defend and pause

When we begin to see and feel our defense mechanisms it can be easy to resent or judge them. We can feel frustrated by them. But they were formed in a time of great need, when we likely had little resources to make them a different way. They are a part of us and hold our own energy, as well as a portion of our inner small child self. Today I share a little bit about how defenses are formed, and ways to practice inviting them back home rather than tossing them to the curb.

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"Most of us are trained from birth to block the natural flow of energy within us. The process can be as unique and specific as each individual, yet the reason can be simply named; fear. 

Our care-givers fear triggers our fear. Now fear does not always look like what we may think of as fear, but it is there lurking under all energetic distortions. Fear can look like absence, inability to connect, bullying, abuse in any form, rage, addiction, over-tending, demanding, smothering. You name it. Fear can have a direct and obvious reason like an illness or societal threat, or it can be unattached to anything clear, just sort of free floating in a system. The kind of separation and “spin-offs” it can create is why fear is the opposite of love. Fear blocks love.

So when you experienced fear as a young being, your instincts for self-preservation grew louder than your excitement for growth.

When we are young and vulnerable fear carries a particularly heavy load because any version of withdraw or manipulation of care, love, nourishment, safety, understanding or support, imprints as a life and death threat on our nervous system. On some level we know we are incapable of taking care of ourselves, that we are so incredibly dependent. Our care-givers are our gods and we need them.

So in our clever instinct to adapt and survive, we reroute our energy current to create a defense- to feel less, or differently, or shrink, or puff up… basically to learn the rules unique to our environment and culture and live by them even if it means squashing our own flow and betraying what is already whispering in our heart….  We do it simply to survive. 

PAUSE

Let's take a pause now and feel our bodies in the space they are in right here and right now. To notice if and how you are breathing. To see the container you are currently within- your environment right now. 

If you are here now, if you are reading this, you made it. You did what you had to do and you survived. You made the best choices you could along the way with the resources you had. 

You are here for a reason, you are brilliant, you are kind, you are creative and you deserve life. 

Please take a moment right now to take an inner bow of gratitude to the being inside that so quickly adapted and survived. 

Thank you, thank you.

Let that being inside know that it is not alone. That you have not and would never abandon it. 

Build it a warm place to rest, with foods that nourish it. 

Console it like a warrior that has returned from battle, shocked and wild, let it know that the danger is over and it can rest now. It is exhausted. But it wants to know it did not fight in vain. That you honor it and will now care for it.

Wrap your proverbial arms around this part of you, this instinctual part that had to fight, flee or freeze- and whisper “i got you, i got you, i got you now….”

Give it the welcoming hug of safety and comfort it has always longed for."

-words from Instrument of the Infinite- workbook in progres

-photo  by Stephen Miller