Handling Insults with Confidence: Strategies for Defusing Negativity

 So today I wanted to talk about insults. This might be a very sensitive topic, but needs to be addressed. So yesterday, I met a friend and he said something that was really insulting to me. There definitely was some weakness or something I showed before that and that got them into this maybe or whatever the reason might be. Sometimes it's more important to understand that there might be something that might have triggered right. Anyways let's get back to what is an insult? Google defines insult as follows: speak to or treat with disrespect or scornful abuse.To speak or to treat with disrespect or scornful abuse. Fair enough for a definition, when we speak with disrespect or when we abuse anyone that's what an insult means. Now the question is how do we respond to an insult? 

One of the first things we can do is fact check. For an example, let's say someone calls you an elephant, then you have to check an elephant's face and then check your face, match it objectively and say okay this is not true. Let's rather have some say from what people say all over the world about responding to an insult. Let's think about why people insult others? Maybe they are themselves hurt over something or maybe there's something that's bothering them on the inside and they can't get the hurt out to someone. That's how they start insulting the other person. Maybe it's the question of importance or their own insecurity that they try to project on someone else. Whatever the reason the root cause of that insult is not you but their own insecurity that they project on to someone else. If it's their own insecurity why not give more importance to the world and thus making the world a more secure and a happy place. 

So when we think about why people insult each other, although insecurity is one of the most common causes. There are a few causes that we can think about as well. 

1. Anger or Frustration: Sometimes when people are angry or frustrated over something, maybe it's something at work or maybe it's something in their personal life, they tend to remove their frustration and anger on someone else. This might come out as an insult to someone or some issue that they are dealing with. 

2. Social Power Dynamics: A lot of people want to gain social power and they might use their insults to assert dominance. It can be a way to establish dominance or power by diminishing someone else's status. So remember social power dynamics does play an important part in these situations. 

3. Defence Mechanism: All of us tend to become defensive when we feel attacked. Imagine there's an environment where everyone's attacking every other person. So naturally our guards are high and we start insulting others so that the insult does not really come to us. So sometimes insults can also be used as a defence mechanism to defend yourself. 

4. Lack of empathy: Sometimes people insult others because they aren't even aware about the words that they use might affect the other person in a negative way. People don't care about the feelings of others completely, and thus they don't care about insulting others as well. So there's a part which says we should care too much about others and there's one end of the spectrum that says we should not care at all. I feel like the balance lies somewhere in between the two. Where you don't care too much but it's not like you don't care at all. There's a balance to it. 

5. Misunderstandings: If you have a friendship that's long or if you have a friendship where you meet the other person almost daily. Misunderstandings are bound to happen, there might be things that you dislike about the other person and there might be things that you like about the other person. So let's say someone said something negatively about someone in public, and you got to know that they were talking about you and in fact they weren't even talking about you. This is a clear case of misunderstanding and it's very natural during such times to feel a bit insecure about this. 

Now the question comes how do you really deal with an insult? There are a lot of variables to this, but one of the most important things is to understand what situation it is and it is really worth to have a conflict out here about something. Now let's talk about some practical ways to deal with an insult. 

1. Stay Calm and Composed:  When someone insults you it's very easy to respond impulsively and that demonstrates a lack of control and maturity. However when you stay calm and composed and do not respond to insults immediately, you demonstrate control and maturity. One way to do this is to take a deep breath and then respond. 

2. Deflect with humour: One of the best ways to respond is to deflect the situation with humour. You can actually add a very self deprecating joke or make a light hearted comment about the situation. This helps you defuse the situation with a light hearted atmosphere as well. 

3. Acknowledge the insult without reacting emotionally: When you acknowledge the insult it means that you are aware about it, but you don't let it affect your self worth. For an example, you can literally respond in a very calm and a neutral tone that does not show hurt or anger. You can say things like, that's interesting. Nice, you have a wonderful choice of words. Or anything that does not project anger or anything.

4. Ignore the insult: When you ignore the insult, you are depriving of the reaction that the insulter is seeking. The way to do it, is simply act as if nothing has happened and move on from that. Remember no response is also a response. 

5. Turn the insult into a compliment: Sometimes there are opportunities in the insult that you can turn that into a compliment. This will completely turn the person who insulted you off guard and would let him/her know that you won't be dragged into negativity. 

6. Ask for clarification: When you ask for clarification from the insulter, you put the insulter on spot and forces them to reflect on what they said. More often than not, they'll back track or feel uncomfortable. You can just say, sorry I didn't understand could you please clarify what you mean?

Now that there are some ways, I just want to list down some other ways as well. 

7. Set Boundaries: 

8. Reframe the insult as their problem: 

9. Walk away or end the conversation

10. Respond with empathy 

11. Change the topic: 

I don't want to write a lot about these but I generally feel like either using humour and add a self deprecating comment or you can just ignore the comment for the most part. I have seen that sometimes especially in an Indian community if you speak something like don't talk to

me like that or assert yourself, people can make a joke out of that also. So the best way is either add self deprecating humour or just ignore. Turning an insult into a positive statement can also be one of the ways, and asking for clarification can also be a good way. The setting boundaries needs to be done in a diplomatic way. But make sure that you understand what community you are talking to and then make the appropriate choice.