Defending Your Honour

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Today's post is about self-impression. How do you view yourself? Psychology tells us that people take their self impressions into every relationship they have - your core beliefs dictate how you interact with others, at least to some extent. Self-aware people might work to challenge their negative core beliefs, acting with faith that in a particular relationship, things can be different (read: better), while people who are less self aware will not even realise when they orchestrate their relationships to if not prove, then test their negative hypotheses about the world, and people around them. Most people use impressions of themselves and others to navigate the world around them. You look at others, and you compare that behaviour to the impressions you have about them. If it's the same, you're fine, but if it's different most people are troubled by this.

For example, if you go to a movie theatre and attempt to purchase tickets for a movie but the attendant sings happily instead of attending to your request, you'll be annoyed by this, right? Your impression is that if you walk up to the box office and make a movie request, you should receive service. Another example has to do with beliefs you have about yourself. Most of us prefer to think of ourselves as capable, confident and positioned as a relevant member of our societies. When we are in conversation with others, and we find ourselves dishonoured, disrespected or somehow offended, but we fail to interject a protest, most of us walk away from those moments feeling badly about ourselves. Why didn't I know what to say to him/her? I should have told him/her where to get off... Your impression of yourself is that you are a confident and relevant part of the world you live in, and any (be it brief or extended) moment you don't feel that way is upsetting. You need(ed) to counter this other impression (a negative self-impression) with a positive one. In this case, the counter could be to say "I don't like that..." to the person directly or to rationalise in your own mind that that person isn't informed enough to speak about your worth, or impact, etc. Sometimes I think of this as defending your own honour, and it's an important skill to develop to have healthy relationships.

Defending your honour gives you and the other person an opportunity to clarify your/their position, and in the case of the offender, it gives them an opportunity to make amends. If you do this pretty promptly, you can avoid so much tension in your work/home/church/club relationships. Now, this sounds like a pretty basic concept, right? But how often are you practising this in a week? The other side to this is how healthy is the relationship you have with yourself? You can also defend your honour to yourself. In fact, sometimes our own private critiques are the most relentless and brutal of them all. When you think something negative about yourself, or your life, do you counter it with something more positive? How often are you comparing the positive evidence with one negative impression?