Defense Styles
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Introduction to Defense Style
Every individual who grows up in a defensive society has a defense. This reflects the need to establish an independent identity separate from others. Each defensive identity is a partial view of how we hold our inner masculine and feminine energies. Despite our different gender identities, our evolutionary process guides us to be more creative, reflecting the degree to which we can operate in masculine and feminine energies simultaneously. Therefore, our Defense structure is temporary, which helps us discover our limitations when we do not honor the fullness of who we are. As long as we operate from Defenses, our safety fears and security desires will be our primary motivating force in life, which keeps us from being fully creative. We either deny our authentic masculine and feminine and act in roles (which reflects a Distant or Dis-namic Defense structure) or affirm our masculine and deny our feminine (a Dynamic Defense structure) or we affirm our feminine and deny our masculine (which reflects a Disarming Defense structure). There are also four Defense Styles that reflect that we are between Defense Styles (Distant-Dynamic, Distant-Disarming, Pioneering-Dynamic and Pioneering-Disarming). Eventually, we affirm both the masculine and feminine within us, which is called being Pioneering (see Diagram Defensive Variations).
In childhood, we develop defenses because we do not feel seen or affirmed in a creative manner. The more we experience ourselves as different from our parents or similar in ways that are confusing, the more we are driven to protect our own individuality by taking opposing points of view. Over time, these self-perceptions become more unified into fixed ways of seeing the world called Defense Styles. Initially, Defense Styles make us feel more powerful and clear about who we are. This is because we draw clear boundaries about what works and what does not. Unfortunately, over time, these set ways of operating create the need to attract opposite Defense Style individuals to us. In other words, if we are holding one point of view, we increasingly become attracted to the other end of the spectrum in order to counterbalance our perspective. Defenses, in this way, become positions where we no longer experience flexibility to make a larger choice because we pre-identify and limit our options. Over time, the defense precipitates greater conflicts with others and becomes a major liability because it sabotages our ability to fulfill our goals.
Defenses, therefore, are a temporary means of affirming a part of ourselves that awakens us to the fact that we may be more than we admit. We become free of Defenses when we can ‘be’ and can express ourselves in any particular way without self-judgment or attachment. The three major defensive judgments or attachments are 1) Objectifying ourselves (where we define ourselves in terms of outer appearances), 2) Subjectifying ourselves (where we define ourselves in terms of what we know and compare it to others), and 3) Idealizing ourselves (where we define ourselves by external standards of goodness we have not yet internalized). When we judge ourselves, it fragments our inner awareness into parts of ourselves that we accept and parts we do not. By denying our unique intelligence, we come to rely on the intelligence framework of our parents to protect ourselves. This occurs initially because the negative perspectives of our parents (about how we are operate) are the main issues that need to be neutralized for us to feel safe and secure. The problem is that our defenses are undeveloped and require time to become a more generalized protection mechanism.
We develop our defenses by collecting reasons and rationales for the situation’s being what it is. As children, we commonly use fairy tales or other stories to try to make sense of the dilemmas we find ourselves in. for example, the Cinderella story, where a girl loses her mother and father and needs to deal with a wicked stepmother and half sisters provides a framework for accepting that our situation may not be unique. Each fairy tale creates justification for feeling separated and isolated, and therefore our need to accept the compromises of the situation. In our research, the literal components of the story do not need to be true (such as in Cinderella both parents dying) as much as the emotional experience being metaphorically appropriate. Each defense allows us to believe we will be protected when we disassociate or give up an aspect of ourselves that is in pain. Unfortunately, it institutionalizes the inner conflict and guarantees that we attract the same types of experiences over and over. As the defense matures, we become more adept at distancing and denying our pain because we come to believe in our defense as who we really are, rather than just one perspective.
As we are seeking our inner truth, our reactions to others become the primary indicator that there is some larger truth that has been personally denied. Every reaction we have indicates an unresolved conflict within us. We develop even greater Defensiveness when we superficially examine our reactions and come up with more reasons to avoid deepening our own self-awareness. Distant Defense style individuals are completely run by their Defenses out of a fear that their reactions will be revealed to others if they have any deep conversations. As a result, they tend to keep conversations superficial to protect themselves. Dynamic Defense style individuals like to confront reactions so others will not realize how fearful they are about them. Disarming Defense style individuals will attempt to minimize the reactions of others in order minimize their responsibility. They appear more involved and act as a caretaker so they can minimize the possibility that things will get out of hand. We can only transcend and heal our Defensiveness by being willing to honor the truth about our reactions so we do not have to project them on others around us.
Defenses reflect emotional and intellectual positions that separate us from others. We develop greater understanding and appreciation of our Defenses when we begin with the premise that each of us is both masculine and feminine (particularly on the Intellectual level - Thoughts and Emotions). The more we assume positions about who we need to be to succeed, the more we develop a self concept of who we are that is out of synch with our authentic nature. Some individuals frame this as developing an ego. We call this being identified with our Defense Style, which is how we protect ourselves from undefined differences.
A Defense is a perceptual framework of apparent power, which allows us to justify our choices in the name of personal safety and security. As our experiences become framed by what others think about us, it diminishes and distorts the authentic awareness of our Creative Self. Instead, we identify with our personality ‘self’ which attempts to recover from past objectification by “subjectifying” others with the power of our Emotions and Thoughts.
Defenses originate as a way to maintain our own understanding in the face of adversity. The result is that defenses promote competition. By identifying with our Thoughts we lose sight of the effects that our Thoughts have on others. All we realize is that that our defensive self-perceptions insulate or isolate us from the negative effects of others’ Thoughts. The paradox is the more we judge others, the more we open ourselves up to be judged. When we are caught up in defensive thinking, we get lost in differences and cannot see unifying possibilities.
All Defenses are the assertion of our personality self-concept on the Universe, falsely believing the Universe is working against us.
While defenses indicate a maturing of our personality, they also reflect a preoccupation with thoughts as explaining our reality. We either become attached to a particular Thought to explain our circumstance (called a ‘position’) or we justify a course of action to resolve the denial of past or present Emotions. Each defense has its own particular distortion which keeps it from seeing and accepting the larger creative opportunity. In short, we end up defining our self in terms of those around us, which creates artificial ways to distinguish our individual self from others. In this way, defenses act as a buffering mechanism where the dissonance of our internal conflicts isolates us from others’ conflicts. Ironically, we are each creatively different, but our true creative differences become lost when we identify with the defensive differences of others. This occurs because Defenses emphasize the projection of false strengths (where we want to grow and be seen in our developing power) while requiring the acceptance of our way of being by others.
There are three basic defenses (Distant, Dynamic and Disarming) that form the basis for nine defensive patterns. Distant Defense Style individuals are working towards embodying either masculine or feminine energies and are currently caught up in Gender Identity role-playing. Dynamic Defense Style individuals embody the masculine and have yet to integrate their feminine. Disarming Defense Style individuals embody the feminine and have yet to embody their masculine. Disnamic Defense Style is a combination of Disarming and Dynamic. Defenses can be neutralized when we embody both the masculine and feminine simultaneously, which is called being a Pioneer. It is important to remember that defenses are based on an incomplete perception of our Truth, which is neutralized when we accept our full creativity. Instead of arguing for our limitations, let us honor our ability to grow and expand in our wisdom so defenses become a thing of the past.
We are attracted to people with opposite defenses because they are the only ones who reinforce our defensive stories. When we are around romantic partners with the same defense, we end up confronting our own inner Truth and learn how this is different from our defensive perceptions and distortions. Defenses allow us to believe that our half-truths are actually whole Truths. Healing our Defense means embracing the wholeness of who we are and not just the parts. Embracing our wholeness allows our Emotions and Thoughts to work together, creating the possibility of authentic power. When we are able to stand in our Truth and not define ourselves in terms of others, we will have individuated ourselves sufficiently to know and tell our Truth without compromise. Most importantly, healing our Defenses permits us to discover harmless ways to share our Truth without causing reactions in others. This course uses discussion, partner processes and self-reflection to break out of preconceived ways of protecting ourselves. Let us look at our Defensive patterns to determine the lessons they teach, so we can create new possibilities in our lives.
