Unarmored
“ True personal growth is about transcending the part of you that is not okay and needs protection”
— Michael Singer
This week I was presented with a few different situations where I could see myself wanting to crawl back to the armor, almost immediately, to find refugee.
Life will offer these types of experiences to us through interactions with people, relationships, conflicted situations: “I got hurt, I’ll put up my armor and I’ll attack and blame back”
First, we harden the heart.
Then we get still and sit on top of all our points, visions, expectations, beliefs and stories.
Soon after we get really contracted and rigid exactly like in “attack position” mode.
These types of dynamics result in an accumulation of all unprocessed triggered emotions causing reactive responses or familiar strategies to deal with (avoiding, suppressing, denying). Within time, our internal layers pille up to the point that if someone does “the usual x and y” your response is already in place, armed to attack or blame and in general, we don’t even question it.
We stay in the loop = unprocessed emotions > trigger > reaction with strategies > unprocessed emotions.
Those are the cycles we get ourselves in - dictating how certain relationships unfold, how certain interactions can be extremely stressful and some dynamics can trigger anxiety in us.
David Hawkins says “ To the fearful person precipitates frightening experiences, the angry person becomes surrounded by infuriating circumstances and the prideful person is constantly being insulted”
The thing is we don’t pause after the first information: “I got hurt or scared or insulted”, as soon as we notice this big piece of information (that we intentionally just let slide right in) we jump right away in the blame/attack mode to make sure we are protecting ourselves, to make sure we are right. We hold back.
We block the flow of energy, of compassion, of awareness, of possibility - that’s how rigid we can get. Our jaws lock, our heart ponders, our stomach gets in a knot.
How can we can go from feeling easy, calm and grounded to jumping up like that, to get so contracted? It happens because of the accumulation in the body of all the previous times we felt this way and had to “protect” ourselves, had to defend ourselves, had to make sure we stop the pain. So, we just keep going in loops and accumulating more energy in the body, through unprocessing the emotion in the first place.
Remember: the experience presented to you is always an opportunity to look within, even when it hurts, even when you want to be the right one, even when you feel you need to protect yourself. It’s just an invitation to look beyond the armor and perhaps to take it off for a while, to get closer to the heart, to listen, to allow flow again, to rest.
With Love,
Mariana
This and other concepts are what we are working on EGO: online workshop. This is a 5 day online workshop, you can access from anywhere in the world at your own pace and schedule - it doesn't need to be done in consecutive days. It's a series of practices, guided meditations and texts to support you to expand. $38 More info and sign up here.