How to Hear a Tough Message

Tanzania, 1999.

We all have defenses that kick in when we feel threatened. We have these defenses for good reasons, and often they serve their purpose of protecting us from harm. Sometimes they are physical defenses, protecting us from physical harm. For example, elephants will cover themselves with dirt to protect themselves from the sun, just as you or I might put on sunscreen when we go to the beach. But many of our defenses are psychological. When we feel threatened by what someone is telling us—often criticism or bad news—our mental defenses will go up, and we will reject the message, disbelieving it or ignoring it otherwise finding a way to not accept it.

These psychological defenses can be quite useful. If someone is yelling at you, or unfairly criticizing you, or otherwise abusing you, it is healthy and appropriate to discount what they are saying; doing otherwise could cause you real psychological harm. Guarding against this kind of mistreatment is why we develop these defenses. However, the unconscious part of our mind that triggers these defenses is not particularly discriminating, and can go off even when the message is something you need to hear, and isn’t actually threatening. Such overactive defensives are a lot of what makes difficult conversations so difficult. When we are told that we have made a mistake, or didn’t get the promotion, or need to make a change, it can trigger our unconscious defenses and we won’t be able to fully absorb the message. This reaction can be a problem when you are trying to deliver a tough message, since even if you are speaking with the best of intentions and really trying to help someone, their defenses may see your message as hostile. And it is a problem when you are receiving a tough message, since it can prevent you from accepting something you really need to hear and take on board.

Fortunately, there are ways to talk about difficult issues that are less likely to trigger defenses and more likely to be heard; I will write about these ways of talking in a future post. Unfortunately, not everyone knows about them, and even those who do sometimes slip up. So it is important to know how to accept a tough message without raising too many defenses, so you can really understand it and make use of it. Again, I’m only talking about inappropriate defenses. If your boss is yelling at you, or someone is telling you something just to hurt you, then you should be using all the defenses you can. But if someone is telling you something you need to know, even if you don’t want to hear it, you’re usually better off if you really take it in.

The secret, as with so many things involving the unconscious,
is to keep yourself present in the moment.

The secret, as with so many things involving the unconscious, is to keep yourself present in the moment. That is, you should cultivate a self-awareness that pays attention to how you are doing in what I think of as your head, your heart, and your hips. Your head refers to your conscious thought; your heart to your emotions; and your hips to your physical reactions. If you have a habit of checking in with all three, then you can notice when something unusual is happening, and that knowledge allows you to make a choice in the moment, rather than reacting instinctively. For example, you might find that you are having an emotional reaction to what someone is telling you; it might be making you angry, or sad. If you aren’t consciously aware of the emotion, it can control how you respond, and you might snap back or stop listening. But if you are paying attention to your emotions, then you can hold the emotion—I never advocate simply suppressing emotions—but make the choice of whether to act out of the emotion, or to wait until later to process it. Similarly, you may find during a conversation that your heart is racing or you are having some other physical reaction. Again, if you aren’t paying attention to yourself then your physical reaction could drive your response, but if you are aware of the reaction then you can note it but choose how to act.

I had a client who struggled with receiving criticism. Whenever anyone said something critical to him, he would get angry and deny the criticism or blame someone else. He was the lead designer for a product, and this defensiveness interfered with his ability to accept feedback on the product, no matter how valid the observation. When I worked with him, we discovered that he had developed this defense during a rough childhood, when he was often blamed for things he hadn’t done. This reaction had been functional when he was younger, allowing him to make the best of a bad situation, but now it was the defense itself that was the problem. He started learning to be more self aware and present in the moment, noting his emotional reaction but not letting it control him. This change gave him the space to realize that the criticism, which he had been taking personally, was not actually directed at him but at the product. His emotions were still triggered, but now he could choose not to act on them, and he was able to hear about ways the product could be improved.

So by all means make use of your defenses; like the elephants, throw dirt on your back to protect yourself from the sun. But if you can stay present in the moment, you can notice when your defenses have been triggered, and choose whether to use them. Otherwise, your defenses will be making the choices, and they often don’t make choices that result in the best outcomes.