Defending protects & blinds us from our wounds
How often do you take feedback from others?
What are you willing to admit you need to work on in your relationships?
How aware are you of people’s experience of you in relationships?
Are there things that are patterns across relationships that others have told you?
Are there specific relationships that seem to be the only spaces where you have difficulty?
These are just a few examples of reflective self-work prompts. As we develop and grow, we don’t always take the time to reflect on our relationship data. We often take the time to think about our own experiences, but what about how others receive and experience us?
From both a trauma-informed and attachment-based lens, this is important data. How others experience us is intimate and important information. Now, to be clear-this is not a recommendation to live your life according to others or to be a people pleaser or to be hyper focused on being what other people want. Not at all. This is a recommendation to consider how the people in our lives that we love dearly experience us. This is a conversation to apply to safe and trusted relationships in our lives.
How others experience us is often different from how we see ourselves. As humans, we are used to who we think we are and the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. Read that sentence again. Sometimes, as a result of trauma or strained attachment relationships, our perspective can get skewed and we can even find ourselves in denial about how we come across to others. Experiences related to trauma, grief, and attachment involve very intense emotions. Our nervous system will seek ways of being in relationship that feel or give the illusion of feeling protection, even if those behaviors cause strain in our relationships. Take example anger. Boy oh boy, will we defend our righteousness to be angry. We will give a whole speech about why we are right and why that anger was warranted- often without ever stepping into a space of reflection to understand truly what is bothering us. And then we will double down when a loved one brings it to our attention-completely losing out on a moment to acknowledge what is happening inside the relationship and someone else’s experience of us. Another one is control. Anyone willing to admit this is a space they cling onto with the jaws of life? Control is a natural response to trauma. It also gives us the illusion of safety. While it may provide that illusion, it makes our relationships tough.
When we are so focused on defending ourselves, we often are not available to receive feedback. **Again-this is within the context of safe, meaningful, and loving relationships.** When we are not available to receive feedback, we are contributing to the strain in our relationships. We are communicating back to the relationship that we aren’t safe and need to self-protect through defending. By deciding defending ourselves is the most important thing, we also rob ourselves of safe but difficult conversations. Working through receiving feedback in safe spaces not only helps us better understand where our wounds are, it also validates that the relationship truly is a safe place. Not only that, it allows for personal growth. That’s the thing about safety, it lowers the need for self-protection-if we will let it.
I encourage you to return to the questions above and spend some time.
Be mindful, lead with love, and don’t forget to listen.
Dr. C
