Talking about this ego defense mechanism,
This way that our ego is protecting us.
And I like to call her the inner protector.
And so more and more,
You're going to hear me transfer our terminology from ego to inner protector,
But I do use them pretty interchangeably here.
Sometimes I call the ego trickster,
The inner protector and the ego or ego defense mechanism.
It doesn't matter.
What we're doing is we're looking at the ways that our ego shows up in our lives right now.
And it shows up for everyone.
And I just want you to know that it is perfectly normal.
And if you weren't having any of these reactions,
Responses,
Coping mechanisms,
Defense mechanisms,
If then I would wonder if you were human,
Because it's part of being a human being.
Now,
What's really important for you to know The ego is there to protect.
That's it.
That's her job.
She creates separation between you and other people because she's all about protecting.
She is not a connector.
She is a protector.
And if we allow ourselves to be on autopile,
Allowing our inner protector to run the show.
We will have a life and have relationships that lack the emotional depth and connection that we are looking for.
And that's part of the reason why we have to help her to understand that we appreciate her and she has been so amazing and thank God she has been here because she has really helped us countless times in countless ways.
And that there is another way to navigate this.
And the other way to navigate this will provide us with greater connection to ourselves.
Deeper connection with others,
More warmth,
More love,
More emotional depth.
But that we have to ask her to kind of stand down a little bit.
We have to ask her to.
Let us take charge and get in the back seat.
Be next to us.
Allow us to hold her.
Now you have to think about this,
Like your inner protector,
She's actually young.
She got formed to keep your youngest parts safe.
She got formed when you were little.
You might have like a two-year-old inner protector and a four-year-old inner protector and a 10-year-old inner protector and all ages in between.
So she's not exactly the most mature part of you,
And she's often making decisions that are based on short-term gratification,
Status quo,
Keeping you safe,
Not making any changes,
Just doing what she knows,
And that's it,
And keeping you in your safety zone and even your comfort zone,
Right?
But if you want something more in your life,
Then we have to be brave and we have to stretch beyond that.
So reminding yourself that your inner protector is not a connector.
She is only a protector will help you remember why you don't want her to be the one running your show.
Okay,
So a couple of things on this.
So is that I want you to imagine that like when your inner protector comes up,
Right?
She comes up and she's like,
I'm in charge.
I'm in charge,
Right?
And she is basically going against other people.
And oftentimes.
Is even causing you to be disconnected from yourself.
Imagine if you've got a wounded part of you,
Right?
An inner child part of you,
This wounded part of you that got hurt a long time ago.
And she is like,
I don't want anyone to hurt us again.
I don't want anyone to do anything that would cause us to feel pain.
And so she comes up like this barrier,
Like a wall,
Right?
So she becomes a wall between.
And others between even us and our inner child.
And so she really keeps us from the love that we really want because she's the warrior.
She's the one holding up the shield and she's like,
No,
None shall pass.
No warmth shall pass,
No love shall pass,
Because we need to guard this heart.
We need to guard the inner child.
We need to guard our wounding so that no one touches any of that.
All right,
Now we're gonna go into that in a lot more depth.
In a lot more layers,
But I just wanted you to remember your inner protector is not a connector.
Along the same lines,
Every single coping mechanism that she uses.
Whether that be work.
Or whether that be.
Rationalizing or sugar or alcohol or hiding.
You're doing it to distract yourself from something or to fill a hole in you,
A void in you.
In some way you're trying to compensate in your life,
All these things.
Are actual little tiny barriers to love.
And then they become big walls to love.
And so much of what we're doing here.
As we are looking at all the ways that we have barriers to love.
And that could be loving ourselves or loving others or receiving love.
Frankly,
It's even barriers to loving life.
It's barriers to loving and appreciating the life we have right now.
It's all these ways that we are constantly guarding and trying to keep up walls so that we do not have to get hurt.
And ways that we be in the world so that we can receive love.
And every one of these things is actually a form.
A subtle understandable form of like control and manipulation.
We're trying to control our outside circumstances.
We're trying to stop things from hurting us and Show love in certain ways so that we can win the love and approval of others be a certain way All these coping mechanisms and defense mechanisms were all so important and valuable,
And I just commend you for being as resourceful as you have been to use them to manage the life that you have right now.
But we want to go beyond managing your life.
We want to go beyond survival.