How we relate to others is the whole point of healing our Defensiveness. Until we experience the choice of how we can respond to others, we are trapped in a Defensive way of interacting. This is a difficult proposition for many of us because we get caught up in perceptions that others can discount, deny or ignore our intellectual truth. From past experiences of being hurt, we manufacture the possibility that we can be hurt at any moment and use it to justify our Defensive projections. Others may deny both themselves and our support, rather than affect the expression of our intellectual truth in any way. It is our perception about their perception of us that effectively reinforces the belief that we need to be Defensive. We begin eliminating defensiveness by not reinforcing the line that distinguishes others’ thoughts from our own and try not to artificially distinguish our thoughts from their thoughts, because ways to energetically do this already exist.
The paradox of Defenses is that we have to understand defenses in order to transcend them.Without understanding the motivations of why we separate ourselves from others, we cannot counterbalance and neutralize our energy. This means we need to interpret our imbalance in a way that maintains our harmony with others. The more we believe their outer presentation over our inner reality, the less effective we will be at neutralizing these imbalances. When we step into these zones of fear, we tend to trigger the issues rather than honor them. Healing defenses is recovering our inner flexibility to see and honor all points of view. The more people fixate on proving they are not their fears, the more we must take their fears into account when we are creating a common meaning that can unify us. A more conscious person is prepared to take leadership by holding the reality that things can and will work out. People who have transcended their Defenses know how to connect with others to bring out the more expansive, unified meanings, thus enabling creative possibilities to be manifested more easily. Unless we take ownership of our Defensive framework, it will continue to define our actions in ways that sabotage our Creative Expression.
Our Defense Styles can actually constrict our ability to be creative, because we believe a part of ourselves is our whole Self. In other words, we fixate on a piece of ourselves at the cost of the whole, creating obstacles in our ability to be valued and seen for our contribution. While this focus does add to our intensity and drive us to manifest something that will seem successful, it does so at the cost of our own inner harmony. When we are defensive, we continually try to leverage the perception of our power versus others around us. As a result, we either become overly ambitious, need to be seen as important or become self-righteous in our indignation that others are not conforming to meet our expectations. Each of these three obstacles reflects fears that we are not willing to confront directly. These fears are: not being loved by Dynamic Defense Style individuals, not being adequate by Disarming Defense Style individuals, or not being wanted by Distant Defense Style individuals.
We create positions to protect ourselves when we are not clear that we can just be ourselves and still be accepted by others. Most of the time, our Defenses reflect positions we have seen people adopt in order to demonstrate their power over others. There are three basic types of positions. They are: 1) that we are stable and consistent; 2) that we are strong and resilient; and 3) that we are innocent and flexible. While most individuals operate from one of these positions, if we initially grew up in a Distant family, we could recognize a little of ourselves in all three positions as a way of protecting us with different people or situations. It is also likely that if we had a Distant background, we could over identify with it at the cost of our present circumstances. If we have been able to read this book to this point, it is not likely that we are a Distant Defense style individual. Most individuals who read this book have evolved to either a Dynamic or a Disarming defense style. See if you can identify your defensive experience from these short descriptions.
Understanding The Three Types of Deffenses
Defenses represent positions or beliefs about who we are and who we are not. There are three basic Defense styles and each one has three levels of expression. As Defenses are created by trying to hide our fears and promote a presentation that is the opposite of our fears, it is easy to see that we cut ourselves off from our own power by being Defensive. Defenses are caused by differences in how we engage people, things, or processes. The three defense styles are Distant, Dynamic, and Disarming. They can be organized both in terms of the degree of expression of masculine and feminine and the degree to which we are able to be conscious with ourselves and others simultaneously. The diagram “Three Defenses” illustrates how these defenses form a quadrant. This diagram reveals that individuals evolve from the bottom, or Distant defense, to the top, Pioneering, which or operating without defenses.
Defense styles compromise the masculine and feminine equally, expressing neither one effectively. The Distant Defense style is at the bottom of the chart, reflecting the fact that we are not conscious of choices and feel caught up in patterns of behavior in which we feel victimized. In a Dynamic Defense style, we affirm an out-of-balance masculine expression that comes from denying our feminine side. It reflects a stepping into one side of our being and trying to express ourselves, at least on a semi-conscious level. In a Disarming Defense style, we over-express an out-of-balance feminine, while denying the masculine. Again, this energy, being equal to the Dynamic Defense style, is semi-conscious in nature. When we finally express the masculine and feminine simultaneously we will truly be able to be ourselves; this is the Pioneering stage. It represents the conscious level of our development that comes about by first adopting our feminine or masculine and then integrating the opposite energy.
Defense styles are partial expressions of our beings that are highly reactive because we do not see the whole picture. As a result, all Defense styles become charged when another individual with a different Defense style makes assumptions we do not hold as being true. The result is perpetual conflict or competition that keeps us from cooperating with others. It is important to realize we are not our Defense style. We are whole beings who, unfortunately, happen to be identified with a part of ourselves. The more we let go of this partial identification and embrace our wholeness, the less natural conflict we will have. The purpose of this chapter is to support our self-recovery process so we will no longer be polarized by the partial views of others and ourselves. Let us first discuss these three Defenses and how we learn to affirm our creativity by becoming Pioneering.
Distant Defense Style
When we have a Distant Defense style, we are caught up in our focus on outer appearances and want more than anything else to be emotionally accepted and intellectually valued for the perfection we manifest. Typically we do not embody the masculine or feminine, but instead get caught up in role-playing as provider or nurturer. In this style, we can be identified by our fear of growth and change, our inability to look others in the eye, and our focus on doing what is expected and proper. In this style, we look to others to maintain and affirm our safety and security because we believe that being with good people will protect us. This is why we call this Defense “Circling the Wagons”, because it reminds us that we only feel safe when others are committed to protecting us.
As Distant Defense style individuals, we see relationships as opportunities to prove we are wanted and needed. While we appear very solid and even rigid to a degree, most of us are both afraid to commit to something and, simultaneously, afraid to not commit to it. This paradox, in which we unconsciously shift from thing to thing, not realizing our inconsistency, confuses others. When we give others mixed messages, it makes relationships even more difficult because most of us only feel safe with people who are consistent. Paradoxically, because we desperately want to be needed, it is even more difficult for us to be seen as being needy. As a result, we get into behavior to preserve our images and suppress ourselves on both physical and intuitive levels. This focuses us on our emotional and intellectual perceptions, so we seek others who are clearly established and have pre-defined expectations with which we feel comfortable.
When we have a Distant Defense style, we fear we are not assertive enough or risk-taking enough to impress others. Others can use our guilt, if we believe we are not being perfect or living up to their expectations, to guide our choices in ways that are not always good for us. What we most fear is not being wanted and or valued for who we are. Frequently, we find ourselves being followers of others because it is easier to find someone to follow than to establish our own path. Another way we try to get along is to develop a sense of humility so we are able to let people know in a soft way when we do not feel capable of performing in the way they expect. One of our biggest challenges is our difficulty in maintaining boundaries because we find ourselves adapting ourselves to other’s boundaries. This makes us want to be Distant so we won’t feel compromised by the needs of others.
Our challenge is to learn how to embrace our own masculine and feminine so we can let go of the role-playing versions of being masculine or feminine. We often don’t notice the difference between when people want to be with us and when they don’t, which causes us to always be seeking assurance that they are with us for their own reasons. Another prime indicator that we are still doing some Distant Defense style behavior is how we protect our energy so others cannot affect us in that area. The key indication of this energy is how we make ourself unavailable and distance ourself from others when they request something of us we feel we cannot deliver. Another indication is how we use Expectations to protect ourselves from doing too much.
