A few years ago a counselor stared me down and said, “You’re the king of unsolicited denials!” Huh? I’d not heard that term before. He let me hang out there for a while before I bit. He said, “Listen to yourself. Listen to how often you pre-qualify what you say by denying it. You’re denying something that’s not even been part of the discussion. It must point toward some truth.”

He was right. The word I’ve come to prefer for the whole family of these pre-statements is “qualifier.” An unsolicited qualifier is any kind of pre-statement that tries to deny, excuse, or rationalize what’s about to be said. I’ve noticed them more and more in others, and sometimes in myself. They come in at least two forms.

Unsolicited denials

An unsolicited denial is when a person spontaneously refutes a statement nobody has made. “I don’t hate them, I’m just angry about the incident.” (Oh, yeah?) Or, “I’m not name-dropping…” Or, “It’s not like I’m afraid.” If that’s the case, why did it enter the conversation? It came from somewhere.

In criminal justice, detectives lick their chops when they hear an unsolicited denial. They’re sniffing down the trail of truth. And in my case, when my friend heard a series of them, he finally called me on it. “What are you trying to protect?”

For me, I used unsolicited denials to soften what I was saying, to avoid rejection or to avoid having someone think poorly of me. When I stopped using them I was more honest with myself and with others. A better way to live, and much less exhausting. I spend so much less brain power maneuvering my words around.

I heard another friend (seriously…I have friends!) routinely use unsolicited denials, so I asked him, “Are you open to a suggestion?” I told him what I’d learned, and I said, “You don’t need unsolicited denials. You’re such a good leader that people respect you already and will respect you even more if you’re honest with yourself and with them.” I challenged him to “test drive” life by dropping this pre-qualifier for a month. So far, so good.

Unsolicited rationalizations

The other qualifier I’ve observed in myself and others is the unsolicited rationalization. Dr. Emanuel Rosen puts it well in his book Think Like a Shrink:

Jeff Goldblum delivers my favorite line from the movie The Big Chill: “Where would any of us be without a good rationalization?” We buffer every decision we make with a reason. It’s almost as if we anticipate that someone is going to ask why we do what we do. And to some extent our own worth depends on the ability to supply plausible logic to our actions.

I’ve had a black belt in rationalization, and I find that as I break through this wall of self-preservation, life gets easier. When I hear myself or someone else use the word “just,” a yellow flag goes up. “I was just joking.” “I was just trying to help.” “I am just…” Oh, really? Another form: “All I’m saying is…” (There are healthy uses of those phrases, to be sure.)

Behind it all is a need to be right, because if I’m not right my self-worth is depleted, and I hide behind words. As Rosen says, we buffer every decision with a reason. Too much energy gets wasted keeping the fortress intact. How much better to own my shortcomings, get past the shame, and see others through the lens of grace. When we are clear and matter-of-fact, without qualifying, others’ esteem for us rises.

Just say it

So, next time, just say it. Don’t qualify it. The world is full of big people who can handle it, and they’re suspicious, anyway, when we qualify.

Unsolicited qualifiers can be our friends. Like smoke alarms, they alert us to the possibility of fire. Watch what you say. If you’re dipping into the denial bin or the rationalization toolkit too often, you might be ready for a “test drive” of your own. My guess is that you’ll experience a lot of freedom by not having to qualify what you say.

And if you want someone else to help sniff around, you know where to find me.