How To Respond When Someone Is Rude Or Offensive

Something happened this week that I want to tell you about.

I was in a work situation.

Someone was rude to me.

I acknowledge that for one moment I felt paralyzed in my own reaction.

I initially did not know how to respond.

I kept silent.

Looking back, I realize that when someone is rude and offensive, my mind responds reactively — justifying itself and becoming offensive in return.

This is a kindergarten playground response.

I started to wonder about this response.

It revealed something about myself I was not aware of — and I became very curious about it.

Here’s the part no assertiveness coach will ever tell you.

Every course on handling difficult people teaches you what to say.

How to set limits. How to stay calm. How to respond assertively.

And none of it touches the real problem.

Because the real problem is not what the other person did.

The mind creates a simulated reality — informed by the illusion of a false Self — and you respond to that simulation as if it were real.

Action always correlates to Being.

This is why the reaction feels immediate and compelling. Not because a response was already waiting — but because the mind simulates Being. And since action always correlates to Being, you respond to the simulation as if it were your reality.

You are not responding to what actually happened.

You are responding to what the mind makes up — and presents to you as Being.

That is what we are going to look at today.

1. Why This Matters — Especially If You’re An Entrepreneur

Workplace rudeness and incivility act as a psychological neurotoxin.

They directly degrade cognitive capacity, destroy focus, stifle innovation, sabotage organizational outcomes, and severely diminish an individual’s overall quality of life.

As an entrepreneur, you cannot afford this.

Not in your own reactions. Not in the culture you create around you.

Which is why understanding what actually happens when someone is rude to you — and what you can do about it — is not a soft skill.

It is a leadership skill.

It is not you that is responding.

And yet — something in you is.

The anger is real. The feeling of humiliation is real. The impulse to strike back is real. You cannot pretend otherwise.

But here is what I discovered: the “me” behind that reaction is the illusion of Self the mind has constructed. And what it is responding to is also an illusion — a simulation of Being the mind has fabricated in the moment someone was rude.

It taught me that these responses of the mind that feel like myself have nothing to do with me.

I did not vote for these responses.

I did not invite them into my life.

I did not give my mind permission to enter my consciousness pretending to be me.

I asked myself:

“What is the design of the response of the mind I am usually not aware of — that has a compelling immediacy, and that I treat as a reality to respond to?”

“What is it about the mind that sets me up as a victim?”

“What is the assumption the mind operates from that informs my response?”

You have been hoodwinked.

Not by the other person. By your own mind.

You are completely convinced you are responding to the actual situation. In fact, you are responding to the mind’s construction of a Self that was attacked — a Self that, by itself, has no real existence.

What I just described is not self-help language.

Most psychology stops at: you had a reaction.

Most spirituality stops at: the reaction is not you.

What I am pointing at here is something neither touches.

The reaction is real AND it is not you — because what you are responding to is not your true Self. And the tragedy — and the responsibility — is that it all feels exactly like reality. Because the simulation is indistinguishable from Being until you become aware of it.

This is a precise account of how the mind substitutes itself for the Self — and why human beings act against their own nature without knowing they are doing it.

That is the insight inside the insight.

This is what the Awareness Contrarian exists to do — not to motivate you, not to comfort you, but to name exactly what is happening so that clarity becomes possible where there was none before.

And where you become responsible is here.

The moment you do not make this distinction — the moment you act out what appears to be in correlation with reality but is not — you do harm. To yourself. To others.

That is not a moral failure in the conventional sense. It is the consequence of mistaking simulation for Being. Of taking hoodwinking as reality.

The distinction is everything.

You are a victim when your life is not working for you. If you are behaving in self-defeating ways, if you are miserable, out of sorts, hurt, anxious, afraid to be yourself — or in other similar states that immobilize you — you are being victimized.

If you are not functioning in a self-enhancing manner, or if you feel as if you are being manipulated by forces outside of yourself, you are a victim.

And ultimately — allowing yourself not to be victimized means allowing yourself not to be victimized by your own mind.

Action always correlates to Being.

When the mind creates a simulation of Being — built on a perception of Self where there is no Self — your action correlates to that simulation automatically. It feels immediate. It feels real. It feels like you.

It isn’t.

Realizing that you are not responding to the actual situation — but are responding to a false sense of Self that gives a simulation of Being that you identify with — leaves you open and unencumbered.

The mind is defending a perception of Self where there is no Self.

The mind sets you up as a victim, where there never was a victim.

