Transcription
[Music] Release the defense mechanisms that you adopted because of painful circumstances. Release the defense mechanisms that you adopted because of painful life circumstances.
If y'all read my book, uh, Made for This, I describe some of the very, um, painful life circumstances I went through earlier on in my life. Um, I think of that phase of my life, I call I call, oh, I have my cup. I'm a gladiator. Okay.
So, my tribe who has been with me from day one knows what the gladiator stands for and what the gladiator means. And over time, I think I'll even show I I have a whole philosophy on personality types in in in relation to understanding yourself. And and we may have to cover that soon now that I think about it, but either way, we'll cover it one day. But the gladiator is one of the personality types that you can have. The gladiator represents the part of you that had to fight def to to survive. It's the part of you that had to fight to defend yourself. It's the part of you um that's resilient, that's tough, that gets things done right.
The gladiator is someone that I grew to to love because it's the only way that I was able to survive being on my own at 16. It's the only way that I was able to survive heartbreak. It's the only way that I was able to survive going through college with no support and and and nothing, right? The Gladiator helped me be who who I grow into who I am today. So, I love my gladiator.
But here's the thing. My gladiator is reckless. Okay? My gladiator only knows survival. My gladiator only knows how to break stuff. My gladiator knows how to cut people down. My gladiator knows how to get things done. It ain't worried about emotions. So, the gladiator is that hardened part of you. And when you're going through survival phases of your life, that hardened part is necessary in order for you to survive.
But what happens when I'm no longer in my survival season? What I learned was that when I came out of my survival season, the gladiator that I loved so much because she helped me survive was now hindering me because I had all of this armor on. I had my my breastplate. I had my sword. I had my helmet. I had my shield. I had all of this armor that was protecting me from threats that were no longer present. Protecting me from things that could hurt me. And those things were all in my past.
So now here I am in my season trying to thrive and I couldn't because all of this armor now blocks me from good things. Now the armor is blocking me blocking me from healthy relationships. Now the armor is stopping me from from finding good friends. Now the armor is stopping me from getting promoted at my job because nobody likes my attitude when I'm a gladiator. Nobody likes interacting with you when you're harsh and when you're straight to the point and when you're not loving and when you're cold. No one wants to interact with the hardened parts of you that helped when you were surviving but they hinder you in your thriving season.
So when we talk about disconnecting, you're going to have to disconnect from the defense mechanisms that you developed because of painful circumstances. Some of the defense mechanisms if you guys are sitting down with me one-on-one in therapy, one of the most common ones I see, number one is disassociation. Goodness, that that word just went it was like went left. It was like out of my brain. Disassociation. Okay.
When you go through uh traumatic life events, disassociation is basically how I check out of my life, right? It's like I can be in the middle of doing something. I can be having a conversation with someone. I I could be at work and I I could be physically present, but mentally and emotionally I've checked out. My brain is somewhere else. I'm not present. Emotionally, I'm not present. Mentally, I'm not present. Physically, I'm here. And physically, I'm getting things done, but mentally and emotionally, I have cut off access between myself and that situation. When you dissociate, it's literally like your brain just shuts off and you just go on about your business.
Now dissociation is common for people who have any type of sexual trauma um combat trauma um physical trauma. If you have a history of any type of um excessive trauma or prolonged trauma dissociation is common because in order to tolerate the trauma my brain had to it's like cutting off a light switch. My brain had to shut off so that I could survive that event. Now that I'm in my thriving season, I still have that same defense mechanism where I'm shutting off and I'm not present in my life. So, dissociation stops you from building connections. It stops you from um being emotionally intelligent. It stops you from being present with the people that you love. So, life is happening and you're there, but you're not really experiencing it.
One of the other uh defense mechanisms that you will see is humor. Okay, this was a big one for me. Humor. That in order for me to deflect from, you know, anything I didn't want to talk about or anything that that that was hard or anything that was difficult, I would deflect with humor. So, it's hard for you to have, you know, hard conversations or tough conversations because you turn everything into a joke, right? So, humor can be used as a defense mechanism.
Another defense mechanism is of course becoming defensive, right? So, anytime something happens, it's like you put on your armor and you're ready to fight. Okay? You're ready to to go to war. I I think it was the Transformers I was watching and every time someone talked to the to the Autobot, even though they didn't mean any harm, the Autobot was ready to fight, right? And they're like, "No, no, we're here to help." And they would try to help and then he would be ready to fight again, right?
When you are a person who lives their life on defense, understand you're going to find offense everywhere. This is why people are offended so easily. You think people are saying or doing things to offend you. You don't realize that when I have the defense mechanism up of defensiveness, I am always on the defense, which means I have to have an opponent. I have to have an opponent. I remember I had a coworker and every every weeks she was into it with somebody else and she was like, "Britney, you ain't going to believe what she said to me in that meeting." Okay, she was trying me and I'm like she wasn't thinking about you. Like she she was really just worried about her job. Like and I had to tell her everybody is not thinking about you. But because you are on defense, you are finding opponents in every room you walk into. in every room. Right?
So, if you find yourself in constant conflict and that conflict is in multiple areas of your life, ask yourself, am I creating the opponent that I say that I don't want? Am I creating the drama that I say that I'm trying to get away from? Because I'm I'm always subconsciously looking for the fight.