@thepottymouthguru: One of the reasons defensiveness is so difficult to work with is that it often creates a paradox. The more someone fears being seen as bad, wrong, selfish, incompetent, or hurtful... The harder it becomes for them to fully hear the impact they had. Not because impact doesn't matter. Because the conversation gets hijacked by self-protection. The focus shifts from: 👉 What happened? to 👉 What does this say about me? And once that happens, real repair becomes incredibly difficult. Repair requires enough safety to tolerate imperfection. Enough self-worth to survive being wrong. Enough emotional capacity to hear pain without immediately making it about your own. That's why healing defensiveness isn't about learning better communication skills. It's often about learning that making a mistake is not the same thing as being a mistake. ❤️🤟🏻🌿 #UNFUCKYOURSELF #THEPOTTYMOUTHGURU #RelationalTrauma #AttachmentHealing #SelfAwarenes
Defensiveness often sounds like self-protection, but it feels like disconnection to the person on the receiving end. ❤️🤟🏻🌿
2026-06-20 21:23:10
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𝑺𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒂 𝑬𝒍𝒊𝒛𝒆 🥀 :
This was soo informative 🤌🏼 I love learning psychology lol keep these coming!!
2026-06-21 03:52:00
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rooftop2table w/ Derek Vincent :
As the partner of a defensive person, this felt like you knew my partner personally—it’s crazy accurate from my experience. So, I have to ask if I can share my feeling, share very carefully, monitor and regulate their emotional state (taking breaks when they are getting too activated), and keep them from using all their tricks to get out of listening, validating and empathizing with me. Frankly, it’s exhausting… does this ever get better? How can we get through disagreements without me having to do all this emotional labour? 😮💨
2026-06-25 01:21:31
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Maureen :
Such a great way to reframe this struggle
2026-06-20 22:32:42
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Bamill93 :
What do you do when you feel like you wear more than one of those hats? I feel like at least 4 of them struck me deeply. I can't seen but it only further showed complexity I still don't fully understand.
2026-06-21 11:35:06
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chichimama50 :
i literally ALWAYS feel like i am in trouble!! 😳 it affects my work, relationships,everything..but on the other side of the coin, my partner is also defensive and we have insane fights. i have startes to just shut down communication
2026-06-21 01:37:46
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Shannon Brown :
Got to the point where I could rarely tease or banter. Even if I joked gently with a smile on my face it's "Ok.... So you're just gonna criticize me?!" If you can't have fun in a relationship it becomes extremely tense
2026-06-20 23:17:27
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jakesurname :
Or it's not a childhood adaptation to their parents, but a current adaptation to the person they're currently interacting with. Also you kind of glossed over the possibility of unjustified or wrong criticism - misjudgement here is probably the actual crux of the issue. What's the value in analysing your childhood really, when you haven't ruled out the obvious and most likely.
2026-06-21 02:22:54
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Tish Lewis :
😂😂😂
2026-06-22 00:33:17
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