We want to go beyond safety and coping mechanisms into thriving,
Into feeling like you have the capacity to be able to connect and still stay safe.
To be able to open your heart and know that you could trust yourself.
And that's the work here,
Is to remove the barriers to love.
In ways that feel safe.
And that you can inch closer and closer to the emotional intimacy and depth that you want in relationships with others,
Yourself,
Your ability to experience life,
Your ability to be able to be with difficult circumstances and still be able to hold on to yourself.
That is what we are doing here.
Because here's the thing,
When we do put up any one of these little barriers,
They're always because at some very subtle level,
We're being triggered.
At some level,
We believe that there's something happening in the world,
In the space,
In our lives,
Between us and another person that feels a little bit unsafe,
And we put a barrier up.
And that barrier again,
They're subtle.
They could be really obvious.
It could be like mean and fighting.
They could be running away.
They could be your obvious things you do all the time.
Like I always go,
You know,
Eat a piece of chocolate or I,
I always go in my office and start working or I cry or I do something or I,
People please,
Because I don't want that person to be upset with me.
We might know our go-to coping strategies,
But what I have learned is that we keep healing at deeper levels and we're like an onion and we keep peeling it back.
And so we get those low hanging fruit ones at first and then we They have some subtle ones.
Sometimes you can barely catch them and that's okay.
We're going for low hanging fruit.
That's our goal here is to always do the things that are right in front of us because why bother going to deal with things that we're not ready to deal with?
The things that we're ready to deal with will always present themselves very clearly and feel like we can just pluck them off right then.
But my point in trying to tell you this is that some of them still will be subtle.
They're not always big shows of reactivity.
They're not always big shows of hiding or big reactions.
Even emotionally,
Internally.
They are sometimes really subtle.
It could be you don't catch yourself.
Like,
Why are you in the pantry?
I don't even know what happened.
All of these things are tiny micro ways that we put up barriers to love,
And that when it engages,
We actually are less loving.
We actually have to guard ourselves a little bit.
When we guard ourselves,
We can't,
Not only are we unable to receive love from others,
We also see the world less lovingly.
We see the world from the lens of our control and we are unable to give love.
We're unable to even feel love.
Sometimes we feel like we can't even feel compassion toward other people.
And these are all things that.
That happened because of these little microwaves.
That we protect ourselves.
And if you really are honest about it,
You can really say,
We are so cute as human beings because You know,
We get wounded as children and then we come up with these really creative ways to feel safe in the world.
And 2.
Keep ourselves protected.
And until we know that there's another way.
Until we realize.
That it's actually been in the process of abandoning ourselves that that's the biggest source of our pain.
We continue to keep doing it because we continue to think that if we can just create safety out there,
If we can make everybody else talk to us in the way we want to be talked to in.
They could fulfill our needs,
And if they could just really listen to me,
And if they could really understand me,
And if we would go on more date nights,
And if my friends would include me more,
And if this person wouldn't do that,
If they would do all these things,
Then I would be okay.
And that means that we put our lives in the hands of other people.
And we constantly are navigating.
Whether we're okay or we're not based on outside circumstances and we're guarding and we're putting up barriers to love and then we're dropping our barriers and then we're putting back up again and it's a constant management and it's exhausting.
We have to put on masks to show who we think other people want us to be.
We're just exhausted.
Into the work.
Is in cultivating enough inner safety.
And coming into great enough wholeness.
And know how to navigate our inner world so that we actually know we're okay.
We source love from inside.
We source safety from inside.
No matter what's happening around on the outside,
Even if we dislike it,
Even if we wish it would change,
It doesn't rock our boat.
It doesn't ruffle our feathers.
We're able to be present with ourselves.
Isn't that awesome?
Wouldn't you love that?
I really believe that that's what we can have here.
So I'm just telling you so you can understand better.
That every one of these little ego trickster moves.
Is just a creative way that you came up with over the years.
To win love and approval of other people.
To avoid pain or discomfort.
Or to feel safe in some way.
Every one of them.
And we can find a way to feel like we don't have to use these somewhat unhealthy coping mechanisms.
And be as reactive and take things as personally,
We can do that through this work.
So thank you for being here.
I'm glad you are.
And I can't wait for you to learn more so that you can begin to really embody this and see how much you can step in as the leader of your own life and create the life that you really want.
