Releasing Defense, Creating Peace

People often claim to be listening when what they are really doing is calculating a rebuttal. Although their rebuttal may be valid, responding to someone in a defensive way only escalates relationship conflicts. People want to be “heard” and to feel heard they need to be “felt” as they express themselves. If we can be truly present and feel someone as we listen, we create space for people to resolve their own feelings. If we respond in a rational or defensive way things escalate because it encourages further reactions and response from the other. As we react and respond to each other we are not listening or being present. Things escalate and feelings don’t transform or release, instead they grow with increasing negativity. When a conversation is filled with explanations, rational ideas or defensiveness, the emotional presence required for a more magical transformation is absent.

First, lets acknowledge ourselves as pioneers on a path of learning to express ourselves and tell the truth. Most of us were trained to avoid conflict, be quiet or subservient, and suppress our feelings. It can be challenging to face our feelings and even more challenging to share them in a constructive way.

Listening requires us to slow down and be with what is being said, instead of thinking or calculating a rebuttal. We may fear we’ll forget to say something important. If discussion is needed it is best to save that for later. Our time to express ourselves may come later in the same conversation or it may be another day. It is also important for us to bring up our own issues at a more neutral time, instead of “piggy backing” and interjecting our issues into another’s expression as a form of defensiveness.

Defensiveness stems from the fear that we might be wrong or flawed in a deep way. It will be necessary for us to address our unconscious feelings of inadequacy, invalidation, and shame. Our birth scripts, family histories, and other overt abuses result in our defending ourselves in an attempt to prove our worth or innocence. This defensiveness, is felt by others as our fighting, and as if we started the fight.

Defensiveness is generated by our protecting ourselves, our old hurts, and our vulnerable inner-child. When we defend ourselves and discussions escalate into arguments we are not even noticing that we are feeling hurts. It is as if we get hurt but only allow ourselves to feel it for a fraction of a second. Instead of dealing with the hurt we instead rely on our more rational, defensive or adult aspects to come to our aide and respond. When we communicate this way we are unaware that the other person will feel attacked by our defensiveness. They will feel our warrior while we are feeling our vulnerability but are unaware of how aggressively we are defending it. It is as if two warriors are communicating on behalf of our vulnerable inner children and things escalate. The solution is to love each other enough to simply listen to each other’s hurts.

It is only after we can communicate without defensiveness that we can begin to address the deeper issues and triggers. This is one central theme of my book , The Monogamy Challenge, and my work — to let go of the polarizations that create distance as our issues and personalities trigger each other. The nature of relationships is that we will inevitably be in relationship with someone who possesses some traits and energies that are opposite ours. At first we like the differences, and later we judge them and defend ourselves against them.

The process of working through our relationship issues will be aided by anything that helps us slow down and address our true feelings. This includes counseling and also taking “time outs” to reflect on what we are really feeling. We need time to let go of the fight or flight issues that create increased conflict. Remembering that we love or appreciate someone will help us let go of our defensiveness and help them feel heard.

May we all have the strength to communicate patiently,

Peter