Take a look at a situational stress moment. Perhaps you feel frustrated, prone to being reactive and defensive, angry, impatient, or hot tempered. The next thing you hear from a co-worker or client isn't what you expected, and you really want to let them have it, tell them what is what, let them know who's the boss. You feel like reacting with a high level of hotheaded defensiveness, setting inflexible boundaries in negotiation, and ramping up your attitude to show them what you think about what they just said, did, or demanded. You get back to your corner, and a flood of words come for telling them where they can put their disrespect.
If your reaction isn't enough, there's the whole collection of perceptual assumptions you immediately launch when you hear what they have said the way they have said it. Feeling disrespected is not uncommon, especially in the transactional world of type A personalities, and the rush rush of never enough done. You have those who are exceptional at seducing you to do their job, into taking extra responsibilities or subtly threatening you with the anxiety that you may be poorly evaluated if you don't pick up the extra workload.
You probably never thought of perceptions as coping strategies for stress, or stress management strategies, but I'd invite you to think again. All the perceptions that we use under stress, under the condition of being primed to go off like a firecracker, may be our way of dealing with stress. They may not serve our best interests overall, they may not afford us more emotionally intelligent actions and thoughts, but they may be our historic ways of coping with stress. Disrespect often is a way of moralizing and then justifying defensiveness with respect to the ego. We don't really have a valid way of saying: "what you are saying, the way you are saying it", or "asking me to do another task, the way you are manipulating the situation, is pressuring me in a way that is uncomfortable". Imagine you and your co-workers using that kind of language!
On the other hand, you may find you occasionally have days like that, days when your type B personality component is tired of taking up the slack for the more aggressive type A personalities or the stressed out personalities in your organization. Many of us work with co-workers and bosses who have low stress tolerance or are prone to stress overload. Tell-tale signs include tense language, never ending drama, impatience or reactive, defensive posturing in interpersonal interactions when one or the other party is under stress.
The traditional behavior is to react and defend in a way that gets the other person off your back, puts that person in their place as a way of trying to prevent them from doing it again, and extinguishes the situation. The problem is, when we utilize reactive, defensive measures, especially in extreme circumstances where we react by giving the other party a taste of their own medicine, we tend to shoot ourselves in the foot, and set up a retaliatory situation that will eventually play itself out.
Here's where knowing your stress picture can really save your bacon. When you know that you are approaching your stress tolerance limit, the point where you start to react, you can stop and assess the situation. Make these emotions known to yourself. That way, when the next person comes up and doesn't respond to you the way you'd prefer-often in a way that would reduce or diffuse your own stress-you can make a mental note of it, and let go of putting your stress energy into that transaction. It may well be that the next person you interact with, the moment you recognize that you are approaching your stress limit, is someone who needs to be taken aside and talked to so that they are aware that you need different language or behavior from them, for an entirely different reason than because you need to manage your stress externally, by controlling what they say to you and how they say it.
Why sabotage your relationship, your capacity to convey your needs effectively and professionally, and the valuable practice of offering the other person the benefit of the doubt when it comes to their behavior or language? Maybe they are having a bad day, or are just not aware of how their actions or words are affecting others. If the other person is an especially difficult client or customer, the odds are even greater that their rude, obnoxious or otherwise deplorable behavior is in some way related to their own stress picture. Instead of losing a client or customer, or adding an additional customer service issue to the situation, why not recognize your stress picture, and be proactive? It really could put money in the bank, create a better workplace for yourself and others, and make for the kind of reputation you desire.
