When someone becomes hostile, if you respond by viewing the argument as a war, you can either attack or retreat. If instead you treat it as a dance, you have another option — you can sidestep. Having a conversation about the conversation shifts attention away from the substance of the disagreement and toward the process for having a dialogue. The more anger and hostility the other person expresses, the more curiosity and interest you show. When someone is losing control, your tranquility is a sign of strength. It takes the wind out of their emotional sails.

As often happens, fear showed itself in hostility.

If someone chooses to share feedback, listen to understand the person, not the work. People will tell you more about themselves than about the art when giving feedback. We each see a unique world. Ocassionally, a comment will strike home. It will resonate with something we feel, either in our awareness or just behind it, and we may discover room for improvement.

Always be alert to feedback that doesn’t come from the usual suspects. Some of the most useful feedback is unsolicited, even unintentional. Temper the ego by paying close attention to how people react to you nonverbally. Do their expressions show intrigue or boredom? Are they irritated, agitated, tired? Here, again, it’s worth looking for alignment. Do many different people drift off when you’re talking about a subject? It might be time to pull back on that one. When people offer their reflections, we must pick and choose what we follow carefully and wisely.

Q: People think you are very hostile to men.
A: I am.
Q: Doesn't that worry you?
A: From what you said, it worries them.

It is a sign of great inner insecurity to be hostile to the unfamiliar.

I remind myself how people with a low propensity for success whose behavior is guided by fear, have a low propensity for success.

They don’t think that being fearful is a sign they are on the wrong path. The presence of indifference is a sign you’re on the wrong path. Fear means you’re trying to move toward something you love, but your old beliefs, or unhealed experiences, are getting in the way. (Or, rather, are being called up to be healed.)

Not everyone knows when to be silent and when to go. It not infrequently happens that even diplomatic persons of good worldly breeding fail to observe that their presence is arousing a feeling akin to hatred in their exhausted or busy host, and that this feeling is being concealed with an effort and disguised with a lie.

it is not so much your hostility that injures us; it is rather the case that, if we were on friendly terms with you, our subjects would regard that as a sign of weakness in us, whereas your hatred is evidence of our power.

Offering input only when problems arise may cause people to see you as unappreciative or petty,” observe the authors of Giving Effective Feedback (Harvard Business Review Press, Boston, Massachusetts, 2014).

Bad feelings should not always be interpreted as deterrents. They are also indicators that you are doing something frightening and worthwhile.

Don't grab hurtful comments and pull them close to you by rereading them and ruminating on them. Don't play with them by rehearsing your badass comeback. And whatever you do, don't pull hatefulness close to your heart.

Let what's unproductive and hurtful drop at the feet of your unarmored self. And no matter how much your self-doubt wants to scoop up the criticism and snuggle with the negativity so it can confirm its worst fears, or how eager the shame gremlins are to use the hurt to fortify your armor, take a deep breath and find the strength to leave what's mean-spirited on the ground. You don't even need to stomp it or kick it away.

Cruelty is cheap, easy, and chickenshit. It doesn't deserve your energy or engagement. Just step over the comments and keep daring, always remembering that armor is too heavy a price to pay to engage with cheap-seat feedback.

Instead of seeing others as attacking us, we can see them as fearful. We are always expressing either Love or fear. Fear is really a call for help, and therefore a request for Love.