You can’t catch advice with both hands busy holding a shield.

Defense and learning use the same hands. When you are braced to explain yourself, all your attention goes to finding the flaw in what is being said, and whatever was useful in it goes past unexamined. The protection works, and that is the problem, because it keeps out the accurate parts along with the unfair ones.

Try taking the whole thing in first and sorting later. Say you will think about it, then actually think about it a day later when the sting has gone. You can defend yourself afterward if it turns out you were right, and nothing is lost by waiting.