How to not overreact
Introduction
I am sure that this has happened to you as many times as it has happened to me:
There is someone who keeps offending or provoking you with his or her words.
For a long time, you tolerate it. Maybe you laugh or shrug it off. You tell yourself that “they just aren’t aware of it”, “don’t understand it”, or that “it’s just a part of their personality”. You believe wholeheartedly that they’re not offending or provoking you on purpose. You keep quiet about how their words make you feel, and for a while, it seems to preserve the peace between the two of you.
Then one day, out of the blue, in a moment where you were not ready or perhaps not fully paying attention to what was going on, that someone who has been verbally offending you for a while, says something you did not see coming. It comes out of left field and you were not mentally prepared for it. Your limbic system in your brain jumps ahead of your frontal lobe. Before you can even consciously think, your mouth spews out exactly those words that you hoped you would never say. You angrily and loudly give that person a piece of your mind.
You just had a overreaction.
You said something unkind or mean-spirited. Your offender became the offended, and you keep wondering why those words came out and why you were seemingly powerless to stop them.
Now the peace between you and that person is broken, and you feel guilty because you unintentionally offended someone. To make matters worse, you feel as though your one “slip up” weighs heavier than the many insults that you had to bear. In fact, if this happened while others were watching, they will have a worse impression of you than of that person, despite the fact that they don’t know half of the story.
“If only I hadn’t said that.”
I have been there many times. I understand how you feel. So, allow me to share with you some things that I have learned about these sorts of triggering conversations over the years.
Why do we react at all?
It is a good thing that we react. Imagine that you are hiking and somewhere from above you notice a rock falling directly towards your head. If you did not have the capacity to react—that is, to act subconsciously—and to move out of the way, then you would soon need a serious facelift.
One time I was with friends at a playground, and two of their children were playing in front of a slide, when the older kid suddenly pushed the younger one down. The little one was in the air, falling face first towards the end of the slide. I was right next to him. My body acted on its own. Without thinking, my left hand found itself fully covering the boy’s face. His legs landed a bit hard on the slide, but I slowed him down enough so that he didn’t get hurt. Had I not reacted by instinct in that moment though, then he would have gone home with a a big boil or a broken nose that day, or worse. Fun fact: I’m actually right-handed. Our bodies are amazing. My nervous system somehow made me reach out with the closest hand and hold it accurately in place, despite it not being my dominant one.
Our brains have a system that deals with situations like these. It is constantly scanning for dangers in our surroundings. That system makes us act so fast that it sometimes can feel as though our bodies were remote controlled. This system will quickly pump us with many stress hormones like adrenaline. They increase our blood pressure, heart rate, and ramp up the release of energy, for when these things are needed.
Now, this is all very useful while you are hiking, for example, which can be a dangerous activity.
It is fatal when you are having a conversation with another human being, especially one who intentionally or unintentionally triggers you.
This phenomenon, by the way, is called fight, flight, or freeze (and I think that these days they add “fawn” to that list, which represents “appeasing” one’s “foe”), because one of those is what our bodies usually make us do. We either react to fight the danger, run away from it, or freeze and do nothing. People deemed “shy” and “socially awkward” often do the latter.
However, unless you are in a situation where there is a real danger that someone will do you physical harm, it is never helpful to enter that state. Why? Because you will lose control over how you respond and potentially say or do something that you will later regret.
A conversation should never have to be something you involuntarily react to.
What can you realistically do about it though? Your body seems to activate this emergency mode without your consent. How can you make it learn to differentiate between a real danger that threatens your life and a conversation you do not like, with a person you perhaps do not like either?
Sadly, as with all social skills, training your brain to distinguish the one from the other is the work of a lifetime.
I do have some practical advice though.
Practice being OK with being awkward
Awkwardness feels awkward (or “cringe”, as the kids say these days). We do not like it, and so many of us live their lives afraid of being perceived as awkward and doing or saying something awkward.
In fact, some of us spend so much of our time thinking up how future conversations with people could turn awkward, that is becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Awkwardness (or cringe, for that matter) is not a disease. Awkwardness puts you in no danger. Not one human in history has ever died because they found themselves in awkward situation, much less an awkward conversation.