Dynamic Defense Style
As individuals with a Dynamic Defense style, we try to prove our capabilities in order to earn love. When we are in a Dynamic Defense Style, we will tend to over-identify with our masculine energy, at the cost of our feminine side, so that we define ourselves independently. The paradox is that we desperately want to be loved but unconsciously make it difficult for anyone to show love to us. In other words, we act tough and strong on the outside to cover up our inner softness and vulnerability. What we want is someone strong to love us without reservation so we don’t need to prove ourselves. By defining ourselves independently of others, in a Dynamic Defense style, we become masters of time and task management. We embrace order and love finding new tools that allow us to accomplish certain tasks more efficiently.
Dynamic Defense style individuals focus on the masculine to the exclusion of the feminine. Being seen as strong, assertive, focused, orderly and masterful in outer actions is key to our vision about ourselves. Our perspective that everything has a purpose that is either fulfilled or not leads to judgments about usefulness and capability. We study the content of the circumstances to determine how to best leverage or intervene in ways that have immediate results. Tactical implementation of strategies leads to a sense of accomplishment and power. The more out of balance the masculine is, the more it leads to aggressiveness and outbursts of anger. This is why we also treasure self-discipline and depth of character that can offset our unconscious need to control or coerce others. Our goal is to get things done, whatever the cost.
As people in a Dynamic Defense style, we don’t believe we have strong relationship skills because we feel weak on the emotional and intuitive levels. Instead, we over-develop our intellectual and physical capabilities to be able to make things happen quickly. In this process, we are disconnected from our higher knowing and often end up doing things we later wish we hadn’t. This is because, when we become anxious and feel we must figure out a solution to the problem, we lose ourselves in the activity needed to solve it. The most important quality we wish to manifest is a sense of robust, silent power. Our intellectual clarity allows us to get into action quickly so we impress others by the systematic way we sort through options to find the most grounded approach.
Our biggest fear is that people might abandon or leave us, particularly if they really knew us on an emotional level. Our independence is also the cause of our isolation and loneliness, which tends to confirm that we are not lovable. Overall, we hide our emotional dependence on others very carefully by focusing on what we provide them, rather than what they provide us. A problem arises when our emotional insecurity is triggered and we tend to try to control others in order to keep our inner focus. Many times just having too many options in front of us can create such confusion as to lead others to believe we are weak. Instead, we would rather be seen as selfish and self-centered, yet with everything in order and under control.
The Dynamic Defense style is typically called a “Perimeter” Defense because of our desire to keep everything in place. While we may appear to be invincible from the outside, anyone that really knows us will be able to call our bluff and will not believe outer strength is the truth of who we are. As people with a Dynamic Defense style, we are much better at dealing with people similar to ourselves rather than people who are different than us. The more differences there are, the more uncomfortable we become. Most of the time this is simply the fear of the unknown. This is supported by the fact that we do not want to be intrusive with others because we don’t want others to be intrusive with us. It is ironic, then, when we end up being so direct. This is because we have a commitment to both telling and hearing the truth.
Disarming Defense Style
Disarming Defense style people believe they are inadequate and, therefore, have difficulty completing things. Men and women in a Dynamic Defense Style will tend to over-identify with our feminine energy, at the cost of our masculine side, so that we define ourselves in terms of others. This means that others become a defensive screen around us to help us establish our own safety. The paradox is that we desperately want to express ourselves authentically, but end up getting lost in the job and overdoing things in order to make a good impression. In other words, we act soft, flexible, and innocent on the outside to cover up our inner strength and inflexibility. What we want is someone to accept our capability and greatness so we don’t have to constantly prove ourselves. By defining ourselves in terms of our peer group, we Disarming Defense style persons become masters of relationship skills. We embrace chaos and love to invoke new possibilities without knowing how they will be accomplished.
Disarming Defense style individuals focus on the feminine to the exclusion of the masculine. Being seen as receptive, nurturing, protective of life, evocative and mysterious in our inner world is key to our vision about ourselves. Our perspective is that everything has a creative context that is either attracting what we want or not. It is our faith and commitment to engage life as it is that engenders hope. Our lack of focus is clearly seen in our trust in ambiguous processes. The more out of balance the feminine is, the more it leads to chaos and rebelliousness against the existing structure. This is why we also treasure spontaneous impulses and desire to contribute in ways that are unexpected that can offset our unconscious need to be critical or complain about others. Our goal is to hold the highest possibility, whatever the cost.
As Disarming Defense style people, we don’t believe we have strong task management skills because we feel weaker on intellectual and physical levels. Instead, we over-develop our emotional and intuitive capabilities to make sure we are doing only the best things at the right times. In this process, we are disconnected from our physical being and actions and often regret that we don’t take action immediately when we know we should. This is because, when we go into excitement or intensity, we lose our sense of focus and end up doing what other people want. The most important quality we wish to manifest is essential, simplified power. Our emotional clarity allows us to see all the possibilities so that we can better consider what to do when. Mist of the time, we don’t take advantage of our intuitive insights.
Our biggest fear is that people may reject us because we don’t live up to their standards. Our consensus-orientation with others makes it difficult to get into decisive action when necessary. Overall, we hide our physical dependence on others by carefully supporting them on an emotional level so that they are deeply connected to us and want us to have what we want. A problem that comes up is that, when our intellectual insecurities are triggered, we either disengage or try to convince them that they don’t know as much as we do. Many times, we feel limited because the possibilities in front of us don’t fit our real needs. This is hard on us, because we are very uncomfortable telling the truth about our needs, particularly in a group.
This Defense style is typically called a “Guerrilla Warfare” approach because of the covert way we divert people’s attention away from what is critical to us, so we can then do what we want in the areas they are not focusing on. While we may appear to be soft and unimposing from the outside, anyone who really knows us recognizes that we have tremendous strength that can come into play if we actually feel threatened. As persons with a Disarming Defense style, we are much better at dealing with people who are different than us rather than people similar to us because we have an ability to create intimacy that makes people feel safe being different from us. The more similarities there are, the more uncomfortable we become. Most of the time this is the fear of being seen and valued in our true creativity. As Disarming Defense style people, we see ourselves as peacemakers who wish everyone would get along. It is for this reason that, as Disarming Defense style individuals, we end up being so indirect and undemanding. This is because we have a predominant commitment to make people feel at ease even at a cost to ourselves.
Pioneering Defense Style
When we move into the Pioneering Affirmation style, it counters all previous Defenses because we see ourselves as a whole human being. We realize that our fears and personality desires no longer define who we are. This means we are able to transcend our identification with our safety and security needs, usually because we have become more identified with our creative nature. The biggest shift in us is that we are no longer attached to our positions or opinions and no longer feel the need to prove ourselves right. Instead, we look to create the whole picture around us and learn how to embrace solutions rather than be locked into a “problem state” mentality. The key quality that enables us to do that is the ability to be with both our masculine and feminine sides simultaneously without inner conflict.
An example of doing masculine and feminine can be found if we were to balance the activities of a planning group in an organization. The Dynamic defense style individuals are seeking to accomplish goals with an urgency that would tend to stifle feminine expression. The Disarming individuals will try to create an openness and flexibility by not assigning a fixed timetable, which would end up denying the masculine. If we were to put these together in a way that both the masculine and feminine could mutually be present, how would it look? It could occur by taking a structure designed by the Dynamic individuals (and doubling or tripling the timeframe) so the Disarming individuals could experience the spontaneity of invoking new possibilities along the way. Usually, a Pioneer could see both sides of the equation and seeks to optimize the situation between both extremes, so everybody could participate fully but equally.
