A New Protection

We are unconsciously conditioned throughout our lives to protect ourselves. Of course we are! Being in pain...well...HURTS. This episode explores, however, the possibility that the ways we have unconsciously learned to protect (things that served us in the past) may actually be creating more harm and pain than protection. We look at a new possibility for the greatest protection imaginable (at least the greatest I've ever experienced as of yet!).

Please note: This track may include some explicit language.

Transcript

Wake the Fuck Up,

The podcast that mingles mindfulness,

Buddhism,

Brain science,

Evolutionary biology,

And real authentic human experience.

Welcome to Wake the Fuck Up.

Hello,

Amazing humans,

And welcome to this episode of Wake the Fuck Up.

My name is Tiffany Andres,

And I am your host,

Curious seeker,

And fellow traveler on this amazing journey we call life.

Today's episode is all about a new form of protection.

And I want to start by offering the idea that we spend so much of our time in a space of unconscious self-protection,

And this is absolutely beautiful.

The reality is that we grow up and we're constantly testing what works and what doesn't work in order to figure out who we are and how to operate and be successful and appreciated and connected in the world.

As children,

We learn this through first our interactions with our parents and then in our social interactions with peers as well as that kind of hierarchical interaction with teachers and principals and people that kind of help direct our progress in life.

But what ends up happening is that we express ourselves in some way.

And I think this is true of every single experience that we have,

Right?

And we express ourselves in some way and we get feedback from those around us that that's either appropriate or inappropriate,

It works or it doesn't work.

And often this comes in terms of being met with acceptance and connection and love or being met with rejection and a closing out and a shutting down.

And so what happens over time is that if we test specific things and learn that on the other side of those actions or thoughts or expressions that people aren't going to meet us there,

We're going to be left alone or for many of us as children sent to our room to think about what we've done,

When we react with anger or sadness or pain as children,

A lot of us are encouraged to be alone.

And so we learn to shut those things down within ourselves,

We learn to protect.

And what are we really protecting ourselves against,

I think is such a powerful question to ask.

And I think it leans into the reality that to be in pain is such a profound experience of suffering.

And so ultimately,

What we spend so much of our thought process and thinking time,

As well as so much of our energy and endeavors to experience is on the avoidance of that pain.

And I've kind of joked with my son before that,

You know,

I think super early as a as a kid,

You know,

Almost pre adolescence,

We're doing our best to just figure out how to navigate the world,

What things are,

What things mean,

Right.

And then we get to the adolescent years,

And we're learning to become socially acceptable.

And a lot of ways I think this is kind of learning to quiet ourselves or hide ourselves or shield the parts of ourselves that our peers and our social groups tell us are unacceptable.

And then at least for me,

My 30s became a time where it was a process of undoing,

Of beginning to see all the ways that I had covered myself up in order to feel acceptable,

And deciding that really all of that is bullshit.

And I think that the root of this episode is coming from the reality,

At least for me.

And again,

You know,

We're quite a few episodes in and I know I said this very early on,

But I'll caveat here for a second that there is an intention in every single episode and everything I say that for those of you listening,

Please,

Please,

My loves,

Don't just blindly trust anything that I say as truth while I offer them as truths for me and my life and my experience in this moment,

Because it is always changing.

If something strikes you in the heart,

Please take it with you and test it in your life.

Find your version of truth.

And I think what I've found to be real is that we never really learn something and embody it and become it.

We don't change until we have the visceral experience of something's truth for ourselves,

Until we have a real lived experience that makes us go,

Holy shit,

That's so true.

So what I want to offer is that for me,

What I've realized over the years is that in a very unconscious way,

Our ways of protecting ourselves actually cause us the pain that we're trying so desperately to avoid.

And I feel a sadness welling up in my chest as I say that because it is sad,

It's painful that I think it's part,

A natural part of the human experience to arrive in these moments where we can finally see how much of our suffering and our sorrow and our disconnection has come from our own walling off and shielding of our hearts.

And this is not bad,

My loves.

