Do you suffer from micro-aggressions? Here's your armor. EN

We've all had a co-worker, a boss or a family member who tries to make us feel inferior with his comments.

When someone undermines your self-confidence, courage or ability to control, you suffer stress, and that state can last from hours to months, deteriorating your psychological well-being, your quality of life, self-concept and your productivity. In many cases it can lead to depression.

The best way to defend yourself is to build a psychological armor. Follow these steps:

Acknowledge the attack. Many times micro aggressions are very subtle and come disguised as irony, making us feel bad minutes later.

Relativize the attack. If the micro-aggression affects your performance or your ability, remember all the successes you have achieved in your life so far. If you have made a mistake, think that everyone makes mistakes. If you don't master an activity, think that everyone needs time to learn.

Recognize the attacker. A few people around us are usually the responsibles of most attacks. Minimize the time of those interactions and put their comments into perspective, they are not important to you.

Don't let him make you feel bad or inferior. No one is perfect. If you review some aspects of their work you will see that they also have made mistakes or unfulfilled goals, it is normal, we’re human.

Respond assertively. Here are some examples: "Speak to me with respect" "As much as you insist on what you ask is impossible now, the day after tomorrow you will have it" „Don't speak to me with that tone, we understand each other better with a friendly tone" "We all make mistakes, including you". If the attack continues, repeat your sentence in a loop. Control your emotions, don't lose control. You have to be an impenetrable wall.

The ideal is to respond to these micro-aggressions at the moment they occur, assertively, calmly, firmly and if possible with a smile. In time you will learn to do this, but especially in the beginning it will be very complicated. I help my clients with strategies to detect micro-aggressions, rebuild self-esteem, accelerate the process of building psychological armor and train assertive responses.