defensiveness

Any defensiveness is a sign of failure. You can't move forward if you are defensive.

The culture around us knows what it means when they see a church in perpetual bluster and outrage. They know that we are scared.

The ego with its protective defense mechanisms is the biggest impediment to attaining spiritual growth.

Why should you want to give up a child's wise not-understanding in exchange for defensiveness and scorn, since not-understanding is, after all, a way of being alone, whereas defensiveness and scorn are a participation in precisely what, by these means, you want to separate yourself from.

You don't need to play every ball but every ball needs your judgement.

Professing not to care is a primordial defense mechanism. Whenever a person finds oneself mired in failure and despondency, rebelling is a viable option to preserve false personal pride.

The most common emotional defense is avoidance (an ineffective coping skill for any stressor) as expressed through denial (e.g., "That wasn't really bad, I barely remember it").

Once you being defensive in your answer. Just know there is the truth in the question you have been asked, or there is truth in what they are saying to you.

Love' is the only weapon I have, I will defend with love, I will attack with love.

As wars dwindled to skirmishes and our strength grew, so David was able to spend less time with military commanders and more with the engineers and overseers who were fanning out throughout the land, digging cisterns, making roads, fortifying, connecting, and generally making a nation out of our scattered people.

So whenever that brittle voice of dissatisfaction emerges within me, I can say "Ah, my ego! There you are, old friend!" It's the same thing when I'm being criticized and I notice myself reaching with outrage, heartache, or defensiveness. It's just my ego, flaring up and testing its power. In such circumstances, I have learned to watch my heated emotions carefully, but I try not to take them too seriously, because I know that it's merely my ego that has been wounded--never my soul It is merely my ego that wants revenge, or to win the biggest prize. It is merely my ego that wants to start a Twitter war against a hater, or to sulk at an insult or to quit in righteous indignation because I didn't get the outcome I wanted. "At such times, I can always steady my life one more by returning to my soul. I ask it, "And what is it that you want, dear one?""The answer is always the same: "More wonder, please.""As long as I'm still moving in that direction---toward wonder--then I know I will always be fine in my soul, which is where it counts. And since creativity is still the most effective way for me to access wonder, I choose it.

We as ambitious human beings can maintain self respect by influencing ourselves to behave as civil human beings and focus on our long term goals by not allowing others to take advantage of our lives.

I stopped hating and started just being. My whole life, I had been the most defensive person you'd meet, unable to tolerate any criticism. But now I started listening and being.

The writer as boxer says he develops by, "learning from everyone who'll spar with me.

All defensiveness stems from the need to be right and frustration over not being able to control others.

Often, vegan advocates assume that a person's defensiveness is the result of selfishness or apathy, when in fact it is much more likely the result of systematic and intensive social conditioning.

A person lives a false life whenever they are afraid to make contact with his or her authentic self. A sensitive ego _ one that protects a person from pain _ can also prevent a person from maturing mentally and emotionally by causing a person to distort truths and refuse to admit unpleasant facts.

She had been carried away by the need to defend herself.