Am I buggin’ or was that disrespect?

When we experience disrespect, in the moment, it can often put us in a state of shock. We might be stuck in freeze-mode, wondering to ourselves, “Did they really just do that?” or “Did they really just say that?”.

Yes, my friend. Yes they did.

Sometimes we can be in such disbelief that we invalidate our own feelings or make excuses to justify the disrespect towards us.

I appreciate that, at times, there may be cultural differences or genuine misunderstandings, but when a person is being intentionally disrespectful, you know it.

You have to trust what you feel.

When you are unsure or second-guessing yourself, you create confusion in your own mind. And while you’re explaining away what just happened, you’ve just communicated to that person (and all those observing) that they have permission to mistreat you.

This gives people with a manipulative, predatory mindset the green light to slowly move in on you, because they can easily detect a lack of confidence.

I must note that many of us have had moments in the past when we’ve perhaps responded prematurely (and maybe irrationally) to wrongly perceived disrespect and it hasn’t gone very well.

In an effort to avoid this in future, we’ve allowed people to get away with a lot more than they should have.

However, this is why we have to check ourselves first as early as possible.

I don’t mean that you should overthink in these moments.

What I mean is that you should ensure that you have healed from your past traumas, so you can interpret situations with more objectivity and without any open emotional wounds.

When you are a healed person, your perception isn’t skewed by past situations, so you can actually trust your instincts a lot more.

You’ll be better at identifying disrespect and navigating it without your countenance dropping.

You will have no qualms about protecting yourself from toxic or negative people and you won’t be giving anyone a pass due to their status or position, because disrespect is disrespect.

And as long as you’re being respectful, there is no justification for mistreating you.

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