I think I've had a number of conversations with friends and loved ones and we all kind of share this curiosity of like,

When you're younger,

When you're a teenager and you're in your early 20s,

You kind of move through life like just nothing really sticks.

Like the self-referencing is not quite as heavy as it is naturally when you hit your 30s and 40s and into older age where we start to see things in ourselves in what feels like this much more deep and profound way.

And it almost feels heavier and harder,

You know,

Than the sense of lightness and like,

I'm just fucking doing life when I'm a teenager and in my 20s,

This is just what life is and this is what we do,

You know,

And then everything becomes so existential as we get older.

You know,

But I think it's such a natural,

Beautiful part of being human,

This journey of expansion and contraction and you know,

Here we are,

It's fall,

It's October in Atlanta,

The leaves are changing,

I just realized and felt this morning that the sounds of the birds have changed from summertime to fall.

So the whole natural world is in shift and in flux and we are too,

We're not exempt from that,

Right?

And I think we have these smaller scale processes over chronological time,

Like the difference between seasons and the difference between days and weeks and months,

But we also have these larger scale processes that is the whole evolution of the human experience.

And I truly believe that no matter what our soul curriculum looks like,

The evolution for all of us is radically similar,

I mean,

It's just human that we're learning over time how to be a human in the world and then more deeply we're learning how to be authentically ourselves and then more deeply than that we're learning what the fuck is my authentic self without all of this conditioning and these concepts,

Without doing anything,

Who am I,

What is this energy,

This capacity,

This expansiveness that can see everything without judgment,

That can hold itself and everyone around it in limitless love.

And so I say all of that to say that it's such a normal part of being human to learn to protect ourselves from pain.

I mean,

Nobody likes being in pain.

Well,

I guess that's not entirely true.

That's a whole different episode,

So we'll leave that where it is.

But it's such a natural experience to unconsciously learn these,

I'm going to say,

Beautiful ways of protecting ourselves.

And there are forms of therapy that talk about learning to label the different aspects and pieces of ourselves and I think I talked about this in a previous episode,

But one of those would absolutely be our protector,

Right?

And when we first start noticing and recognizing our protector,

The part of ourselves inside of us that's here to keep us safe,

That cares enough to put the walls up,

To block our energy,

To shield us in,

It can feel painful to look back at our life and notice how much of it we've been closed off from.

At least that was true for me.

How many moments with loved ones I've shut myself down or turned away because I've been too scared to lean in and be open.

But it's also really powerful just to pause and thank that protector for showing up.

Because I think the truth is,

Until the moment that we see it and start working with it as something different,

We needed it to be there.

We at least for the time didn't have the awareness and the attention and the capacity to be open without being in pain.

But here we are at this next stage of our life and of our evolution,

Of our transformation and transcendence where we see it for the first time.

And that moment is a moment to celebrate because now that we know we have the capacity to work with and change.

I think at this point you guys probably know I love the quote that's very simple that says you can't change what you don't see.

So the moment that we see is such a profound moment where we can celebrate ourselves just for noticing and then create the space and the permissiveness for it to take time to change habits that have literally existed since the moment we were born.

You know if you've ever heard of Pavlov's dog or all of these psychological studies around conditioning,

It really does not take that long to train any living sentient being to one thing that elicits pain and attach to another stimulus and over time you can remove the actual thing that causes the pain and if you elicit the stimulus that being is going to respond like the pain thing is still there.

It's conditioning what fires together wires together the brain learns A equals B equals pain and even if you take away B now A equals pain.

So we learn to protect ourselves and this is beautiful because what that really comes from is a space inside of us that gives a shit and that knows we deserve better knows that we deserve love and care and tenderness and kindness and compassion and doesn't want us to be in pain and suffering and how beautiful that that lives inside every single one of us whether we know it or not.

So this episode came from an incredible experience that I was gifted by a friend of mine.

Rachel if you listen to this thank you for the offering of a session with Nathan Simmons who leads hypnosis groups and he is absolutely incredible at what he does.