Shifting from being Defensive to not being Defensive means we have let go of our attachments and fears that things won’t work. Instead, we trust ourselves and the process enough to give others all benefit of all doubt so we can effectively see their point of view as easily as we see our own. The major difference is we no longer need credit for what we accomplish and can instead do what is best for all concerned. In this way, we become much more effective, creative implementers because we are not susceptible to polarization based on the fears and misguided desires of others. It should be noted that by using the term “misguided”, we are not judging others, it is just that many fears are based on safety and security needs that no longer are appropriate. In other words, our defensive separation actually gets in the way of producing solutions for everyone. The more we demand that others protect us, the more we prevent higher possibilities from occurring. This is one of the common dilemmas we face as Pioneers.
Another of the key benefits of the Pioneering stage is that we know how and when to trust others because it is related to the degree they trust themselves. We also know how to create a sense of unity so our group efforts can focus us in synergistic ways of engaging others, allowing our creativity to enrich and enlarge the outcome. As Pioneers, we recognize that the value of the process matches the value of the people and the goal. Discounting any of these three things creates an imbalance, making it difficult to engender effective solutions. The more we embody our authentic creative energy and can express it with others, the more we can support others expressing themselves authentically. To the degree that we are not in our creative energy, we are uncomfortable with others being creative around us, and end up discounting or denying their contribution.
Cooperation is one of the prime indicators of a Pioneering individual. The amount of playfulness, paradox and ambiguity contribute to the adventure of interacting with a Pioneer. Pioneers also are able to be fully passionate, embrace beauty, enjoy wisdom and appreciate the dance of living. We are typically congruent on physical, emotional, intellectual and intuitive creative levels and are able to express our truth without effort or delay. This is because we live in an experience of creative alignment. It makes our interactions with others not only delightful, but informative and occasionally transformative. Finally, it is the calmness, serenity and compassion we experience with others that distinguish us from them. Most of all, we enjoy serving others by being conscious with them.
As Pioneers, we knows how to affirm the contribution of others because we treasure and revere individuals being authentic and operating in a way that benefits others. The more we know who we are as creative beings, the more we realize we can never be compromised by others. The only way we could be compromised is to believe we are a victim of the circumstances. The more we are conscious, the more we could choose a sub-optimum choice temporarily until a change could be implemented. This degree of ownership means we are not a victim of the situation. We see ourselves as transpersonal beings that are able to work with others without our inner fears or conflicts becoming obstacles. This allows us to operate with mutual respect for others. In a way, we are able to anchor directly in others the experience they want. Our alignment also makes us very persuasive, as we seem to have the magic of being able to honor others concerns without being trapped in their fears. Finally, Pioneers operate with autonomy and intimacy that provide the foundation for a creative expression that is bigger than who they are.
DEFENSES REFLECT STAGES OF SELF AWARENESS
Defenses use the perception of power to convince ourselves and others of our greatness. In the initial stages of defensive development, we typically identify with our perceptions of how we are capable without considering other points of view. Losing ourselves in our defense assists us in owning our defense, which is a necessary prelude to transforming them. Defenses, therefore, are a temporary means of affirming a part of ourselves that awakens us to the fact that we may be more than we admit. We grow defensively by using the pain of being identified with some aspect of ourselves to awaken our deeper, more inclusive creative nature. Defenses help us to first acknowledge our separation so we can consciously affirm our natural connectedness. Through defenses we experience a rite of passage where we individuate our self. As long as we believe we need to protect our personality it reflects that we are not yet fully aware of our creative nature.
We become free of Defenses when we can ‘be’ and express ourselves in any particular way without self-judgment or attachment. The three major defensive judgments or attachments are 1) Objectifying ourselves (where we define ourselves in terms of outer appearances), 2) Subjectifying ourselves (where we define ourselves in terms of what we know and compare it to others), and 3) Idealizing ourselves (where we define ourselves by external standards of goodness we have not yet internalized). When we judge ourselves, it fragments our inner awareness into parts of ourselves that we accept and parts that we do not. It is ironic that by denying our own unique Creative Intelligence, we come to rely on the Creative Intelligence framework of our parents to protect ourselves. This initially occurs because the negative perspectives of our parents (reflecting how we operate) are the main issues that need to be neutralized to feel safe and secure. The problem is that our defenses are undeveloped and require time to become a more generalized protection mechanism.
We develop our defenses by collecting reasons and rationales for the situation being what it is. As children, we commonly use fairy tales or other stories to try to make sense of the dilemmas we find ourselves in. For example, the Cinderella story, in which a girl loses her mother and father and needs to deal with a wicked stepmother and half sisters, provides a framework for accepting that a situation may not be unique. Each fairy tale creates justification for feeling separated and isolated, and therefore needing to accept compromises in the situation. In our research, it is interesting that the literal components of the story do not need to be true (such as both of Cinderella’s parents dying) as much as the emotional experience being metaphorically appropriate. Each defense allows us to believe we will be protected when we disassociate or give up an aspect of ourselves that is in pain. Unfortunately, it actually institutionalizes the inner conflict and guarantees that we attract the same types of experiences over and over. As the defense matures, we become more adept at distancing and denying our pain because we believe our defense is who we really are, rather than just a perspective of who we are.
In the movie “Waitress”, the lead actress plays a typical Distant Defense Style woman who feels incapable of changing her life. She unconsciously chooses a partner based on a sense of familiarity and the desire to be wanted. At first, she believes this partner (even though tremendously insecure) to be a good parental substitute because he did what was necessary to win her over. She comes to realize that he is an abusive, manipulative seducer that she cannot trust and she needs to get away from him. When he gets her pregnant one night after getting her drunk, she finally has to confront her fears of being a victim and finds her own voice. The circumstance appears in the form of a new doctor with whom she has a love/hate attraction. She needs the affirmation of someone, but at the same time seeks to affirm herself by leaving her husband. She has an affair with the doctor (who has a Distant Disarming Defenses style) because he is more understanding of her. She plays out her Distant Defense Style whenever he attempts to break it off by throwing herself at him. In fact, one of the sub-texts of the affair, is when one of them tries to break it off, it always motivates the other to go beyond their fear and embrace their love of the other.
Defenses reflect how we insulate ourselves from these islands of scarcity, fear and polarization by unifying ourselves on an intellectual level into a self-perceived consistent way of being We create internal justifications for how we are an attractive, intelligent and good person. Over time these self-reinforcing concepts increasingly diverge from our current reality, creating a dualistic framework of viewing the world. As we get older, the Defense becomes stronger by unifying these patterns into more consistent frameworks of what we present to others. We believe this framework will improve our outer circumstances. We increasingly hide from others because we believe we will be rejected. We solidify our Defensive beliefs by engaging individuals with opposite Defenses who challenge us to be what we believe we are. Of course, our Defenses keep us operating in a dualistic state where everything we affirm covers up what we believe we need to hide to be accepted. The more we believe our Defenses, the more ‘phony’ we feel.
As we are seeking our inner truth, our reactions to others become the primary indicator that there is some larger truth that has been personally denied. Every reaction we have indicates an unresolved conflict within us. We develop even greater Defensiveness when we superficially examine our reactions and come up with more reasons to avoid deepening our own self-awareness. Distant Defense Style individuals are completely run by their Defenses out of a fear that their “reactiveness” will be revealed to others if they have any deep conversations. As a result, they tend to keep conversations superficial to protect themselves. Dynamic Defense Style individuals like to confront reactions so others will not realize how fearful they are about them. Disarming Defense Style individuals will attempt to minimize the reactions of others in order minimize their responsibility. They appear more involved and act as a caretaker so they can minimize the possibility that things will get out of hand. We can only transform and heal our Defensiveness by being willing to honor the truth about our reactions so that we do not have to project them on others around us.
