by Dr. Sophia Miranda
I have successfully coped with being offended throughout my life, and have helped countless others to rise above being offended. While leading a women’s life group on the topic of offense, I had the opportunity to look at what it means to be offended from a different point of view. As I started to understand offense on a deeper level, I noticed an influx in the amount of individuals who have come to me for advice, because they feel as though someone has offended them, wanting to know how to handle it moving forward. Now this can pose an issue when you are leading a team and one of your team members offend you. You can’t just quit leading, can you? Well, you can. But, why would you? Therefore, the next best option is understanding offense so that you can handle situations of offense in a more tactful manner.
To offend, by definition, is “to violate a rule or law; to do wrong”(Merriam-Webster). If someone violates one of your rules, or does wrong against you, you can say, “I am offended by this….”, which is a fairly simple concept. However, the idea of being offended has evolved over the past few years. As we continue to define who we are as a culture and society, we must come to grips with offense, especially when we are leaders. Additionally, as we move towards a more inclusive and more diverse culture, people will encounter more experiences that may offend them. One might ask, why? Why are people so offended? Well it is because a diverse society includes a larger scale of rules or laws to violate. For example: In some cultures using your middle finger is a respectful way to point however, in other cultures using the middle finger is a disrespectful gesture. A gesture of respect can be misinterpreted as an insult, and vice versa. Therefore, understanding how to deal with the idea of being offended is beneficial to a healthy leader or person in general. So, the aim of this article is to identify 5 empowering steps to rise above being offended. Before delving into these steps, we have to understand the types of mistreated people.
Two types of mistreated people:
John Bevere noted that there are two types of offended people:
- Those who have been mistreated
- Those who think they have been mistreated but actually were not
People in the second category believe with all their hearts that they have been wronged. Often their conclusions are drawn from inaccurate information. Or, their information is accurate, but their conclusion is distorted. Either way, they feel hurt, and their understanding is darkened. They judge by assumption, appearance, and hearsay. In both cases, we believe we are the only ones who have been wronged. This response leaves us vulnerable to a root of bitterness. Therefore we must be prepared and armed for offenses, because our response determines our future.
5 Empowering Steps to Rise Above Offense
1. Understand your Pride: Knowing the true condition of your heart
One way to keep a person in an offended state is to keep the offense hidden, cloaked behind pride. Pride will keep you from admitting your true condition. Pride keeps you from dealing with truth. It distorts your vision on the situation and you will never change when you think everything is fine. Pride hardens your heart and dims the eyes of your understanding. Pride causes you to view yourself as a victim instead of a VICTOR. Your attitude becomes, “I was mistreated and misjudged; therefore, I am justified in my behavior.” Because you believe you are innocent and falsely accused, you hold back forgiveness. Just because you were mistreated, you do not have permission to hold on to an offense. Two wrongs do not make a right! Hence, forgiveness is key to battling offense. I touch specifically on forgiveness below.
2. Understand your Triggers
Past hurts and life experience are sometimes a huge trigger in our own capability to deal with offense and recognize when we are being offended due to our triggers. Your triggers are like hidden explosive landmines in a field. You do not know that they are there until they get set off, leading to the crippling explosion. In all too many cases, the explosion may manifest as a nasty argument, a tirade, an irrational and costly decision, or even violence. The biggest trigger is often being angered when your own rigid ideas are challenged. So, you can rise above defense by identifying and neutralizing your triggers. The best way to do this is by stepping outside of your head (which is often a minefield your own sensitive ideas), and by understanding the perspective of the offender. Note here that understanding another’s perspective does not mean that you have to agree with that perspective.
3. Understanding your Offenders
I am a very spiritual person and I believe that sometimes the people who offended me were only being used by the enemy as a pawn to throw me off track. This is especially true during times when I am entering a new season in life. For example, as I was entering new leadership and teaching roles, a friend of mine, challenged my faith in God, because I had offered honest advice regarding their current situation. Now, I didn’t just randomly give this person unsolicited advice out of nowhere. Instead, this person asked me for my help and my thoughts. However, my advice did not align with their assumption and way of thinking so I was verbally attacked, using my faith as a weapon. In that moment, I could not believe what was happening and gracious excused myself from the conversation.
As I evaluated the encounter later on that night, I realized two things. First, I realized had somehow offended my friend with my honest feedback although I phrased each word very carefully and thought before I spoke. Second, realized that this person offended me when questioning my faith in God. Once I realized what had taken place, I regrouped and said to myself, “I am a person of faith and I forgive this person for what was said to me.” Afterward, I called my friend and apologized, telling my friend that I didn’t mean to be hurtful or offensive with my advice. Long story short, this person reacted in that matter because I somehow triggered a past hurt and this person was immediately on the defense.
I personally had no idea what triggered this behavior however, the enemy knows what gets under our skin and how to use it to keep an offense going. With knowing that the opponent I was facing was NOT the person in front of me but the enemy, helped me to forgive and rectify the situation.
4. Understanding Forgiveness
Where there is an offense you must find forgiveness. Clinical Psychologist, Dr. Soye Zaid-Muhammad stated the law of forgiveness as follows: “Forgiveness relieves the pain of an offense while giving you power over an offender.” To forgive you need to understand what it means to forgive a person. Forgiveness is the intentional and voluntary process by which a person undergoes a change in feelings and attitude regarding an offense, lets go of negative feelings and emotions, forswears recompense from or punishment of the offender, however legally or morally justified it might be, and with an increased ability to wish the offender well.
Now, I know that forgiving someone for an offense can be difficult. However, forgiveness begins and ends in the heart, as it is personally for us, not the offender. When we forgive, we are not harboring ill-feelings. Instead, we are able to have a peace of mind and recover from whatever the offense was that we endured. In turn, forgiveness will ultimately benefit the offending party as well, but that is not the goal. In my case, I forgave my offender, but I also apologized for hurting and offending the offender. In a reciprocal turn of events, I was also forgiven for a perceived slight, which gave me peace.
5. Understand and Rely on Your Support System
We were not made to experience the challenges of life alone. Instead, we all need healthy support systems to help us, not only get through life, but also to overcome the pain of an offense. Support systems also helps us to identify the condition of our heart when we are too blinded by pride to see it for ourselves. The key to using support systems is to seek wisdom with trust, respect, an open mind, and an open heart.
Overall, we must understand ourselves and what causes offense in order to overcome it and forgive those who offended us in the first place. We should also identify the role that pride plays, what our triggers are, and who our offender is. These factors will position us to forgive others, forgive ourselves, and value the wisdom provided within our support systems. Taken together, these are the keys to alleviating, and ultimately rising above offense.
Dr. Sophia R. Miranda
Co-Founder of the Consultation Tower
Leadership Expert
Empowerment Coach
If you are interested in empowerment coaching and support, please contact Dr. Miranda at drsophia@consultationtower.com.