Never experienced hypnosis before working with Nathan and it was such a profound experience and I had the blessing of doing a few sessions with Nathan around our protector and first of all hypnosis is not as woo woo as it's kind of made out to be in our society.

It's really just the opportunity to get out of the way and let your subconscious mind show you what the fuck is up.

So I had some really beautiful experiences these incredible visions and some hard ones and some things that I had to reconcile you know but the biggest thing I walked out of this experience with was visualizing and forming a relationship with my own protector and seeing her for the depth of her love and care that she has to have for me to devote so much energy and attention and trains of thought to making sure I'm safe and okay.

And so you know most of you know that I'm in the process of going through a divorce and where I'm really feeling in these last few months the aliveness of this protector is in the thought patterns that come up around what happened or what's happening or what's going to happen and it's these ruminating fast paced planning anticipating energies of thought and the recognition my loves that every single time this happens what's really happening is that my protector is stepping up with her spear and her shield and her strength and this warrior energy and going I'm going to anticipate everything that could possibly fucking go wrong and make sure that you're ready so you don't get hurt.

But here's why I titled this episode a new protection because what I'm learning right now and what I'm learning over time is that it is finally safe to protect myself by keeping an open heart.

In a way I think that the truth and again don't trust me test this out for yourself but the truth is that the best fucking protection we have is being open of not having attachments and expectations for the way that things need to be or how they need to go or what they need to look like for how somebody else should be treating us or responding or engaging but instead to stay open to whatever possibility lands in front of us and to receive it with the sense of tenderness and hereness and presence that lets us feel deeply whatever it is whatever we respond with whatever arises inside of us and then in that moment to offer ourselves the gift of staying open again and this is a continual dance you know this this protection that we used to do with either ruminating and thinking and planning and the anxious thoughts I really think so much of our anxiety is is a form of protection it's our protector showing up to try to make sure we're ready we're prepared for the worst and the best outcomes right but then we find ourselves in moments where something does go awry you know and I remember many many years ago in working with my son when he was young and working with a lot of anger oh my god you guys he was so fucking cute he was probably like eight years old and he would say something in the middle of a conversation where he would say in his sweet little eight-year-old voice like I am feeling angry and I think I need a minute to myself like this eight-year-old is more emotionally intelligent than I am and most adults but you know with anybody that we love and care for when we have these moments where they become emotionally activated and they're reacting towards us the instinct I mean it's there there's no thought it just fucking happens is to close down and I can feel it in my body my shoulders are rolling forward my arms are moving in like the our physical form responds by closing but our heart closes we put up our shield shields in our guards and we wall ourselves off to say you can't touch me right but what we really want in that moment is connection the pain that we are afraid of is disconnection of not feeling connected not feeling worthy and not feeling loved but by putting up those walls we shield ourselves from the possibility of even feeling that so this is a practice like anything else you know when you catch yourself in those anxious or ruminating thoughts can you identify it as your protector and what is he or she look like can you make a pact with this beautiful being inside of you that spent your entire life protecting you to the best of its ability from pain and can you say to that protector from here forward take my hand let's do this together I'm realizing that the best protection I have is to be open to stay here to breathe and lean into whatever is moment by moment and yes that means your protector is going to show up it's going to put the shields up for you and we don't get angry at that protector for taking care of you we thank it thank you thank you protector for being here now let's do this next step together it is safe to be open this has been my mantra over the last few weeks it is safe to be open I want to feel this I want to feel this I hope this feels helpful encouraging and clarifying for those of you listening I hope you can see your own protector for the beauty and the compassion and the kindness and the love from which it's shown up for you every single day taking care of you to honor that part of you to know you're never alone and also to take that protector's hand and get curious about what a new form of protection looks like for you what does it feel like to allow yourself to touch life more deeply than maybe you ever have and to be open to yourself all pieces of yourself no matter how they show up in every moment thank you so much for listening my loves I hope you have an incredible day I hope your journey of curiosity with your own protector protection walls and wisdom is a profound and beautiful one until next time