How we relate to others is the whole point of healing our Defensiveness. Until we experience the choice of how we can respond to others, we are trapped in a Defensive way of interacting. This is a difficult proposition for many of us because we get caught up in our perceptions that others could discount, deny, or ignore our intellectual truth in a way that diminishes us. From past experiences of being hurt, we manufacture the possibility that we can be hurt at any moment and use it to justify our Defensive projections. The larger truth may be that others actually deny themselves and our support, rather than affect the expression of our intellectual truth in any way. So, in effect, it is our perception about their perception of us that reinforces the belief that we need to be Defensive. We begin the process of eliminating defensiveness by not reinforcing the line that distinguishes others’ thoughts from our own. In this way, we do not try to systematically distinguish our Thoughts from their Thoughts, because CNG ways to energetically do this already exist.
The paradox of Defenses is that we have to understand Defenses in order to transform them. We learn to understand our own defensive structure and by doing so, we learn how to work with others’ defenses. We need to understand the motivations (defenses) of why people separate themselves from others. People separate themselves in order not to be responsible for what others think about them. Defenses are a way to artificially to distance ourselves from Thoughts of connections that we are not comfortable. We cannot counterbalance and neutralize their reactions until we understand our need to distance ourselves from them. This means we have to interpret their imbalance in a way that maintains harmony with them. The more we believe the outer presentation of others over their inner reality (Fears and Desires), the less effective we will be at neutralizing reactive imbalances. This is because, once we identify with a Fear or Desire, we are in fact, compounding the problem.
When we unconsciously step into their zones of Fear, we will tend to trigger their issues rather than honor them. Healing defenses is recovering our inner flexibility, to see and honor all points of view. The more that people fixate on proving they are not their Fears, the more we must take their Fears into account when we are creating a common meaning that can unify us. A more conscious person is prepared to take leadership by holding the reality that things can and will work out. People who have transcended their Defenses know how to connect with others to bring out the more expansive, unified meanings, thus enabling creative possibilities to be manifested more easily. Until we take ownership of our Defensive framework, it will continue to define our actions in ways that sabotage our Creative Expression.
When we transform our Defenses, we do not need to hide our Truth or hide from the Truth of others. We are no longer fixated on forcing others to operate in a particular way to offset our Personality Fears or to accept our Personality Desires by default. People who are defensive automatically seek to negotiate the differences in Personality Fears and Desires as a way of maintaining the connection. People who have transcended their Defenses determine if it is expedient to acknowledge these Personality Fears and Desires in others with Defenses in order to determine if there is a larger creative opportunity. If an opportunity to serve a larger good exists, the non-Defensive person not only unifies with the other, but also shows them how being attached to their Defenses keeps them from connecting with the group. This common experience of isolation and separateness is the real price we pay for being in our Defenses.
9 DEFENSIVE VARIATIONS
Initially, we suggested that our defensive position was a point of view between two extremes – valuing the masculine over the feminine (Dynamic) or the feminine over the masculine (Disarming). We also suggested that a Distant Defense Style did not embody either the masculine or feminine, but rather operated from a place of masculine and feminine roles. In effect, this is the opposite of Pioneering, which is characterized by the simultaneous embodiment of the feminine and the masculine.
However, not everyone fits neatly into the framework of these three defensive patterns. To allow us to reflect greater variation, we have expanded these three frameworks into a total of nine combinations.
We can clarify our defensive situation by identifying where we are in the diagram Defensive Summary. There are nine possible positions in this expanded defense style framework, which expands our original framework, both horizontally and vertically. In order for us to more clearly see and accept how we have grown and modified our defense style in our own history, we are now going to categorize how these combinations are actually expressed in the world. Some individuals more easily see their acceptance of both the masculine and the feminine at different points in their lives. If we have had to adapt to different parental defense styles, it may be more difficult to see how circumstances have re-focused us in our expression. For example, a Disnamic individual (one who sometimes responds as a Dynamic and sometimes as a Disarming, depending upon the other person), will likely find it difficult to distinguish how events define their response. Other individuals experience a more direct path to their current level of embodiment.
Life circumstances, such as having children and then re-entering the workforce after an extended absence, will likely shift the expression of our masculine and feminine polarities. Many of us are sophisticated combinations of both masculine and feminine. We invite you to examine how various changes in life direction have modified or otherwise shifted the focus of your expression. These changes are most likely the result of parental influence, degree of survival and success, and how aligned we are with others’ perceptions of us. If our parental relationships are/were difficult, and we have not individuated ourselves, the process of defining who we are can lead us to want to make drastic changes that effect our choice of defense. If we are isolated, and we do not have a large number of friends who expect us to be a certain way, it is easier to make such a shift. The more we are able to embody both the masculine and the feminine, the less limited and the more adaptive we are.
Our research indicates that we can identify the defensive pattern in a child, with 70% accuracy, by the time he or she is eighteen months old. This reflects the fact that the defense style is actually a learned process that arises as a result of the relative degree of bonding or lack thereof, with both parents. Our purpose is not to judge parents for their bonding or lack of bonding with their children. Some children’s creative energy combination is more dissonant with their parent’s creative energies, whereas some combinations flow more easily. When there is a dissonant mix, bonding is more difficult. The key thing to remember is that each child is a unique, pre-existing combination of creative energies. What they learn in their development process is the Imprinting, Pretense, and Defense structures. To some extent, children simply are who they are.
Diagram: Defensive Variations
If a child does not receive adequate bonding with either parent, they initially learn to relate to others through the Distant Defense Style. When a baby boy does not bond with his father, but has a bond with his mother, it leads to a Disarming Defense Style. If a baby boy has little connection with his mother, but bonds primarily with his father, it will lead to a Dynamic Defense Style. Conversely, when a baby girl bonds primarily with her mother and not with her father, it leads to a Dynamic Defense Style. And finally, when a baby girl bonds with her father and not with her mother, she is likely to manifest a Disarming Defense Style. What can often be confusing is that these bonding issues typically lead us to later idealize the parent with whom we had the most difficulty. This occurs because we want to believe that our initial impressions about their availability (or lack thereof) were inaccurate. It is also important to remember that the defense structure is essentially formed by the age of 18 months.
While the above is true in approximately 70% of situations, it does not fully take into account changes in family dynamics or the personal growth of the parents throughout the child’s young life. For example, the death of one parent may lead to greater bonding with the remaining parent, especially if the loss is a shared one. Siblings, particularly those who serve as caretakers, also have an effect on the formation of our defensive structures. As the child becomes more mature and is able to see things from the parents’ point of view, they often come to see the ways in which their parents did love them. This can lead the former child to reinterpret their previous experiences. Also, a parent becoming more conscious by healing their defense structure can directly affect the child’s range of responses, leading to the child having a greater flexibility and range of expression. Finally, a parent who knows how to engage the child in their defensive framework, can actually re-stimulate new ways of connecting that leads to greater understanding and acceptance. These perceptions can affect our defensive identity because they have the effect of redefining our core defensive beliefs.
It is also true that every time we are in what we consider to be an unsuccessful relationship, we become more polarized in our defensive style. For example, a Distant/Dynamic woman who feels unsuccessful in her relationships, will tend to become increasingly more Dynamic with each relationship. Conversely, a Distant/Disarming man would tend to become increasingly Disarming with each successive relationship “failure.” We also have socio-economic factors that come into play. Women have learned in our society that when relationships are not stable, they need a career to provide financial security. Men, have learned that they need a relationship to maintain their sense of safety and social acceptance. These forces tend to accentuate that we need a clearly drawn defense to “protect” us.
The Distant/Dynamic and the Distant/Disarming mean that we have a desire to be either Dynamic or Disarming, but we tend to hold ourselves back, waiting for others to take action first. This forces the other person to create the parameters in which we are operating. It creates the safety and security of knowing that we are not “making a mistake.” One of the common themes of both of these defense styles is that we do not want to provide information to people for fear that they might possibly use it against us. We frequently find individuals with a Distant/Dynamic background are attracted to individuals with a Distant/Disarming background because they are both seeking to support the other by being what the other “expects” them to be. What they have in common is that they both want structures and some distance from each other in order to help them to determine their own truth.
