3 Strategies for Feeling Less Defensive
From the time I was a little girl, I’ve always felt like the world was a scary place. Maybe it was growing up in a city, possible harm lurking around every corner. Maybe it was how I was hardwired for potential threats.
Either way, it’s my default operating system.
So, imagine my surprise when I began my spiritual journey, and one of the invitations was to rest in God, to see the world as safe, to trust that I really am taken care of! Ha!
Honestly, it’s been decades in the making, this transition from fear to love. And it’s ongoing.
I still fall back into fear and forget.
For a while now, I’ve been working with a phrase/lesson from A Course in Miracles: “In my defenselessness my safety lies.”
When I first read those words, I immediately thought, “what the heck? How can that possibly be true?”
And then I began thinking more deeply about it.
As I did, I started to understand that most of us are always in a state where we are either attacking or defending. We kind of bounce between these two places. I feel upset, so I react. You get aggressive in return, and I retort, and on and on and on and on.
After exploring this phenomenon for a bit, I decided to try another way, because, why not?
What if I didn’t actively try to defend myself, but instead remained present in the situation?
Now obviously, if you’re feeling threatened physically, I’m not advocating that you stand around and do nothing.
But what would happen if you didn’t immediately fall into fear?
Recently a gentleman shared this story with me.
He was driving home one evening, his dogs in the car, after a good long play at the park, and saw a middle-aged couple hitchhiking. Counter to his normal response to drive right by, he stopped and picked them up (he was feeling defenseless). It turned out that the couple was visiting from the Midwest, getting ready to cruise up to Alaska, and had decided to visit the island for the day. They’d taken the ferry over, and walked 4 miles to the Japanese American Exclusion memorial! Thinking they could take an Uber back, they were shocked to find nary a one, so were trudging back to the ferry, extremely fatigued.
Imagine their gratitude and thanks for getting a ride!
When I think about being defenseless in this way, it embodies a few specific characteristics:
1. Curiosity
What might happen if you didn’t automatically react and feel afraid?
2. Presence
Can you stay in the moment and not immediately go into a panicked space? If so, then you’re not projecting a doomsday scenario onto the future, or activating a past memory. From this place of presence, you’re much more capable of experiencing the situation from a neutral observant way.
3. Willingness to Ask for Help or Guidance
When you think about defenselessness, in some ways, it feels like an invitation to relinquish the need to be in charge. It’s letting go and allowing the Big Love, universal intelligence, God to tell you what to do.
Or to directly ask for help.
In podcast #80, Feel Safe Today, I dive into this idea that a true sense of safety is linked to our willingness to surrender and ask for help. In fact, the podcast begins with a true story that happened to me! It was a moment when I felt totally alone and scared and I prayed for help.
Check it out here.
Play around with this idea, that safety is related to defenselessness, and see what comes up for you. You might discover an incredible sense of peace you didn’t even know was available!