In social interactions where people share opinions, you can feel offended just like that. Someone says something hurtful about you and hup, you're offended. Or you can even feel offended on behalf of someone else. For example, someone says something about your partner and hup you're offended.
The offended feeling is actually a feeling that you suddenly become very self-conscious about things about yourself. Feelings such as shame, guilt, humiliation and pride are also feelings of self-awareness[1].
Being offended is about your honor and possible loss of face (lowering your public image). You can be offended by what someone says or does, but also by what someone does not do. Like if you are not invited to a party or if someone does not help you when you need it (or if you yourself are not allowed to help someone when you would like to).
Even when someone gives you something, it can be offensive. For example, you may feel that the other person finds you needy, when you don't.
But what if you always feel offended and therefore actually don't take opportunities in your life because you think you will get offended again anyway.
Where does this feeling come from?
In order to do something about being offended, it is important to first find out for yourself what causes this feeling in you. In fact, there are several factors that come into play, such as:
Your gender may seem a bit odd, but research shows that gender has an impact when feeling offended by friends and/or family. Women are more likely to be offended than men, especially by family and friends. When it comes to acquaintances and colleagues, this gender difference is no longer there (source 1).
Women usually become sad and bitter from insults, while men become angry or proud. For men, an insult is also often more about how they come across than it is for women.
In addition, your culture plays a role. In Spain, for example, people are more sensitive to insults about family than in the Netherlands[2].
If you find that feeling offended is really becoming a problem for you, it is helpful to look into this. Ask yourself if your values, your beliefs about which people you do or do not care about criticizing, and your self-image are correct.
There are three steps you take mentally to feel offended, namely:
- You identify an expression as a cause. That expression is an insult compared to an ideal.
- You feel offended because expectations of recognition (of something good) are not met. This can also cause feelings of bitterness, humiliation, anger and resentment.
- You react to the insult. The reaction is often culturally determined (source 1).
There are also some things in life that you can get offended about, such as:
- Your appearance.
- Your Skills.
- Your status.
- Your moral (source 1).
Your response to insults
Your reaction to insult is often culturally determined, but it also depends on your self-image. Indeed, if you feel yourself inferior or that you have less control over the situation than the person you are offending, you may feel victimized and/or become angry.
You can then want to regain your sense of power which will cause you to have more behaviors in which you seek power (source 1). For example, you often see people who are bullied take up martial arts because it gives them back their sense of control.
The environment in which you are offended also matters to your reaction. For example, if you are alone with the other person, you may not mind an offensive remark as much as if this is in front of friends and family or colleagues (source 1).
When offending doesn't affect you
Sometimes a statement that should be offensive in itself may not be offensive to you. This may be because:
- You realize that you think in a different way than the offender.
- The offender's expression is not based on facts/the truth.
- You realize that I didn't mean to be offensive (it was just a tease).
- The person not important to you.
- You're just not susceptible to insults.
- Your self-confidence is not based on the opinions of others.
To forgive or not to forgive
The person offending the other is also at risk, especially if it is an important relationship. For example, do you let the insult pass you by, or do you forgive the offender?
Forgiving the offender often depends on the offender admitting that he or she has been abusive. So for most people, it does matter that the offender has the understanding that an insult has been committed in order to be able to forgive.
This process can take years.
Whether you forgive the offender depends on your personality, to what extent you think back on things that happened in the past, emotional stability and empathy you feel for the offender (source 1).
With hypnosis, you can use techniques that help you forgive yourself and other people.
You are too proud
First, we will assume for a moment that it is up to you and that you are too proud. This is because if you feel easily threatened about your identity and self-image, you are more likely to be offended more quickly.
Sometimes you can also be more sensitive to insults and especially prejudice. For example, if you think people are discriminating against you, you can get this feeling faster than if you don't walk around with that feeling[3].
For example, due to the stigma of "dumb blonde," a blonde woman may be offended more quickly if someone hints that she is not being smart than a woman with brown hair. On the other hand, if a woman has made this stigma part of her identity, such a hint again is not a threat to her self-image and she is not offended.
Bottling up feelings
Bottling up your feelings doesn't help you be emotionally resilient in stressful moments either. That emotional resilience can also prevent you from feeling offended.
Beliefs such as " Asking others for help is a sign of weakness," "I must always be in complete control of my feelings," and "When I express my bad feelings I hurt others with them," for example, will not help you progress[4].
For example, if you feel offended and you don't say this, the other person can't correct it either if they didn't mean it that way.
You're in the wrong environment
Feeling offended is more common from expressions of your personal relationships than when a complete stranger says something hurtful to you. Those personal relationships can be seriously damaged when someone takes offense (source 1).
The degree to which you are offended all depends on those personal relationships. Expressions from friends and family already interpret most people differently than expressions from colleagues, acquaintances or strangers you happen to run into somewhere.
If you are insulted time and again by people in your social circle, you may also wonder if you are not in the wrong environment.
Dealing with insults
Initial research also shows that boosting your self-confidence protects you from feeling offended. You then simply do not find the insult to be true and are more likely to find that the expression says something about the other person than about yourself.
Fortunately, hypnosis can help you improve self-confidence. A study of college students found that hypnotherapy helped make them more confident[5].
Since self-confidence protects you, it doesn't hurt to pay attention to it.
A hypnotherapist can then look at what factors cause low self-confidence and eliminate them, or instead help the person with the low self-confidence focus on tasks or things he or she is good at or has enough self-confidence in.
Become more emotionally stable
If you are emotionally stable you are also less likely to get offended. The great thing is that hypnosis and hypnotherapy help you feel independent, connected, competent and focused on a goal[6]. All of which also helps you feel more emotionally stable, making you less likely to perceive a particular utterance as offensive.
That emotional stability can be achieved by identifying beliefs that cause stress and other instability and changing them to helpful beliefs.
So being offended depends on many factors and on your own mindset and beliefs about how to view certain statements and actions.
If you find that being offended is a problem for you, hypnotherapy can help you with this in several ways.
Want to help yourself or others with hypnosis? Then join us for a free online master class.
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