On Healing + Defensiveness
Healing & letting go of toxic patterns – old patterns, familial patterns, survival patterns, supremacy culture patterns, manipulative patterns – requires deep self intimacy.
It requires us to be able to hold a mirror up to ourselves, to see our behaviors, thoughts, and patterns with compassion and tenderness.
To see ourselves honestly.
To understand where these patterns come from and how they’ve served me in the past.
To love them, and me, so tenderly and with enough grace that I can let them go.
And to trust myself with something new.
But it also requires us to be intimate with our defensiveness and deflection strategies so that they don’t interfere with this process.
Our defensiveness is one of these toxic patterns that we’ve established to keep us from the pain and discomfort of healing and growth. When we bump up against a belief that connects to a deep fear or wound, our brain will engage defensiveness to avoid that shit at all costs.
Defensiveness is also a learned behavior in supremacy culture that allows those with power and privilege to avoid the painful truths about the system we’re participating in.
Ultimately it’s a pattern of manipulation.
And if I’m being honest, it’s been one of my biggest barriers to healing.
(if my partner is reading this, I imagine they’re nodding furiously right now! LOL)
Defensiveness takes me away from seeing myself with truth and honesty, serving instead to deflect and protect.
But defensiveness doesn’t actually protect us, it only impedes connection and negatively impacts relationships, progress, and healing if not interrupted. And worse than that, it enables our willful ignorance and continued complicity in a system of violence.
Today I wanted to share a three step strategy for combating defensiveness…
Defensiveness is an attempt to avoid. When she shows up, get curious. What belief or fear am I trying to avoid right now? Once we look at the thing we’re trying to avoid it gets easier to navigate, because it becomes less abstract. Instead it is a fact that we can work with. Maybe the fear is that I’m not a good person or that I’m broken or something is wrong with me.
Honor the fear or thing that you’re trying to avoid feeling and the part of you that is scared and avoiding it. It’s really scary to imagine that maybe you’re not a good person or you’re broken. Validate that fear. Be with it and don’t gaslight yourself and try to talk yourself out of it.
Invite in the belief that the thing you’re defensive about may be true AND it doesn’t mean you’re bad or broken or whatever thing came up in part 1. See this as an opportunity or invitation for deeper healing and connection. Lean in to the desire for connection, healing and expansion over fear.
And remember to soothe yourself and pause and breathe as you need, so that you can stay present and engaged. It’s OK to go slow so that you can stay regulated.
There is so much potential for goodness on the other side of defensiveness, and you are worth it.
We’re worthy of healing, of the honesty and vulnerability it requires, and of endless self love.
What do you think? Is this a useful strategy for you?