Why do I feel the need to aggressively defend my opinions? How can I let go of them?

[mrtiger]

Hello Tao Bums,

 

I'm an opinionated person and I often get a bee in my bonet about certain subjects.

 

I always have to have the last word. I get into heated debates and often get emotional.

 

I know this is not a harmonious way to behave.

 

The last line in the Dao De Ching says it very nicely:

 

"Wise men don't need to prove their point;

men who need to prove their point aren't wise."

 

This is all very well. But practically how can I detach from my strong opinions?

 

Are there any mediations, texts or coping strategies you could suggest?

 

***Edit***

 

I thought I'd add a little more detail as I think this issue runs deeper than just defending my position.

 

I think I actually enjoy an argument. I'll pick on minor points and make them an issue. I often think debate comes down to who can shout the loudest and who can make the best point. I'm actually quite good at this, but it makes me aggressive and I suppose I just don't want to be 'that' person.

Edited August 27, 2012 by mrtiger

[forestofemptiness]

One thing that helps me: when you find yourself defending an opinion, try to argue the other side.

[Protector]

Whenever I hear someone starting a sentence with "in my opinion", I stop listening

It instantly makes the whole conversation worthless

Some people also add, "that's just my opinion so you don't have to go all crazy about it"

There are a lot of people with opinions and even if majority of them agree, that doesn't make them right

And what they think doesn't change anything, these opinion things are just floating in their heads and if they do change anything is the worlds that these people live in

If people just live in their delusions for a long time then go into the real world, it will hit back, hard

"In my opinion and overall experience, the sky is blue"

That's going to change in few hours

[mrtiger]

Whenever I hear someone starting a sentence with "in my opinion", I stop listening

It instantly makes the whole conversation worthless

Some people also add, "that's just my opinion so you don't have to go all crazy about it"

There are a lot of people with opinions and even if majority of them agree, that doesn't make them right

And what they think doesn't change anything, these opinion things are just floating in their heads and if they do change anything is the worlds that these people live in

If people just live in their delusions for a long time then go into the real world, it will hit back, hard

"In my opinion and overall experience, the sky is blue"

That's going to change in few hours

 

 

Unfortunately you're describing me here.

 

How can I become more humble and less aggressive?

[Chen]

In the Ascetic life of Greek Orthodox Monks,one virtue that you have to cultivate is "apatheia",meaning 'No Passion".

Its the abillity to accept anything against your "I",that also in Taoism must not exist.I exist as a unit but I am a member of ALL.

The reason that you want to say the last world is because of your ego.,(our Ego).It is the need that we have in every day life to proove that we know better so we are better from the others.Unfortunatelly in the society that we leave we must have a stong ego to survive.But this survivall has to do with us as unit.

I beleive that admitting that you have this "problem"you have already half solve it.

You dont know how many "enlighted"people are out there that they want to have the last world.

[Protector]

Unfortunately you're describing me here.

 

How can I become more humble and less aggressive?

 

Stay like that, when many people see the same thing they all have a different experience

When I see that other people's opinions don't matter, I dismiss my own and don't fight anything

You should practice letting go, it's not something you meditate on but something you have to do many times

It's like an exercise you practice, I just been in enough arguments to see where they're all going

[mrtiger]

Stay like that, when many people see the same thing they all have a different experience

When I see that other people's opinions don't matter, I dismiss my own and don't fight anything

You should practice letting go, it's not something you meditate on but something you have to do many times

It's like an exercise you practice, I just been in enough arguments to see where they're all going

 

I appreciate your comment. I know I need to let go, but how? Surely there must be some mediations out there...

[Protector]

Root chakra is associated with letting go, look up meditations and asanas for it

[konchog uma]

its true that the root chakra is associated with security, and that a well balanced one will allow one to feel secure regardless of external circumstances.

 

sinfest, i thought you mocked the idea of chakras? change of mind? just curious.. maybe i just remember you mocking the phrase "open the chakras" or something

 

anyway, @mrtiger, the problem could easily be a result of one's astrological makeup. Those born with their sun in Capricorn Taurus and Leo tend to be opinionated and those arent the only explanations for such a trait. check out http://www.astro.com/cgi/ade.cgi which is a wonderful astrology site called astrodienst, better known as astro.com. You will need to know the time of day you were born (mommmm...) and some other easy data. Then you can look up your natal chart and get some free info which might help you understand yourself better.