Learning how to be OK with being awkward is a great skill to develop. Next time you are having a conversation with someone, and you begin to feel awkward for whatever reason, just state it out loud: “Well, I feel awkward now.”
This will do two things:
One is that, if the other person feels awkward themselves, then they might feel that you can empathize. That will immediately relax both of you, especially if you learn to say it in a calm and friendly manner.
Most importantly though, it gives you time to think.
Many times you will find yourself in a conversation that is not going well. Your brain has a tendency to go into fight, flight, or freeze mode in those moments. This is even more likely if for some reason you feel that you are being pressured to reply quickly.
Practice “stop to think”
Unfortunately, there are people who do this. They might be ranting and expect you to keep up with them. They might be annoyed that you take too long to think. Whatever their reason is, they pressure you to reply faster.
So, when you feel that pressure, that risks triggering your fight, flight, or freeze mode.
Therefore, a useful skill to develop is to “stop to think”.
This is especially important if you are slow of thought, which is not a mental illness or anything like that (and do not allow anyone to make you think that it is). Some people just think slower than others. That is all.
Here is how you can do it: Practice to intentionally stop and think. It sounds simple because it is. That is all that there is to this principle. You practice to intentionally give yourself a few extra seconds before you reply to a question someone asks.
Maybe you even add some sound to your thinking process, like an audible “hmmm” to let the other person know that you’re busy coming up with a meaningful reply. This makes it a little less awkward.
Might this annoy some people? It will. Does that matter? Not a lick. Normal people who know the least bit about social interaction, are patient and will wait.
By practicing to stop to think, you might actually improve the speed at which you think and reply over time. I don’t know how this works, but I just know that from experience and from observing other people. Maybe, as people become more comfortable stopping to think, they also become more confident about their opinions, and more willing to air them out.
Some people might ask you to hurry up. Let them be angry all they want. Calmly state: “I need time to think.” If they angrily pressure you, then you calmly reply: “If you do not allow me adequate time to think, then there is no point in having this conversation, because I will not be able to make up my mind.” This is a good way to immediately set boundaries with pushy people. If they turn away and hurl insults at you, then that’s their loss.
However, if the person angrily insists that you need to reply something, then you are dealing with someone who does not deserve your reply to begin with. He or she does not want to hear a helpful reply. He or she is probably just looking for an excuse to get even more angry at you. Better begin avoiding him or her.
Let me clear about something here: No one has the right to make you reply in a hurry. You do not owe that to anyone. Period.
In fact, you don’t owe anyone the priviledge of hearing what you have to say. You have a right to remain silent, always.
Furthermore, do not believe the lie they tell you when they say that replying slowly and taking time to think is somehow impolite or disrespectful.
Be careful with your internal dialogue
I have an active and imaginative mind. It is a boon for my writing, but a bust for my mental health. While many people have the ability to live in the here and now, my mind has a tendency to wander off into the past, the future, or a world that is completely imaginary.
With regard to conversations that risk triggering an overreaction in me though, I sadly also tend to pour gas on the fire by imagining future conversations and how they will go wrong. I actively imagine the ways in which I will overreact and put that person in his or her place.
The obvious result, is that this too becomes a self-fulling prophecy, and the rant that I rehearsed in my mind always makes the situation worse than what I imagined.
Sometimes I even get anxious about a conversation that I will have, only for it to go much better than I expected, making me feel dumb for getting so worked up and tense in the first place.
A better practice is to imagine yourself responding slowly or not at all to a bad conversation that you think might soon take place. I can tell you that this works because I have experienced it. I have been able to dodge many bullets that way.
It would be far better though to not imagine such future scenarios at all because it can also cause you unnecessary anxiety. A better attitude to have would be to just assume that no matter what conversations come your way, you will face them all with grace and peace.
I know that this is easier said than done though. Like I said, I have a very active and imaginative mind.
Forgive and forget
Many people will bring tribulations upon you with their unkind words. However, if you accept that this is an inevitable fact of life, then you will always be mentally ready to face those conversations, when they head your way, without overreacting.
You will never succeed in completely shielding yourself from the verbally careless. So, live your life, be the change you want to see in others, and stop worrying about how people talk to you.
