Calling Out Bad Behavior

Believing the best in people or circumstances is a noble trait.  It can also be emotionally unintelligent.

There are times when we should call things for what they are.  Denying an action's roots, its toxicity or downright evilness is unhealthy.

This does not mean we condemn the people who do these types of things, but we can address the real issues and call the acts or behaviors out as personally unacceptable to us.

We can do this by addressing why we are hurt or offended and then idenifiying the accompanying emotion using emotion words.  Other people, especially those who have hurt or offended you, don't have to agree with your emotion - they don't even have to understand why you would be hurt or offended by what they did.  But calling a fact, as you see it, out into the open is more difficult for people to deny.  Perceptions can be different - people may see what happened differently than you because of their vantage point or motivation.  Although, you can state how you see something and the resulting emotions it primes in you.  This is a display of good Emotional Intelligence.
Here are some quick tips to help you call our bad behavior that hurts or offends you.

• Fight the urge to make it personal against your offender - a prevalent tendency in our pervasive shaming culture.  
• Using "I" statements instead of "you"statements almost always works better.  
• Recount the facts first - remind them of what happened.
• Introduce your emotion about the facts.  
• Remember that their agreement or acquiescing to your emotion is no a requirement.  
• Call it - both the facts and the emotion -  what it is right away and don't understate it.

Keep in mind that you can do this on your own, never actually telling the person directly.  If they can't handle the truth of what they did or tend to be defensive, you can be more emotionally healthy by going through this exercise without them.  You can imagine the conversation and call it good.

This is an excerpt from my book, Emotalerting - Learning the Art of Managing the Moment - Chapter  Nine - Emotalert #2.

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