7 Tips for dealing with confrontation

A lot of people cannot handle confrontation and start to shake, they lose control
of their voice pitch, and they want to hit out and cannot control their thoughts
properly. It can be frustrating when someone is putting us
down and you can’t argue back as you have got a touch of confrontation
jitters. This is the ‘flight or fight’ syndrome kicking in
and it pumps adrenaline throughout your body in readiness to kick someone’s
arse or in readiness to run away from someone you think might kick your arse. It
is your body getting prepared.

Here are seven tips to deal with confrontation:

  1. Take a deep breath just before the confrontation or
    during it if necessary. This
    lowers your heartbeat and blood pressure.

  2. Breathe a little slower, again this lowers your heartbeat and lowers the
    amount of adrenaline running through your body.

  3. Take 5 minutes, if you can, and quickly rehearse what
    you are going to say to someone. Make key points of your argument.

  4. Get to know what triggers your anger and prepare a new
    response to that trigger. By doing this you are aware of the buttons people can push
    to elicit a certain response. When you know your own triggers it
    less likely that someone can push the buttons as you are prepared.

  5. Make the person aware of how confrontational they are
    being. Saying
    something like ‘why are you shouting at me?’, ‘Why are
    you being so aggressive’. This turns the energy back on the person
    and lets them look at themselves for a minute, this might calm them down
    as a lot of people get lost in the moment and don’t realise they
    are being aggressive.

  6. Another way is to turn all the attention back on the
    person you are arguing with. ‘You seem really angry about that!’; ‘You
    look as if you’re really pissed off?’ Again this
    can have the same affect of point 5.

  7. Don’t get sucked into their arguments. The purpose of an argument
    is to manipulate you into losing the argument thereby showing the other person
    they have won and they are superior. If you don’t get sucked
    in there is no argument to win, and you come out looking the better person.

There was an incident a few weeks ago just outside my house. I had driven
past someone who stayed in our estate and he was walking his dog. He
was on the pavement when I drove past and I went through a puddle and soaked
his dog. I pulled into the driveway as normal when I heard this guy shouting
on me, he walked aggressively down to me and I prepared myself for a confrontation
as I hadn’t a clue what had happened I just knew by the way he was walking
he wanted a fight. The conversation went like this

‘You ****ing soaked my dog’, I looked at his dog and suddenly
realised I must have went through a puddle. Inside I laughed at the absurdity
of this man looking for a fight because some water had gone over his dog. I
said

‘Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t realise.’ He didn’t
hear me.

‘You F***ing did soak him, you went through a puddle and soaked him.’

‘I said, apologies for soaking your dog I didn’t realise’ repeating
what I had said before. His demeanour changed.

‘Well you did and I’m pissed off!’

‘I can see you’re pissed off, but it was an accident’. He
started walking away.

‘I’m sorry I was so angry, it’s just it happened last night
as well with somebody else.’

‘It’s okay, I understand. See you later.’

I laughed again at the strangeness of someone wanting to fight over a dog
getting wet. The strange thing was he was walking his dog in the rain. This
shows that different things annoy different people, but it’s easy to
deal with their behaviour if you point out how they are behaving.

If all else fails, the nose is a good place to hit first which can temporarily
blind them with tears.

sosial politik

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