I noticed in the past that I got publicly angry over two issues. Firstly, we all have rules for life about how we think things should occur and how things should not occur. If one of our rules gets broken then we get angry or annoyed. Secondly, sometimes someone might say something that I found unpleasant and over which I became very angry. Since I really detest getting angry I generally stop and think about those rare occasions where it happens. In the case of unpleasantness when I stopped to reflect on what happened I found that I got angry because someone said something about me which I denied or felt ashamed about. This revelation rocked me because I worked diligently to act honestly and openly about myself.

I suppose that instinctively we know that if someone gets angry over a taunt then we have struck a nerve and that it hurts the other person so much because of the truth behind it and that person’s denial of it. An angry response deals with the immediate threat but if we remain in denial then no personal change or progress occurs.

On these occasions the words of others act like a mirror. When we see our ugliness, normally hidden but now revealed to us, we react with horror and then anger and we end up feeling indignant. Shouting and screaming can veil the mirror but it doesn’t make us any more beautiful and if you are unfortunate enough to spend time with people who get a kick out of stirring other people up then at anytime they can get a response from you just by unveiling the mirror again.

Sometimes we have to look at the image reflected in the mirror. Instead of running screaming from the room we have to take an accurate appraisal of the situation because a number of things affect the reflection and what we can do about it.

1. The reflection might be distorted – like a fairground mirror – that makes certain features look worse than they are, i.e. the description of you might be grossly exaggerated. In this case you can respond by saying that you might not be perfect but the description given is too-far fetched.
2. Some features might be capable of change to bring the image closer to what we want or imagine our appearance. If you don’t know how things actually are then it’s difficult to direct personal change.
3. Some features might prove incapable of change in which case it is better to know that and adjust accordingly.

In order not to spend great efforts defending my ego I take care not to build myself up into something that I’m not through doing the following:

• Refrain from making commitments or promises that I have little chance of keeping or performing. This means that I don’t disappoint people, that I build a reputation for consistency and keeping commitments and it eliminates having to defend myself over big-mouth promises that I can’t keep.
• Refrain from talking about abilities or achievements that I cannot prove.
• Add “in my opinion” when I want to make bold statements so that I don’t set up my personal views as facts that others might feel a need to object to or to defend.
• Develop a neutral stance on whether people approve of me or not so that someone else’s perception of right and wrong, good and bad has little impact on my personal feelings about myself. This removes the need to defend myself against the standards and expectations of other people. As I generally have high-standards then it’s not often that people can point a finger at me and find serious fault. If they can (but I don’t want to change), then I say that they expect too much of me and that I don’t want to live up to their expectation.

If someone says something that does hurt then I do the following:

• Immediately accept the reality of someone’s statement about me if it hurts rather than get angry. By saying “Ouch, that hurts! I need to think about that” I openly show that the truth has been revealed and that I’m not going to go into denial about it.
• Reflect on the information contained within a hurtful statement and use it to give personal guidance on developing my thinking and behavior. I might decide to change my ways or I might decide that I accept my foible and the difficulty that it causes other people.

If I spend time with someone who enjoys finding fault and stirring things up then if I get taunted, I do the following:

• Shrug my shoulders when criticized and say, ‘Yeah, probably.’ or ‘Yeah, you might be right.’ or, ‘Yeah, I know, so what?’ This is part of the mental judo that you sometimes have to go through. If you deny the fault then that person has landed a blow. If you agree then the blow misses and that person lunges forward off-balance. That makes the person a lot more apprehensive about attempting to land another blow in case of falling over and ending up embarrassed.

If that doesn’t work then I stop and reflect on the deeper issue at stake here. A person who insists on acting provocatively is often covering up for personal deficiencies (attack being the best form of defense). Keeping calm and becoming the mirror that reflects back at them is really the master stroke here. In this case you dodge the blows by not playing the game and by responding differently to that expected. You can look at that person with cool detachment and say “So what happened to you to get you so upset today? How does being mean to me help you?” or you can go for the psychoanalysis “I find your reaction fascinating. It really reveals a lot about your inner problems” (you don’t have to reveal those problems, just make out that you’ve got the upper hand).

This shows how to deal with the very common problem of public conflict. If you get angry then it happens because you do not accept the truth about yourself that someone has revealed and that then becomes your problem. Through accepting the truth about what someone says to you, you can respond differently by not rising to the bait and ending up in a fight or else generating a lot of negative emotion.

Ultimately, if you reach a state where you hold no false illusions about yourself then no one will have ammunition to use against you. They might say things about you that you disagree with simply because it refers to a judgment call about a quality or ability and over which people simply hold different opinions and for which no right or wrong answer usually exists. In this circumstance you learn to accept that other people have entitlement to their own opinion, even if it differs from yours.

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