How To Avoid Venomous Verbal Attacks…

The metaphor of the spitting cobra

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” — Eleanor Roosevelt

Pretend you have just encountered a spitting cobra. The venom of these snakes can produce tissue damage and pain if you should get the toxic venom on your skin. If you get the venom in your eyes you will likely go blind.

Here is my question…

If you did get venom on your skin would you lick it off to protect yourself?

Or, if given an opportunity, would you take the venom into your lungs by inhaling it?

The answer has to be a resounding NO!

Seems like that is such a stupid set of questions. But don’t we do the same thing when someone casually tosses a negative comment our way? This may be particularly true if that person is someone in an authority position such as a boss or manager.

The metaphor of the spitting cobra really has hit home to me. The quote by Eleanore Roosevelt, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent”, is quite famous and I have heard it often, but never really thought about it deeply before now.

In the case of a spitting cobra, if the venom touches our skin, it need only be washed off to protect us from harm. If the venom is spat at us in the form of a verbal attack, all we have to do is wash it off, that is not to consent to the validity of the comment, and we will receive little or no damage from the attack.

Taking the criticism into our psyche, or worse, giving it validity, is where the problem lies. If we give the venom, or the harsh words, a landing place or acceptance, that is when the damage will occur. If we inhale the criticism, then we can be emotionally bruised.

We are required, however, to make use of our innate power to choose. And this is the hard path. It is easy to just let the venom get into our system and take no action. We need to get the poison off — or get it out. We need to use the power of our choice to not allow the attack to harm us. We need to choose a different path. We need to take action, and that action is not in a physical sense, but to make a mental choice. For example, we may say allowed or silently something like…

This attack was unjustified and unwarranted. It is a lie. I do not accept it.

Now, we do not necessarily have to have that response memorized, but something like unto that thought must be preprogrammed into our brain somewhere.

It would be as if you really were bitten by a venomous snake. Do we have a plan in place should that happen? When I was a kid I carried a snake bite kit with me when I went hiking. The kit had the necessary tools and supplies within should I be bitten. Interestingly, it was no bigger than a BIC lighter. It was so small and easy to carry that often I forgot I even had it with me. Thank goodness I never had to use the kit, but it was ready. And I was ready.

Maybe our emergency mental snake venom kit need only be a simple statement repeated in our minds (and sorry to repeat but…), “This attack was unjustified and unwarranted. It is a lie. I do not accept it.”

Now, I have to say that I have not always been ready for harsh comments and verbal attacks in the past. Interestingly, I have been getting more than my fair share of these assaults over the past few months.

With this “spitting cobra” metaphor in mind, and perhaps with the idea of having a snake bite kit in my back pocket, I think I am better prepared now.

I will use the idea of the snake venom combined with Roosevelt’s quote involving — CONSENT.

Yes, if we allow it to happen, if we consent to let the venom course through our minds or in our veins, then, really, it is our fault. You can not really blame a snake for spitting its venom at you. That is what snakes do. But if we do not wash the venom out, or if we inhale the negative spirit of a harsh comment, the fault lies with us.

Here is a quote from one of my favorite authors, Jim Rohn. It is a little harsh and this quote also works well when we talk about spitting cobras. Nature can be a source of real cruelty — but it is also a source of wisdom and knowledge. Give some thought to this idea…

“Perhaps you’ve heard the story of the little bird. He had his wing over his eye and he was crying. The owl said to the bird, ‘You are crying.’ ‘Yes,’ said the little bird, and he pulled his wing away from his eye. ‘Oh, I see,’ said the owl. ‘You’re crying because the big bird pecked out your eye.’ And the little bird said, ‘No, I’m not crying because the big bird pecked out my eye. I’m crying because I let him.’”

— Jim Rohn

Conclusion

Don’t let the “big birds” in our lives peck out our eyes.

Don’t let the spitting cobra venom into our psyche.

Let us do a Roosevelt suggests, let us NOT consent to the assault.

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” — Eleanor Roosevelt

All the best… Max