When something in a conversation is perceived as personal the conversation easily comes to a halt.

When this happens, the person feels threatened and becomes defensive or aggressive. It takes care and attention to find a way back into a fluid conversation.

But sometimes, it’s more complicated than that.

In that case, the person may have felt hurt. What they heard has been an attack on their character. What they experienced was, that their values have been questioned. They saw who they are as a person being questioned.

For them, it is their identity and what they seek to present as their identity that is being threatened. And it can hurt deeply to experience how others see us differently than we want to be seen.

That is, where, to get back into the conversation, it is so important to be able to see and notice what the other person is experiencing. It allows one to react with compassion instead of guilt.