How To Deal With Someone Insulting You

Tolerating insults may be easy for some people but for others getting a hurtful word or words thrown their way can be emotionally impactful.

It’s important to remember that insults are pretty commonplace and the best way to deal with them is not feeling hurt or forbidding them from happening. Quite the contrary, having the social and emotional intelligence to tolerate insults can be much more useful.

Remember, there’s a good chance almost everyone will deal or has dealt with an insults before. Avoiding them is nearly impossible but being able to handle them is very doable.

Should you care if someone insults you?

The answer to this is a strong no. There is absolutely no need to give even a second of consideration towards someone else’s words or offensive behavior. What they say is their business, not yours. Even if they say something about you, it’s important for you to remain disconnected and simply not care.

Put yourself in your own emotional bubble when it comes to insults. Do not allow them to have an effect on you in any way.

How should you deal with someone insulting you

There are many ways to approach a situation where someone has used offensive words or done offensive actions towards you. Here are some ways to deal with someone insulting you.

1. Stay calm

Being calm in a situation that warrants agitation is mental strength. If you get offended and stressed out by someone’s insults you risk showing it with your face, through your voice or through your body language. If someone’s goal was to purposefully anger or upset you, showing it is a win for them. Being stressed can also spill over and affect thinking skills.

Getting all worked up from an insult could cloud your thinking and increase the chance that you will speak or act in a rash way. You might become controlled by emotion and no longer be able to navigate the situation. It’s important to genuinely not let yourself get irritated.

If you get insulted, try some calming strategies to assure your mind remains clear. Try repeating a phrase in your head like “calm down” or “relax.” Make sure your muscles aren’t tensed. Use willpower if you find yourself losing control of your emotions. Think the situation through clearly and prepare an appropriate response based on the needs of the situation.

2. Look relaxed

Sure it’s important to genuinely be calm in the face of an insult but you should also look calm. Whether or not you truly are calm is another story, but you should look it. Yes, you absolutely should truly be composed but even if you need some more time to work on your relaxation skills your acting skills should swoop in.

Maintain a relaxed posture and remain poised even if it feels like the situation is really getting the better of you. Again, if someone’s goal is to irritate you, it’s one thing to feel irritated but it’s a whole other story to show it. Ideally, you would genuinely not let it bother you, but if you absolutely can’t control your feelings don’t show it.

Learn some ways to appear at ease even if you’re not. Even if you feel that you’ve been hit where it hurts, don’t show it. Practice a calm and unfazed look in the mirror so you can put it to use if need be. Pay attention to your facial muscles, body language and voice. Make sure these don’t reveal any negative emotions you may be feeling.

3. Ignore

If the situation allows and you feel safe doing so, simply ignore an insult. When it comes to insults, sometimes taking no action is the best course of action. Ignoring insults is great because it’s so dismissive. It shows (whether people notice this or not) that you aren’t dignifying the insult or giving it value by wasting time and responding to it.

Another thing about ignoring is some people insult others specifically for a reaction from them. Maintaining a poker face as well as ignoring the insult is a perfect response to this.

If you respond to an insult, you give it value. However, by ignoring it you leave it as though it were nothing but a neutral occurrence that meant nothing. It also increases the chances that the insulter (having not received the reaction they may have been wanting) will just give up. The shared negative opinions or statements of another person should never be enough to get a reaction out of you.

4. Take it with stride/joke about it

Again, assess the circumstances. However, if the situation feels right and you are comfortable doing so, try being receptive to the insult – take it with stride and joke about it. This is a confident way to handle the situation. It can also show that you’re not insecure about the topic or topics being targeted.

It doesn’t matter if you feel seriously and deeply offended by the insult, try toughing it out and join in. For example, if someone says you have a big nose, you can joke about how it startles you when you look in the mirror.

5. Don’t let it bother you afterwards

The thing with insults is they sometimes get to the recipient afterwards. It could start to become bothersome after it’s done because of the thought it’s given. This doesn’t have to be the case, though.

There’s no good reason why you should care about another person’s insults for more than even a minute of your life. It’s important not to give it too much thought.

Insulting was simply a choice someone else made. It was nothing more than a word or action that need not have any value to you beyond that which you give it. If nothing else, by not allowing an insult to bother you, you make the person who administered it the ultimate loser. They wasted time targeting you but you wasted none thinking about it.