This self-awareness prevents you from setting yourself up as a knee-jerk victim.

This self-awareness leaves you in a place where there is nothing to respond to.

This is the beginning of the Return to Being.

Realizing that what you experience — what the mind creates — has no true reality. To be fully with what it creates in your consciousness, you see its design.

It is defending a Self where there is no Self.

In the situation of abuse, you are not responding to the abuse.

You are responding to how the mind defends itself.

By letting it all be, you become aware of the default response of the mind — and you realize that there is nothing to respond to.

You regain perspective and clarity.

You can now respond appropriately — where Awareness Intelligence informs you with the different options of how to respond. A response that is not a reaction.

The moment you become aware of the default response of the mind, you have options.

Being in this place of non-reaction, because there is nothing to respond to in your own consciousness — it will come to you what is the right thing to say. A response that does not set you up as a knee-jerk victim in that situation.

• “I can see that you are incredibly upset right now, but blaming me for it is not going to fix the problem.”

• “I am 100% willing to talk about how you feel, but I am not willing to be yelled at or blamed.”

• “I am happy to continue this conversation when you have regained control over your emotions.”

• “I hear that you are feeling really unhappy right now, and I want to support you — but I cannot take responsibility for your overall happiness.”

• “Are you having a bad day, or do you always talk like this?”

• “I appreciate your opinion, but I did not ask for it.”

• “Is there a reason you are trying to get a reaction out of me?”

Notice something about each of these responses.

None of them come from the kindergarten playground.

None of them defend a wounded Self.

They are responses from someone who has returned to Being and operates from Awareness Intelligence — not reactions from someone still hooked in the mind’s defense of a Self that was never real.

Not the abuse of the person you are dealing with.

Of course you want to respond to situations that are potentially victimizing you. But responding from a place of freedom and clarity is more likely to inform you of the best action to take.

Although uncomfortable and uncommon to say — the thinking is not your true Self.

It is something that is done to you, pretending to be yourself.

The question is: how do you bring yourself to a place where you are yourself — and have the right perspective?

How do you bring yourself to a place where you have the clarity to make decisions that are in keeping with your true nature?

Step 2: BECOME AWARE. Recognize that the thinking is not your true Self. The mind is defending a perception of Self where there is no Self. See its design. Name it. Don’t feed it.

Step 3: RETURN TO BEING. This is where Awareness Intelligence speaks. Not the reactive mind. Not the false Self. Being — the awareness underneath all of it — that has never been threatened, never been diminished, and needs nothing from this interaction to be complete.

From here, you can respond. Clearly, calmly — from a place that cannot be rattled.

No one is handed freedom on a platter. You must make your own freedom. Freedom means you are unobstructed in ruling your own life as you choose.

Anything less is a form of slavery.

Realizing that the thinking is something that is done to you pretending to be you gives you the ultimate understanding of freedom.

Freedom means you are aware of what is not you — that pretends to be you — and you stop being a slave to the tyranny of your mind in how it keeps you small and away from what is possible in your life.

The ultimate freedom is to be yourself, untethered by the mind.

If you cannot be unrestrained in making choices, in living as you dictate, in doing as you please — provided your choices do not interfere with anyone else’s freedom — then you are not a master of yourself. And in essence you are being victimized.

To be free does not mean denying your responsibilities to your loved ones and your fellow human beings. Indeed, it includes the freedom to make choices to be responsible.

But nowhere is it dictated that you must be what your mind imposes on you when its demands conflict with what you want for yourself.

You can be alert, unaffected, and free.

This is the Return to Being — not as an abstract idea, but as a lived reality in the middle of the most difficult interactions you will ever face.

Watch yourself in your daily life with alert interest, in full acceptance of whatever may emerge.

Because it is there — in those unguarded moments, in the encounters you did not plan for — that true understanding comes to the surface, enriches your life, and shows you your true nature.

If you want to experience this in practice — not just as a concept but as a lived shift — join me for the Awareness Intelligence Bootcamp: Work Smarter Not Harder. Three days. Live on Zoom. We go deep into exactly this: how to stop serving the false master and start operating from Awareness Intelligence — in your work, your leadership, and your relationships.

Register for the Bootcamp — July 2026

With awareness, Louis MD, Founder — Awareness Intelligence

P.S. The seven responses above only work if they come from the right place. Said from a reactive mind, they are weapons. Said from Being, they are clarity. The difference is not what you say — it is where you speak from.