In Honor of the Defenses

Your defenses are ingenious. They have kept you alive. They have protected you from what you are not capable of experiencing. They have helped you get to today.

Sure, they might be out of date. Sure, they may not serve you in the ways that you would like. Sure, they may get in the way of you experiencing things in life that you would like to today. That doesn't detract from just how ingenious they are.

I've spent quite a bit of my time trying to undo my defenses. Trying to extract them from my way of being. Why wouldn't I? Especially in a world where we are told that the things that are in our way are either our fault or simply bad. 

It stopped me in my tracks when a friend invited me to slow down and offer gratitude for my defenses. To honor them for the way that they have helped me survive.

Sometimes not feeling was the best move I could make.

Sometimes pushing others away was a way to stay connected to myself.

What happens when we approach our resistance, our dissociation, our repression, our isolation with a humble gratitude?

What might we be freed up to experience?