 

under free horoscopes at the left, click "all horoscopes at a glance" and look for "astro click portrait" among the selections on the page. Its most useful to me for isolating that sort of trait to a particular influence.

 

have fun!

[konchog uma]

oh mrtiger in answer to your question about specific meditations, i don't know any off hand but recognizing a problem and intending to change is sometimes all it takes to start a chain of events which can lead one to outgrow things like youre talking about.

 

I agree with those who advise just to recognize other's opinions as equally valid as your own, and just practice appreciating diversity and cultivating openmindedness

[Protector]

YEAH FUCK OPENING CHAKRAS, THEY SPIN DAMN IT!!!

I was yelling that since the moment I arrived here, I even wrote pages of stuff about chakras in my learning thread thing

[mrtiger]

its true that the root chakra is associated with security, and that a well balanced one will allow one to feel secure regardless of external circumstances.

 

sinfest, i thought you mocked the idea of chakras? change of mind? just curious.. maybe i just remember you mocking the phrase "open the chakras" or something

 

anyway, @mrtiger, the problem could easily be a result of one's astrological makeup. Those born with their sun in Capricorn Taurus and Leo tend to be opinionated and those arent the only explanations for such a trait. check out http://www.astro.com/cgi/ade.cgi which is a wonderful astrology site called astrodienst, better known as astro.com. You will need to know the time of day you were born (mommmm...) and some other easy data. Then you can look up your natal chart and get some free info which might help you understand yourself better.

 

under free horoscopes at the left, click "all horoscopes at a glance" and look for "astro click portrait" among the selections on the page. Its most useful to me for isolating that sort of trait to a particular influence.

 

have fun!

 

Hey thanks. This looks really interesting. Yes will need to call my dear mother!

 

But I think my sun sign is indeed Capricorn. I mean that's my standard star sign anyway.

 

I do wonder if wanting to be right and win arguments is either 1) Because I'm not entirely confident in my won beliefs. or 2) Somehow I feel less intelligent than others so winning arguments is a way of dealing with that.

[konchog uma]

YEAH FUCK OPENING CHAKRAS, THEY SPIN DAMN IT!!! :lol:I was yelling that since the moment I arrived here, I even wrote pages of stuff about chakras in my learning thread thing

 

some rishis saw them in their inner vision as lotuses that "opened" as they were "activated" lol hence the idea of opening them. To those seers the chakras went from being a closed lotus to a blossomed one...for what its worth i agreeeee they spinsorry i forgot your learning thread

Edited August 11, 2012 by anamatva

[konchog uma]

Hey thanks. This looks really interesting. Yes will need to call my dear mother!

 

But I think my sun sign is indeed Capricorn. I mean that's my standard star sign anyway.

 

I do wonder if wanting to be right and win arguments is either 1) Because I'm not entirely confident in my won beliefs. or 2) Somehow I feel less intelligent than others so winning arguments is a way of dealing with that.

 

i think if you're honest with yourself (and you seem to be) you'll overcome it, no problem.

 

Capricorns are the most argumentative and opinionated if you ask me lol but strong in other great ways, like disciplined and precise. There are no good signs or bad signs they all have their good and bad points. Is your birthday late december early/mid january?

[Clarity]

Thinking of the opinions as 'yours' immediately makes it harder to let go.

 

Also, if you happen to have a weakness to people not taking you seriously or not listening to you, then you might be inclined to argue a point you didn't even believe was true! This could be true for your parents, their parents, and their parents, and so on.

 

Ask yourself, "What has this opinion done for me lately?"

[Harmonious Emptiness]

Good point Clarity

 

@ Sinfest: French people say that you ­­`open` a light and a tv, ie open can also mean to activate or release blockage in it, make a connection, or whatever. You might be getting a bit too worked up over this. Why do you need people to say 'spin' exactly? Maybe their chakras do 'open' when they are activated. Perhaps you should spin or open or release your mind on that one... In my opinion.

