crying. Over time, I have discovered that while crying can help vent out pent-up feelings, it is not a solution. A shrewd comeback too was not a smart way to go. As I matured, I understood a few tactics to deal with insults. More about it later in this article. To handle insults it is important to know what constitutes an insult.

Types of Insults

To understand what disrespectful behavior is, we need to know that insults can come in different ways. In some circumstances, we could be oblivious to them, and in many, the insults are more apparent. We could all quote examples from our lives from each of the categories listed below –

  1. Flippancy – is the act of disrespectful behavior by making fun or lacking seriousness, often leading to emotional invalidation. An example of flippant is somebody making a sarcastic comment in response to a serious question.
  2. Slanted Compliment – uttering words that seem like compliments but are not. Some examples: “Wow! I cannot believe how great you look in person,” “I love how you don’t care what others think of you,” “I wish I was as comfortable as you are about how you look,” “This dress makes you look so slim.”
  3. A Personal Attack – is an act of attacking a person directly on their looks, action, or situation. Some examples: “I hate you,” “you are dull,” “I have a better chance at getting the job than you.”
  4. Sexual Remark – crude comments on somebody’s body parts, making sexual innuendoes with the use of profanity, double meaning jokes, and goading to have sexual relationships.
  5. Physical Insults – punching, slapping, pushing, spitting are some forms of physical insults that can cause physical damage in addition to emotional ones.

Insults and disrespectful behaviors can hurt us and even scar us for life. They damage the prospect of happiness and could affect our self-confidence. Insults, ranging from microaggressions to scathing behaviors and words, could lead to isolation, alienation, anger, anxiety, and even depression.

How to Handle Insults

We all cope in various ways with insults. Some of the common reactions are listed below –

  1. Anger
  2. Retort
  3. Overlooking
  4. Acceptance
  5. Confrontation

To be sure, that our response to disrespectful behaviors does not lead to counter-productive outcomes, we need some pointers. After reading many articles and trying to practice different ways to respond to insults, three things became clear to me –

  1. Insult is NOT an answer to an insult
  2. Staying CALM is not the same as staying quiet
  3. Responding and NOT reacting to insult is the best way to deal with it

Keeping quiet to a freshly made insult to your person, should not be a standard response and never the everlasting one. When you are quiet in all circumstances when an insult is thrown at you, it encourages and empowers the other person insulting you. Having said that, I would also say that a momentary pause is necessary when disrespected. Immediate retort can be premature and undignified, and cause you to lose face in front of those who offended you. This also gives you time to formulate your response and avoid unthinking reactions from you. Keeping a few simple points in mind also help –

  1. Insults are external to us – they could only hurt us if we want them to hurt us.
  2. Do not take it personally – know that insults often mirror the offender’s scarcity, which could be anything from jealousy, lack of self-confidence, anger
  3. Respond do not react – this is nothing new. At Aware-ly we often talk about responding instead of reacting as it is applicable to any area of our lives
  4. Deflate insults by ignoring them – that does not mean that you do not address them. Let us say somebody wrote you an insulting email. Take your time to respond, do not emphasize the insulting part of the email, and just address what is important. This sort of disregarding would certainly snub the offender
  5. Deflate insults with humor – humor is the best defense tool against insults, and it helps defuse tension. In one way, it also informs the offender of the pettiness of their remarks or actions

How do you defend yourself from insults and disrespectful behaviors?

References

https://umatter.princeton.edu/respect/addressing-disrespect

https://theconversation.com/the-psychology-of-insults-71738

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/201302/how-deal-insults-and-put-downs