5 Awesome Retorts To Those Rude Remarks
Isn’t it tragic how long we can hold grudges against someone for one, pointless, critical comment, that got under our skin? Or how it can ruin our whole day, even cause suppressed anger and resentment? What can we do, to laugh in those situations vs being hurt by them?
Therapist and hypnotherapist, Marisa Peer, offers 5 statements we can use, in one of her engaging Tedx talks. The video is from 2014, but if you haven’t watched it yet – it is really worth it. And below you will find the 5 statements.
Depending on the situation we may say:
1. Thank you for sharing.
While defensive reactions may escalate the tension, this response dissipates it.
2. I’m sorry, would you please repeat that? I didn’t hear you.
This can make the other person actually think before they repeat that insensitive remark, and they will say “oh, never mind”, but if they do repeat it, you can say #3, or in some situations go straight to this:
3. Are you trying to hurt my feelings?
In most cases they are not trying to hurt our feelings. Let’s turn it around: when we are making insensitive remarks, which we don’t see this way, we don’t want to hurt them: we want to be helpful. However if the person really says: “Yes, I want to hurt your feelings!” We move on to response #4:
4. Well, that won’t work, because I’m not going to let that in!
There is also a 5th response, but Marisa says, never say it with sarcasm:
5. Since we are sharing, did you know, critical people have most criticism reserved for themselves. They don’t like themselves and they project that dissatisfaction outwards. So what you are showing me now, is that you are your own worst critic.
What I would like to add is, that to use all those responses with calm, you need to practice them first and already have a higher level of confidence, than let’s say a person whose emotions and sense of self esteem is constantly thrown right and left DEPENDING on actions of other people.
You don’t want to stay at that level.
Protect your emotional boundaries, grow your sense of inner power and watch your attitude while you do it. I mention attitude, because we may do the above EITHER in the spirit of acceptance, connection and peace, OR in the spirit of separation from others, feeling better than, being “against”.
Growing our independence from the opinions of others, will work to our benefit only if we do it in the spirit of positivity and peace.