Who Would You Be Without Defense?

What Are Defense Mechanisms?

 

For the most part, defense mechanisms are unintentional and automatic shields against a threat to our egos or bodies.  We could actually say that we are protecting our "ego-bodies" since our bodies are actually extensions of our egos (Note: this is a reversal of the "conventional" view that the ego is an extension of the body).  A few other terms that we can use to describe the same thing are "personality," "constructed self" and "self-image."  This is what we are protecting when we act in a defensive manner. 

This ego-body is subject to change.  It is impermanent, and its main function becomes to continue its existence.  In order to "stay alive" it has to create an elaborate system of defenses.  And, since deep down the ego-body knows that it is impermanent - since it knows that this system of defense will ultimately fail in "the end" - it must try harder and harder to convince us that it is real and that it needs protecting. 

"Beneath" this ego-body is what we might refer to as awareness, essence, being, consciousness, Self with a capital "S."  This is who/what we really are.  This is our eternal, unchanging nature.  Who we are needs no defense because it cannot be attacked.  The ego-body is vulnerable to attack.  Who we are is invulnerable.  As long as we identify with the ego-body, we will feel a need to defend ourselves.  Once we understand our true nature, we will become truly defenseless and live from a place of openness and authenticity.

How Defense Mechanisms Develop

  

When we come into this world we are very "vulnerable."  We are not born with protective armor, sharp fangs, or other types of defenses that we see in nature.  We learn early on certain ways of talking and acting that serve the function of defending us from perceived threats.  These defense mechanisms serve a valuable function related to personal survival.  However, it is a survival of a "constructed self" - a false self.  Although developing this "constructed self" is an important step in our development as a personality, continuing to maintain this "self" later in our lives can become the source of much suffering.
 

The problem is that these same defenses that served a valuable function at one time in our lives begin to hurt us later on.  Protecting ourselves becomes a means of keeping people (all people) away from us.  The walls that keep out the "bad guys" also keep out the "good guys" and keep us trapped inside.  It is hard to relate to someone who is always on guard.
  

We also use these same defense mechanisms to protect our addictions or other self-destructive behavior that we use to make ourselves feel good.  These behaviors give us comfort.  They help us cope.  They seem to take the pain away and make life more bearable.  If our crutches are threatened we get protective of them.  We will do whatever we can to keep them intact. 

What it Means to be "Defenseless"

When we recognize our defenses and begin the process of dismantling them, we might get very nervous.  We might be worried that we will be hurt.  "De-constructing" our "constructed self" can leave us feeling exposed.  In our minds to be defenseless means to be vulnerable, and we believe that vulnerability is never good.

Actually, nothing could be further from the truth.  Being defenseless means realizing our inherent invulnerability.  It means realizing that only the ego-body needs defending.  Who we are needs no defense.  It is only when we let our guard down and take the risk of being fully known and exposed to another that we can know true connection and relationship.  Of course, we might still get defensive from time to time.  However, as we get more practice in questioning our defenses, we can get to the point where defensiveness is no longer our habitual way of being. 
 

The questions we need to ask ourselves are: 

1. Is it true that I need to live in a state of constant defense? 
2. How do I live my life when I think that I have to defend myself in this way? 
3. What would my life be like (Who would I be) if I did not live in this defensive manner? 

These questions are restatements of the four questions that make up The Work of Byron Katie.  The Work is a very simple, yet powerful way to question our stressful thoughts and find "the peace that surpasses all understanding."  Here are the original four questions that we can use to finally understand the beliefs that support our defenses:

     1.    Is it true?

     2.    Can you absolutely know that it's true?

     3.    How do you react when you believe that thought?

     4.    Who would you be without that thought?

After answering the four questions we then take the statement and turn it around.  We can usually turn it around in three different ways - to the opposite, to ourselves, and to the other. 

Through this process we understand that the thought we have been believing for so long is untrue; we get to see the suffering that results from believing this thought; we get to experience what life without this thought would bring; we see that the opposites of what we have been believing are just as true and often truer.  The more we do The Work the less of a hold these painful thoughts have on our minds.  We become more and more free, open, peaceful and non-defensive.