Cracks in my Defense Wall
By Adrienne Lynch
I recently watched Atlas of the Heart, a series by Brene Brown on HBO MAX that discussed human beings in a way I’ve never heard. One topic she discusses is defensiveness. In the series she says,
“Defensiveness blocks us from hearing feedback and evaluating if we want to make meaningful changes in our thinking or behavior based on input from others.”
This struck a chord with me. I am the ultimate defender. I’ve made lots of decisions in life that I always feel the need to defend. Some great decisions and others I probably wouldn’t make again in hindsight. However they were mine to make. As a kid we all say “I can’t wait until I’m a grown up so I can do what I want.” That is our first line of defense. That’s us saying we can’t wait to do what we want and nobody else can tell us or question us about what we do. Then we grow up and become even more defensive because now we have to protect our decisions from the outside world. Whether that decision be who we love, where we live, what we eat, or how we spend our money. We get defensive in the name of protection. That defensiveness often begins to mask itself as strength. I’m strong so I’m going to protect what I have no matter what anyone has to say. We use defensiveness to build a wall of strong protection.
I’ve found myself doing this often. Someone comes to me and questions a decision I’ve made-that person is getting cut off. In my head that person just proved to me they aren’t worthy of my attention because they don’t see the value in what I’ve done. They don’t see how strong I am. I mean if they are doing anything other than demonstrating praise and appreciation, how can they see my value and strength? That was how my mind worked in a nutshell. The ultimate defender and pillar of strength.
It wasn’t until recently my wall of defense started to crack. Those cracks have started to make me question my decisions. Those cracks lead me to a place of sadness and pity because how could my decisions not be right? I got sad. I mean REALLY sad. I started thinking, did I make decisions that will now mess up my kids forever? Push away my husband? Show the world that I’m a weak individual? Or even worse, a fraud of an adult? I realized I can’t let defensiveness be the only thing that tells me I’m right. Sometimes reflection and change can also be a path to being right (whatever that means…I’ll have to save that for another blog post). So I started listening to the questions of outsiders and really thinking about them. I started questioning myself more and found the value in questions. It’s not easy and like I’ve said before I’m a work in progress so there are still times I get sad, still times I cry myself to sleep, but then I show up the next day ready to make change. The first step in this process for me was recognizing my defensive wall.
Have you recognized your defensive wall? If not, take some time and intentionally pay attention to when you feel defensive. If so, what have you done about it? No- really share in the comments below. Remember I’m a work in progress so I’m always looking for suggestions. How do you handle moments of defensiveness?