The “Disnamic” category is a combination of Disarming and Dynamic. We Disnamic individuals define ourselves in response to others, in an effort to make things flow more easily. Paradoxically, this makes others want to support us as well as provide optimum flexibility to allow them to influence and modify our behavior and the behavior of others. We often take opposing points of view, polarizing against the Defensive framework of our partner, just to prove that we are strong enough to do so. We do this in order to ensure that others take us into account and do not underestimate our contribution. In rare situations where we feel safe and valued, we can take the same point of view as our partner, without feeling that we are losing ourselves in some way. The problem with operating from this position is that most of the time, we do not feel fully seen by our partner or by those around us. We tend to become resentful and disenfranchised in our creative expression when we always see ourselves as adapting to others. Others can also become confused and believe that our over-adaptive behavior is a sign of our weakness, rather than our strength. Being “Disnamic” can be effective in helping us to transcend our defensiveness in that we tend to understand both points of view in any given situation. We can see the lack of openness that occurs when others take on a single point of view. The downside of “Disnamic” is that we can easily fall into not trusting any option or answer, leading us to become jaded and indifferent.
The Pioneering/Dynamic and the Pioneering/Disarming individuals are in the process of integrating our masculine and feminine sides. We are no longer blind to the downsides of our defensive structures. We can see how our defense style sabotages our expression. We recognize that there is more than one point of view in any situation, and we are open to investigating what the best approach might be. If we are Dynamic and engaging the Pioneering process, we become softer, more inclusive, and more open to seeing other’s points of view. As Dynamic individuals, we become interested in including and valuing the creative uniqueness of each individual into the overall contribution. Dynamic individuals become more powerful by valuing the importance of the process, by being receptive to unexpected opportunities. If we are Disarming and engaging the Pioneering process, we become more clear and clean in how our personal creativity can contribute to others. As Disarming individuals, we become more comfortable making an impact and defining ourselves in terms of results. Disarming individuals become more powerful by defining our goals in more concrete ways and allowing us to be more accountable in our life expression.
Finally, the Pioneering affirmation style indicates that we have reached a place of simultaneously embodying our feminine and masculine sides. We know we have reached this point of self-realization when we no longer hold defensive beliefs that limit us in our expression. We no longer live out the assumptions and expectations of others, believing we need to define ourselves in other’s terms, in order to gain their acceptance. In short, we no longer compromise ourselves as a way of taking care of others. This is actually not selfish, but rather selfless, when we recognize our commitment to contribute to the world in a supportive way. Wherever we are locked into certain beliefs about where others are or how they will interact with us, it indicates that we are using a defense as a way to protect ourselves.
If a child does not receive adequate bonding with either parent, they initially learn to relate to others through the Distant Defense Style. When a baby boy does not bond with his father, but has a bond with his mother, it leads to a Disarming Defense Style. If a baby boy has little connection with his mother, but bonds primarily with his father, it will lead to a Dynamic Defense Style. Conversely, when a baby girl bonds primarily with her mother and not with her father, it leads to a Dynamic Defense Style. And finally, when a baby girl bonds with her father and not with her mother, she is likely to manifest a Disarming Defense Style. What can often be confusing is that these bonding issues typically lead us to later idealize the parent with whom we had the most difficulty. This occurs because we want to believe that our initial impressions about their availability (or lack thereof) were inaccurate. It is also important to remember that the defense structure is essentially formed by the age of 18 months.
While the above is true in approximately 70% of situations, it does not fully take into account changes in family dynamics or the personal growth of the parents throughout the child’s young life. For example, the death of one parent may lead to greater bonding with the remaining parent, especially if the loss is a shared one. Siblings, particularly those who serve as caretakers, also have an effect on the formation of our defensive structures. As the child becomes more mature and is able to see things from the parents’ point of view, they often come to see the ways in which their parents did love them. This can lead the former child to reinterpret their previous experiences. Also, a parent becoming more conscious by healing their defense structure can directly affect the child’s range of responses, leading to the child having a greater flexibility and range of expression. Finally, a parent who knows how to engage the child in their defensive framework, can actually re-stimulate new ways of connecting that leads to greater understanding and acceptance. These perceptions can affect our defensive identity because they have the effect of redefining our core defensive beliefs.
It is also true that every time we are in what we consider to be an unsuccessful relationship, we become more polarized in our defensive style. For example, a Distant/Dynamic woman who feels unsuccessful in her relationships, will tend to become increasingly more Dynamic with each relationship. Conversely, a Distant/Disarming man would tend to become increasingly Disarming with each successive relationship “failure.” We also have socio-economic factors that come into play. Women have learned in our society that when relationships are not stable, they need a career to provide financial security. Men, have learned that they need a relationship to maintain their sense of safety and social acceptance. These forces tend to accentuate that we need a clearly drawn defense to “protect” us.
The Distant/Dynamic and the Distant/Disarming mean that we have a desire to be either Dynamic or Disarming, but we tend to hold ourselves back, waiting for others to take action first. This forces the other person to create the parameters in which we are operating. It creates the safety and security of knowing that we are not “making a mistake.” One of the common themes of both of these defense styles is that we do not want to provide information to people for fear that they might possibly use it against us. We frequently find individuals with a Distant/Dynamic background are attracted to individuals with a Distant/Disarming background because they are both seeking to support the other by being what the other “expects” them to be. What they have in common is that they both want structures and some distance from each other in order to help them to determine their own truth.
The “Disnamic” category is a combination of Disarming and Dynamic. We Disnamic individuals define ourselves in response to others, in an effort to make things flow more easily. Paradoxically, this makes others want to support us as well as provide optimum flexibility to allow them to influence and modify our behavior and the behavior of others.
We often take opposing points of view, polarizing against the Defensive framework of our partner, just to prove that we are strong enough to do so. We do this in order to ensure that others take us into account and do not underestimate our contribution. In rare situations where we feel safe and valued, we can take the same point of view as our partner, without feeling that we are losing ourselves in some way. The problem with operating from this position is that most of the time, we do not feel fully seen by our partner or by those around us. We tend to become resentful and disenfranchised in our creative expression when we always see ourselves as adapting to others. Others can also become confused and believe that our over-adaptive behavior is a sign of our weakness, rather than our strength. Being “Disnamic” can be effective in helping us to transcend our defensiveness in that we tend to understand both points of view in any given situation. We can see the lack of openness that occurs when others take on a single point of view. The downside of “Disnamic” is that we can easily fall into not trusting any option or answer, leading us to become jaded and indifferent.
The Pioneering/Dynamic and the Pioneering/Disarming individuals are in the process of integrating our masculine and feminine sides. We are no longer blind to the downsides of our defensive structures. We can see how our defense style sabotages our expression. We recognize that there is more than one point of view in any situation, and we are open to investigating what the best approach might be. If we are Dynamic and engaging the Pioneering process, we become softer, more inclusive, and more open to seeing other’s points of view. As Dynamic individuals, we become interested in including and valuing the creative uniqueness of each individual into the overall contribution. Dynamic individuals become more powerful by valuing the importance of the process, by being receptive to unexpected opportunities. If we are Disarming and engaging the Pioneering process, we become more clear and clean in how our personal creativity can contribute to others. As Disarming individuals, we become more comfortable making an impact and defining ourselves in terms of results. Disarming individuals become more powerful by defining our goals in more concrete ways and allowing us to be more accountable in our life expression.
Finally, the Pioneering affirmation style indicates that we have reached a place of simultaneously embodying our feminine and masculine sides. We know we have reached this point of self-realization when we no longer hold defensive beliefs that limit us in our expression. We no longer live out the assumptions and expectations of others, believing we need to define ourselves in other’s terms, in order to gain their acceptance. In short, we no longer compromise ourselves as a way of taking care of others. This is actually not selfish, but rather selfless, when we recognize our commitment to contribute to the world in a supportive way. Wherever we are locked into certain beliefs about where others are or how they will interact with us, it indicates that we are using a defense as a way to protect ourselves.
