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Knowing your defenses
Recognizing your knee-jerk defenses can help you red-flag them before damage is done. Check out the list below for a dozen of the most common defense mechanisms. If you can’t identify with any of them, “denial” may be your personal number-one.

• Sarcasm
• Rigidity
• Blaming
• Shaming
• Teaching
• Preaching
• Catastrophizing
• Trivializing
• Endless explaining
• Withdrawing into silence
• Loss of humor
• All-or-nothing thinking
  

Turning red into green
When you feel yourself getting defensive, choose to turn your Red Zone attitudes into “Green Zone” actions:

• Slow down. Pause. Take a breath or—even better—take a walk. Deliberately slowing down your physical and emotional reactions is a sure-fire way to defuse defensiveness.

• Detach. You know what pushes your hot buttons, so cut off your usual response at the pass. Instead of shooting a sarcastic comeback, ask a question. Instead of “brain dumping,” shut up and listen. And, instead of freezing up, open up and tell others how you feel.

• Stop dissing yourself. Pessimistic thoughts—“I can’t do this” or “I look like an idiot”—only make matters worse. Catch yourself when the self-talk turns negative and consciously make it positive: “I can deal with this” or “I can take care of myself.” Positive thoughts really do lead to positive actions.

• Start over. When your personal early warning system flashes “Danger: Red Zone Ahead,” minimize the damage and begin again. Give yourself a “do-over”—a second chance to ditch the defensiveness and move forward into a friendlier future.