 

 

I think Clarity is on to something about not being taken seriously. We all know that it is important to be taken seriously in the real world if we are not 100% monks or hermits. It can be dangerous at times if we are not. However, it helps to know when we are mis-prioritizing things and taking the wrong things seriously. Meditating on generosity might help in this as well, letting the relationship take precedence over who walks away with the 'upper hand.' In doing so you stand to leave behind the petty ego (spiritual terms, not Freudian terms) which is little more than the child in us we have still not fully outgrown, in a sense. It can be a never ending process, but finding those handle bars of the ego and unscrewing them is part of the journey.

[Protector]

Some things must be done right or else this happens

 

 

 

 

Maybe there is a point to arguing now and then, to stop people from buying this game for example

[Stosh]

Aggressively defending your opinions is neither good or bad in itself

since there is no good or bad objectively speaking.

 

The cure is to not care what anybody else thinks.

What folks think is due to their perspective ,

which is often not very similar to your own

 

Not to care about your reputation

let it take care of itself (it will anyway)

 

Not to care about getting to the truth of the matter.

Most of the time truth is subjective anyhow

 

Not to care about validation or invalidation

Who is anybody else that they have the right to be your validator?

 

Leaving other folks to their wrongness can be fun

 

Truth is , that folks mostly want to keep whatever ideas

they already have, they dont want to be swinging in the breeze

suggestible to everything that passes by

Having a strong motivation to correct errors can come from the

idea that "truth" is more beneficial than complacency,

and your argument may be made for altruistic purposes.

For the purpose of just getting along with folks, leave them be

thats what they want and it is the lightest burden for you.

Another reason folks talk to others is that in the act of it

one delves into themselves, it can be revealing because the undercurrents of

why we say or do or think things is to a degree hidden.

You can develop your own thinking when a sounding board is present.

As long as you retain the motivations you have now,

you will likely continue as you do.

Just talk more with folks who are tolerant to it.

 

Stosh

Edited August 12, 2012 by Stosh

[swampland]

 

Ask yourself, "What has this opinion done for me lately?"

 

I'm sure to keep that in mind...

 

I think the way to solve any problem is to look at it in more detail, kind of

what we are doing right now.

 

As for me, I discovered, that when I get angry over other people devalueing my opinion,

it is because I feel like they are taking it away from me.

Like a forced letting go.

They crawl up my ass (first chakra) and rip my opinion out of my intestines and that is

something I don't like to happen to me.

 

You can try to let go of your opinions, which will take a lot, because your opinions as a

whole and the way you live is a result of millions of years of evolution and thus you will not

simply give them up. But you can learn to differnetiate.

 

There are more major, and more minor opinions. For example, i you ask yourself what the color

of the shirt you're going to wear today is going to be, that might not make such an important

impact on your life and someone telling you, that you should wear something different, and

stating urgent reasons may make himself the center of ridicule.

 

However, if your parents are trying to push you into a carreer you don't like, then that will have

a major impact on your life and thus getting angry about it, might be justified.

 

What you want to have in mind is a scale of importance of things, so you can always ask yourself

"how important to me is that really"...ok, maybe you shouldn't be so techy about it

as this system seems to me right now...

 

That's the component directly attached to the opinion. However there is another more socially attached

component.

 

Especially when you'e a male, you will have the need to be right in certain situations,

because you will (at least felt, at least for me) be inferior to the person who you give your opinion up to.

That unconciously binds you to that person as a feeling of he's the boss, he knows what's up.

You will automatically value his opinion more in the future and your own less. Thus he will have a higher status

than you. Your body feels that coming and wants to protect you by fighting the other.

 

Unfortunately such fights over power will never lead to anything productive. And you don't even need to beat someone

up, there are a verbal tactics to shut people up, without ever having a closer look on their point. That's how it's done

most anywhere. That's how people protect themselves from inferiority. But truth is never gained out of this.

 

So, practically, again, you need to learn to differentiate and find out how much giving up your opinion costs you socially.

That makes it easier to let go.

[Jetsun]

If you are attached to your opinion and it is shown to be false then that experience can be perceived as being annihilatory as you have placed your sense of self and self value in your opinion; so the solution is to either gain a deeper more stable sense of self or relax the grasping at a sense of self altogether. No quick fix were talking years of inner work.