It’s fine to recognize your defensiveness or someone else’s, but unless you actually work on it, you’re not going to make any progress. It can be difficult but it’s not impossible.

Defensiveness is probably the biggest cause of “disagreements.” It’s an insidious little fucker who’ll drop into a conversation silently and try to disrupt any plans you had for a productive situation. If you let it stay around, it will accomplish its goal and probably make things worse for a long time after.

Luckily, you don’t have to concede defeat to that asshole. You can kick defensiveness’ ass. Although it’s pretty easy to learn how, be forewarned that it takes a lot of practice and understanding.