You cannot change others. You can only change yourself.
Someone will inevitably say something mean to you, and you will not like it. You will feel hurt. You will develop resentment. You may even pay that person in kind, actively or passively.
That, however, just reinforces the cycle of hatred and misery in society and in your personal life.
The way to break that cycle is by forgiving.
Does forgiving mean the same as forgetting? I doubt it. Not in this life anyway. Maybe some people are better at forgetting how others have hurt them with their words. For me, it is exceedingly difficult. I remember insults and undue criticism with a an almost photographic memory.
But I choose not to think about them. That is the trick.
And to complete the “forgiveness”, I also actively choose to still smile at those people and be kind to them.
Is it easy? Nope. Do I always succeed? Nope. I have gotten better over the years, but I still have a long ways to go.
Ultimately though, what I personally think forgiveness is about, is not that you forget how you were wronged, but that you relieve yourself of an unnecessary burden.
The principle here is that when we do not forgive the unkind words that others have heaped upon us, and we repeatedly and continuously regurgitate them in our minds, then we harm ourselves tenfold more than what those words did to us when we first heard them. That person might, in fact, have long forgotten about what they said to us. Yet, we are allowing their words to live in our minds rent-free. This places a heavy mental burden on us.
Perhaps, it is best to go separate ways
I know that this is not always possible, but hear me out.
I have often concluded that a certain individual just cannot have a normal conversation with me. For some reason, that person just chooses to always talk to me in a hostile manner, no matter what approach I use.
I do try my best to stay patient. Their behavior is not excused by this, but I am aware that many such people come from difficult backgrounds or have mental health issues. That helps me to not take it so personally.
Some people, however, interpret patience as weakness, an invitation to speak more aggressively, or even a challenge to try to break me with their words.
In fact, many people have so far fallen off the course, that they take a perverse pleasure in getting a reaction out of others by provoking them with what they say. It makes them feel powerful, as if they can control the emotions of the people around them.
Others, in turn, may try to provoke you to react to their words to later weaponize the guilt that you feel (over your “mean” reaction) against you. They emotionally blackmail you to do their bidding that way. This is especially common in romantic or family relationships.
One third group of people, which often suffers from severe depression, uses words to provoke a negative reaction in the people that surround them, so they can confirm their biased opinions about themselves and others, namely that “everyone hates them” or that “they are the worst”.
When you face such people, allowing them to continue to verbally abuse you beyond a certain threshold, becomes a lose-lose deal. Your example of kindness and patience should have a positive, character-building effect on others, but in rare cases, it might actually enable them to reinforce the bad habits.
None of this is your fault, but it may be necessary for you to limit your interactions with such people or cut them out of your life altogether, not just for your sake, but for their sake as well, so your presence in their lives doesn’t keep reinforcing their behavior.
Learn to separate your opinions from yourself
I learned this practical piece of advice about how to deal with people who verbally abuse us—especially when they criticize our opinions from a YouTuber (the relevant bit starts at 1m5s), many years ago.
It is a simple frame of mind: You are one thing. Your opinions are a different thing.
It takes a lot of practice, but you can learn to frame your identity this way, and you can do that by visualizing yourself separate from your opinions and preferences. You can imagine that they are labels or folders that are in a box, and that box is just lying on the floor next to you. It is not on you, in you, nor is it you.
When you think of your opinions as something separate from yourself, then what that does, is that when people criticize them, you will have less of a tendency to take the criticism personal. After all, it was not you who was the one “being attacked”, it was that one particular opinion that is stashed away in a folder, inside a box. The attack is far removed from you.
As a neat side-effect, you will be much more willing to give up bad opinions in exchange for better ones, if you end up agreeing with the other person.
Just do not become too willing. Think with your own brain.
Between a rock and a hard place
There is a story in the Bible that perfectly illustrates this principle of not taking things personally and therefore overreacting.
In Numbers 20:1-13, we can read about an episode, very close to the time at which Israel arrived in the Promised Land after traversing the desert for forty years, where Moses, their leader, out of all people, completely lost his cool.
