How to respond to disrespect

I don’t get disrespect a lot because I first don’t disrespect others, so automatically this makes people respect me. Of course, it's not that straight forward, the secret relies on how you carry yourself. People tend to respond to you based on the energy you put out. If you come with a casual demeanor ready to joke all the time, then people will respond accordingly. But if you come with a serious demeanor showing respect upfront, then people are going to extend that favor to you.

Unless a person is naturally very disrespectful to everyone, most of the time they’ll show you respect if they can sense that coming from you. That's why I don’t get disrespected quite often because off the bat I come out very respectful to everybody I meet, added to that my serious demeanor inspires everyone to respect me too. There are definitely arrogant people full of ego who do get disrespectful from time to time, but I don’t count that because I don’t hang around such people for very long.

How I got disrespected

Knowing all this, then how did I get disrespected, you might wonder? That was only possible by a close relative of mine. A person who knows me well and interacts with me on a daily basis, due to some personal reasons entered into conflicts with me which led them to disrespect me. Generally the way I’ll deal with a disrespectful person would simply be to walk away and reduce my interactions with such persons, but since this is a relative, the situation is quite different.

There aren’t really many pathways when it comes to responding to disrespect, it's either you walk away or you seek retribution for that person. Either ways, you are left with a grudge towards that person which won’t go away till you’ve received retribution, either by your own hands or by another. One thing I’ve learned with time is that people are dealing with personal emotional issues and tend to take it out on others through their words or actions. So, what you do doesn’t always warrant the reaction or response you get from the other. This is particularly true when it comes to disrespect, there isn’t much to justify being disrespectful to another person.

How to respond to disrespect

The thing to understand first is that respect can be considered an important emotion we expect from others, like love, kindness, empathy etc When a person doesn’t love you what would be your response ? You might try to get them to love you, or if that's not possible, just move on to the others who do. You won’t try to take retribution over someone who doesn’t love you, and so I apply the same scenario to respect. I try to get the person to respect me and if that's not possible, I move on to other persons who do.

I focus on curating my reality with people who love and respect me, while paying no attention to those who don’t.

Personally, I find it energy and time-consuming to try to get retribution for people who disrespect me. Unless my actions warranted that disrespect, in which case I’ll be quick to apologize, I think focusing on those who do respect me is much more important than seeking retribution for those who don’t. I was actually inspired to do this when I saw just how much hatred and disrespect public figures receive these days. Imagine being a celebrity in 2024 with all your life being exposed on social media, you do receive a lot of love and respect that's true but also a substantial amount of hatred and disrespect. Trying to address your haters is a waste of time because for 1 person you turn, 10 more haters are born, the best you can do is to focus on building the community of persons who love and respect you.

Respect has to be earned

Respect isn’t asked, you can’t just go up to someone and impose on the to respect you. That will just end up backfiring. You have to earn the respect of others through your actions, either by the way you carry yourself, the way you dress, what you do, how you speak, or by any other means people respect. There are obvious things everybody respects and so if you don’t do these things or do the contrary then people might end up not respecting you. Here is a list of some things which warrant respect from others;

• Dressing formally
• Speaking formally
• Being wealthy
• Being intelligent
• Your walk and demeanor
• Being composed
• Having wisdom and understanding
• etc

Doing any of these warrants automatic respect from anyone you meet, but breaking anyone of these might lead to disrespect.

Conclusion

Assuming being respected is something you value, then you should focus on building these traits which warrant respect in society and curating your circle with people who love and respect you. Remember that you can’t impose on people to respect you but through your actions you can bring them to do so, the moment you have to ask for respect then know that you are doing something wrong.

Thanks for reading ☺️