When I am hurt, my instinct is to answer sharpness with sharpness and coldness with coldness. How do I break this cycle and respond to bad treatment with something better?
The instinct you describe, meeting sharpness with sharpness and cold with cold, sits in almost every chest. It is not a sin to be scolded away. It is a habit, and a better habit can take its place. You are not fighting your nature, you are raising it.
Allah offers a way out of this exhausting cycle, and He attaches a great reward to it.
“Repel evil with that which is better, and then the one between you and whom was enmity will become as though he were a devoted friend. And none is granted this except those who are patient, and none is granted it except one of great fortune.”
Qur’an, Fussilat 41:34-35 · meaning
Notice where the key is placed: in your hand, not theirs. The very person whose harshness stings you can soften into a friend, and answering better is called here the mark of great fortune. So on the day you manage it, know that Heaven counts you among the fortunate.
And we are not left to imagine this on our own. We have the living picture of our Prophet, peace be upon him. A bedouin once pulled his cloak so roughly that its coarse border left a mark on his blessed neck, then demanded, “O Muhammad, give me from the wealth of Allah that is with you.”
“The Prophet, peace be upon him, turned to the man, smiled, and ordered that he be given a gift.”
Reported by Anas (may Allah be pleased with him), Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim (Bukhari 3149 / Muslim 1057a) · meaning
He bore the harshness with patience, and then he gave. Where anger had every right to answer, there was a smile. Where a debt of harshness could have been repaid, there was a gift. That is the heart we are being invited to grow, a heart so full that another’s rudeness cannot empty it.
This is why Allah describes His closest servants with words of peace upon their lips.
“And the servants of the Most Merciful are those who walk upon the earth in humility, and when the ignorant address them, they say words of peace.”
Qur’an, Al-Furqan 25:63 · meaning
And there is something we quietly notice in ourselves. When hostility is met with an unexpected calm, the quarrel loses its heat, because the other person has no fuel left to burn. Your gentleness is not you losing the exchange. It is you ending the fire.
One small step: The next time someone speaks to you sharply, pause, take one slow breath, and let your first words be soft ones, even a simple “peace, let us talk calmly.” Just once, and watch what it does.