All that time, God had miraculously provided water for His rebellious people, by making it gush out of rocks wherever they set up their tents (Isaiah 48:21). Yet, when the water ran dry, shortly before they reached the Promised Land, they again began to distrust Moses’ leading and to doubt God’s providence. They accused the now almost 120-year-old patriarch of bringing them to the desert to have them die of thirst.
Moses approached God in the tabernacle, Who directed his servant to simply speak to a rock. He would again, miraculously make water come out of it for the congregation to drink.
Moses had an overreaction though (verse 10 and 12):
(10) “Hear now, you rebels! Must we bring water for you out of this rock?” (11) Then Moses lifted his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod; and water came out abundantly, and the congregation and their animals drank.
True. The people had spent the last 40 years grinding away at Moses’ patience. Yet, as a leader, his “slip up” could not be excused. His accusation that the people were rebellious was correct, but it was spoken with an irritated tone. Among other wrongs that he committed in that one act, the most prominent one is that he misrepresented God’s character, therefore giving a bad example to an already very rebellious people, who would later go on to excuse their own impatient, impassionate, and sinful actions.
I suspect that what led Moses to have an overreaction, was that he took all the accusations that the people had been hurling at him over the years personally.
In reality though, they were not directed at him.
No. The people were first and foremost murmuring against God.
This may be hard to comprehend, but it is true nonetheless: Whatever harm someone does to you, while I certainly am not minimizing the pain that was inflicted on you, you need to always keep in mind that what really motivated the offender to hurt you, was his or her hatred towards God, and not to you.
When someone insults you, for example, they’re subconsciously trying to silence their consciences, through which God pleads with them to act kind and selfless instead. They don’t want to, so they pick on whichever “target” is closest to them, to numb their consciences by verbally or physically harming others, thereby closing their spiritual ears so that God’s voice won’t reach their hardened hearts.
This is the image that we need to picture in our minds when we suffer at the hands of others. It’s not us who is being attacked, it’s God, and He will eventually vindicate His character, as recompense us for our innocence (Deuteronomy 32:35), if not here, then in the hereafter (Matthew 5:1-11).
That is what God did for Moses. At first, it seemed that Moses was going to be punished for his overreaction, by not being allowed to lead the people into the Promised Land (verse 12), and that punishment was sustained (Deuteronomy 3:23-28).
God knew his servant’s heart though, that it was true, that it had carried a heavy burden of responsibility, and for a stubborn and faithless people to boot. Moses had asked God to forgive him his sin, and He did. More than that though, Jesus raised Moses from the dead, and translated (brought him up) to Heaven, where is now still. In the end, he got to see the heavenly Canaan, which is infinitely more glorious and beautiful.
Centuries later, Jesus even called him down for a brief period, alongside Elijah, to symbolically represent those people who will die and be resurrected when He returns (whereas Elijah represents those who will be translated to heaven without seeing death), as we can read in Matthew 17:1-13.
The moment when Jesus came down to ressurect Moses, is very conspicuously recorded in Jude 9, where we learn that He had a confrontation with Satan, where the latter argued that Jesus had no right to resurrect Moses, since he had sinned. Jesus gave us the example, by not taking Satan’s accusation (that He was doing something unfair by resurrecting a sinner) personally (even though it was personal in this case).
He simply replied: “The Lord rebuke you!”
That is what we need to mentally, silently reply to those who insult us. “The Lord rebuke you!”
Vengeance isn’t ours. We don’t need to defend ourselves. God will.
Conclusion
Of course, the fact that I have gotten better at dealing with these sorts of conversations, does not mean that I always say the right things to people.
What it means is that I mostly only say to people what I intentionally choose to. In other words, whatever it is that I say to them, I say, because I want to, not because I reacted and lost control.
That is why I want to conclude with this thought.
I believe that intentionality is a great skill to have, not just in social interactions, but in life in general.
When it comes to conversations though, it can really make or break our relationships.
Most people on this earth, sadly, go from one conversation to the next, only reacting to what is being said, never stopping to think and speak only when they are sure about what they want to say. That is a sad and dangerous way to live.
However, when you learn to speak with intention, you also learn to speak with purpose.
Your words will become more meaningful and you’ll have greater control over how you react to what people reply to you.