Our conditioning and defensive beliefs attract certain lessons that appear to confirm our need for our defense. Some of us develop our defense style in a consistent manner, and over time, we have no major redirections or changes in our core defensive beliefs. If this is true for you, then this previous chart does not deepen the discussion for you. However, for those people who have undergone major shifts in core defensive beliefs, the previous chart will help you to explain your defensive experience as it has developed and evolved. It will also allow you to make sense of the conflicting beliefs that you have held at different points in your life.
For example, we may grow up with Distant parents who do not bond with us. Over time, however, a young girl may become closer to her father. This would indicate movement from a Distant Defense Style into a Distant/Disarming Defense Style. If her father were to die, the development of her Disarming defense might become compromised, and it’s likely that she would seek the safety and security of a “Disnamic” defense style. Being in this position may make it difficult for her to bond with potential partners. After a number of “failures,” she would tend to become more Dynamic. After engaging this work, she could come to understand how she has taken on different defensive perspectives. Ultimately, when we fully see and appreciate our own defensive structure, we become more compassionate and able to see what has led to the defensive structures of others.
Distant “self” Perception Framework
We Distant Defense Style individuals have our own particular mythology, based on the premise that seeing is believing. The key is that we want to reinforce our safety by keeping things “fixed” and unchanging around us. The more we can anchor ourselves into our reality structure, the more it naturally reinforces our existing role-playing patterns. Optimally, we distance ourselves from the unknown by fixating on how we are known. This occurs because we objectify our self, leading us to objectify others around us. Ironically, we give away our “objectification” by how we react when others label us. It is ironic that we hate being objectified by others but find ourselves objectifying them to keep things safe and “easy”. When we are taking the Distant view, it is as if we are seeing through rose-colored glasses. The world seems flat, but we know it is not. The sun appears to circle above us through the sky, yet we realize that it is we who are circling the sun. When we place a stick or rod in water, it appears to bend, and yet we know it does not. Our Distant Defense Style perceptions want to believe that what we see is our reality, even though intellectually, we may recognize the discontinuities that exist. Our tendency is to accept the superficial appearance of things as reality, not understanding that we seek to include the perceptions of others who agree with us, to validate our perceptions. In short, when we see that the world perceived by human consciousness is not identical to the world as perceived in the consciousness of God; our limited perception is Maya, which is a superficial appreciation of life.
As Distant Defense Style individuals, we also tend to over-identify with our Gender Identity, leading us to perceive others on the basis of their gendered behavior. This causes us to be fearful about the opposite sex, or in different versions of sexual identity (Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, etc). When we fall into the perception that people are what they do, we cannot fully appreciate their contributions or their larger purpose. Instead, we tend to fixate on their behavior as the manifestations of their Intention. We do not appreciate the motivating purpose behind their Intention, while paradoxically, we are assigning an Intention to their behavior. We are naturally skeptical of other people’s perceptions, because we believe that they are less reliable than our own. As a result, we believe things need to be proven to us before we even consider accepting their validity. This makes us prime candidates for franchise opportunities. Franchises sell us on the idea that copying a proven pattern will more likely lead us to success. What is not taken into account is that true Inner Success can only be generated by finding our own authentic way of doing things. The irony is that Dynamic or Disarming Defense Style individuals would see this as a personal trap, tending to rebel against the idea that imitating anything would lead to success. They would rather trust their own ability to create their own course of action.
As Distant individuals, we seek structures as a way of maintaining our safety and security. We tend to idealize the machine-like systems theory that suggests that everybody has an appropriate part to play in the larger whole. Distant Defense Style individuals tend to have attachments to proven ways of doing things. We naturally resist change. As a result of cutting ourselves off from our environment, we tend to be disconnected from all three levels of Life, Light, and Love energies. Our fear of the unknown keeps us from being playful, spontaneous, or adventurous. We want to keep our options open while appearing to others to be solid and steady. It is the disconnection from our Self that attracts us to religious frameworks that provide a sense of safety and security. The final strength that we believe we have is the belief that our parents did not raise a person who is foolish or impulsive. We look before we leap.
The blind spot of Distant Defense Style individuals is that we are constantly caught by the future consequences of our current actions. Unable to effectively predict outcomes, we feel at the effect of the choices we have made. This leads us to try to be more selective in the choices that we make. The more controlling and discriminating we become, the less we are able to be spontaneous, thereby undermining our Passion and Playfulness. Our need for perfection blindsides us to the fact that what is happening is already perfection. Attempting to anticipate everything also makes us either martyrs who are never seen or valued for where we are, or we fall into nagging behavior where our attempts to help others inevitably backfires. In either situation, our attempts to get closer actually distance us from others.
The need for certainty also causes us to miss what is right in front of us. We want to believe that having an Intention to accomplish something will result in its fulfillment. One of the main problems is that we don’t take into account all the variables, which usually extends the processes that we are working with. Our Desire to simplify minimizes our ability to complete the projects we set our minds to. Our Belief that we know what is occurring keeps us from questioning what is occurring. In this way, our own Attachments to “what is” are further confused by our misperceptions of what is occurring. Instead of fixating on believing that the past is an indication of the future, we need to let go of what we think we know to explore what is actually possible. This requires us to see the world in a richer, more complex manner. It also helps if we are willing to question what we see, rather than accept it blindly.
Distant Defense Style
When we have a Distant Defense Style, we ignore other people and establish ourselves on our own terms.We call this a “Distant” position because we try to maintain a consistent ‘neutral zone’ with others in order to keep from being compromised by them. When we are Distant, we maintain our boundaries by physical proximity; when others move forward, we move back, and vice versa. People are attracted to this situation and to each other when they have complementary roles that can be used to define interactions. This position can be identified when we try to be clear in our Intent with others to avoid causing misunderstandings that create confusion. Because we are very uncomfortable when there is confusion, we will seek the structure of intellectual certainty. We use righteous indignation, false humility and pride as a way to keep others at bay. While we tend to hate hierarchical positions of authority and power, paradoxically we feel comforted when these roles are fixed and known in advance. In this way, we sense that we can effectively perform as a doer because there is an existing framework for knowing the right thing to do.
One of our biggest fears is to be “put on the spot” where we do not know how to relate to people in a way that will be accepted. The fear of being rejected or made a scapegoat keeps us in line. Since we are also afraid of others demanding obedience in exchange for acceptance, it is hard for us to share our true motivations, interests or desires. If we are part of a group, and the group is threatened, we use common fears to “circle the wagons”. Generally, our fear is that we will be ostracized, isolated, and not wanted by others. We use role-playing as a way of meeting others expectations of us. We are afraid to be real, to embrace change and to show up without any predefined way of being successful. Many times we are driven to be perfectionists. We keep ourselves from passionately connecting to things, for then others could have the power to take them away from us. We believe others want to be like us, so we use guilt, when practical, to attain conformance to our ideals.
Usually, our operating in a Distant pattern reflects that our parents did not know how to implement their masculine or feminine energies effectively. We became traumatized by their lack of response to us as children, and we dealt with it by becoming indifferent to them. This keeps us from effectively expressing ourselves on a creative level because we were conditioned not to show any vulnerability or passion. We believe all this is normal and tend to believe our parents performed their roles admirably. Without creatively congruent parents, we did not learn to honor our own natural expression and instead tended to become defined by our unfulfilled fantasies that we could escape the problems and pretenses of our parents. Paradoxically, the more we resisted our parents, the more we were defined by their personality fears and desires. If we fully accepted them, we adopted their life lessons instead of our own. These obstacles increase our fears of making mistakes or being wrong in our choices. We expect the judgments of others and are reassured when they oblige us.
As a Distant defense style individual, we have two levels of protection. The outer level helps us not to reveal our motives and intentions to others so they will not be able to read us. The inner level is where we disconnect from our own self so we do not need to respond to our own need to grow. While others do not perceive that we have clear boundaries, we do possess an ability to detach from the perspective of others by closing down our sensitivity. Our response to others doing things in unpredictable ways is to take action to protect ourselves preemptively, becoming passively resistant and observing where they are, or imitating someone we believe would be successful in the situation. What we want is not to be hooked, become passively resistant and observe where they are, or to imitate someone who we believe would be successful in the situation.
With a Distant defense style, we typically avoid excitement because we feel powerless when we are passionate. When we open up to others, it makes us feel vulnerable to being manipulated by others. We are incredibly sensitive and constantly interpret the motives of others in ways that make us feel good. We do not understand when they operate in a way that does not take our view into account. Ironically, even though we think we are great at interpreting the motives of others, we cannot see and own our own motives. Our big fear is that others will believe we do not take responsibility for ourselves and our actions. Unfortunately, it is easy for others to believe, because of our natural unwillingness to grow in their way, that we are not interested in growing in any way. We will grow in the way we want when we want.
The more we operate in a distant manner, the more serious we become in meeting the expectations of others so they will feel compelled to meet our expectations. In order not to be judged, we project a false sense of certainty because interiorly we need time to assess the situation to make sure we are choosing the right path. Occasionally, we feel driven to check our options with others before we are comfortable making a choice. As our strengths are on intellectual and emotional levels, we vacillate between these frameworks to justify our choice in the moment and the direction we take. Overall, we pay attention primarily to those individuals who accept us and approve of us as we are. In this way we are drawn to people who seem to be more stable, consistent and traditional in their interactions.
Since we are primarily externally focused in our assessment of what is going on around us, it is hard for us to identify and report our inner sensations, feelings, emotions and thoughts in an integrated way. As we use the material reality as our frame of reference, we discount anything that does not have a tangible provable existence. We become overly defined by the appearance of things without realizing that we have different perceptions internally. It is our internal fear of emptiness, which drives us to seek possessions as a way to reinforce our own internal Safety and Security. When we objectify everything around us, we end up being objectified by our environment, which makes it hard to see things in context.
When we are operating in a Distant defense style, we over-protect ourselves by finding ways to distance ourselves from any and all conflicts. The more we cut down on our interactions with others, paradoxically, the more we become conscious of how much we need others to be there for us. As we grow through the Distant defensive process, we move from the perspective of just toughening ourselves to these external issues, to interacting in a way that is mediated by a mutual interest in taking care of each other. Our real conflict arises when we realize that in order to get others to take care of us, we need to take care of them in some way. It is this fundamental compromise, which keeps us vacillating between trying to engage others and trying to protect ourselves. It also keeps us feeling a sense of scarcity because we do not know how we are going to create a solution for ourselves.
Usually, we are uncomfortable with both a simultaneous physical and emotional connection because it over-stimulates us. Because of the tension in our bodies, it is hard for us to unify our awareness within ourselves so we can address others external to ourselves. This means we can be uncomfortable with sustained physical contact. We tend to fall into the process of working on one thing at one level at a time in order to maintain a sense of focus. This makes it hard for us to keep up with others when things are changing. What we are learning is to own and speak our own truth so we can become more individuated. We need to feel that we are becoming successful in our contribution in life for us to fully embody this experience. Our way of dealing with the world is to attempt to maintain a state of tranquility within ourselves. As we begin to transcend the Distant defense style, this tranquility becomes more real.
When we realize how Distant our parents were, and how much we hated the arguments and conflict at home, we are moving out of the Distant defense style. It is easy to identify with the Distant patterns even if they are no longer fully descriptive. Some of us had parents operating at different levels, which meant that we had to behave situationally, based on which parent we were interacting with in the moment. Individuals in such environments have a Distant background, which enables them to do Disarming or Dynamic behavior, based on what is needed to protect themselves in any situation. If you are confused in reading the Dynamic and Disarming sections and realize you no longer fit the Distant pattern, it is likely you have combined various defensive structures to fit your in-the-moment needs. The upside of this process is that it you can move more easily into the Pioneering healing process. The downside is that it is more difficult for you to find balanced partners who reflect your true nature.
EXAMPLES
Gary Cooper -- actor
George Carlin – comedian
Tom Cruise – actor (is sometimes operating up to level three Distant)
Mia Farrow – actress
Sharon Stone – actress (is sometimes operating up to level three Distant)
Charlie Chaplin – actor
Pee Wee Herman – actor, children’s show host
Don Adams – actor
Andy Kaufman – actor/comedian
Mick Jagger – musician/singer
Woody Allen – actor/writer/director/producer
David Letterman – TV talk show host
Mike Tyson – prizefighter
Bill Gates – founder of Microsoft
Bing Crosby – actor/singer
Ralph Nader – consumer activist
Joan Baez – activist/folk singer
Robert Stack – actor
Sigmund Freud – psychiatrist
Sandra Bernhardt – actress/comedian
Dennis Hopper – actor
Henry Kissinger – former U.S. Secretary of State
Patrick Stewart – actor
George Foreman – former heavyweight champion boxer
George Hamilton – tanned actor
William F. Buckley, Sr. – author, news commentator
John Malkovich – actor
Bryant Gumbel – TV personality
Rex Reed – movie critic
Bruce Dern – actor
Dick Clark – TV personality
Richard M. Nixon – former U.S. President
Bob Hope – entertainer
Christopher Walken – actor
Art Garfunkle – singer
David Niven – actor
Distant Dynamic Defense Style
If you we are a Distant-Dynamic Defense style individual, you use content understanding and grasp the most tactical thing to do to keep others from influencing what you do. We need to be thinking ahead and anticipating what is needed so we can establish ourselves as the central decision-maker in any situation. We over identify with our fear that we might lose control which motivates us to quickly assert our perspective in a way others cannot preempt. We are not satisfied until we have figured out what others need to do to fulfill the opportunity in front of them. Others may consider our demands unrealistic, however, this only strengthens our resolve to continue to clarify how they should participate in our plans.
We seek personal clarity and expect others to do the same. Being in control and helping organize others is seen as one of our primary contributions. This emerges from our desire to deal with things immediately and push as far as we can, when we can. We see ourselves as task management oriented because we do not get much joy riding heard on others. The downside is that we have difficulty incorporating the ideas of others into our creative process especially if they have not demonstrated competence. We find it difficult to let things emerge in their own time and place because it seems unproductive and diminishes our sense of making an impact on the world. We enjoy personal projects where we can control the outcome,but question our motivation when we need to depend on others who may or may not have the same intentions. Where we acknowledge ourselves is in our ability to push forward and produce results particularly with proven suppliers or supporters because it minimizes the degree of chaos that we engage.
When stressed, we tend to engage others more forcefully believing our personal will can make the difference in making things happen. Unfortunately, our bluster and hard driving need to fix a situation frequently makes it difficult for others to connect with us on a personal level, so we get little positive feedback increasing our sense of isolation. While we enjoy pushing people to get results, we also secretly want a greater sense of intimacy which others would not expect. The desire to be seen as an effective and productive individual frequently hides our vulnerability, tenderness and capacity for intimacy. While we act as if we are not sensitive to what others think about us, the truth is we are extremely sensitive to what others think. Our identification with results sets us up to believe we are admired and adored when we are making things happen or reviled and hated when we don’t. What others do not see is that we judge ourselves completely by external goals and we punish ourselves when we are not satisfied.
While our main fear is not being wanted by others, the growing fear is that we will not be seen, appreciated or loved for the contribution we make. As a result, we continually set up situations where we establish expectations that we can precisely meet. We are highly motivated to hide our feelings or emotions believing they will undermine our credibility. One of the ways we prove our capabilities is to become a leader whom others can follow. As a Distant-Dynamic Defense style individual, we grow in our ability to make things happen, especially using task management skills. By focusing on time management, we become more realistic measuring and evaluating what does work to help us make better predictions. Unfortunately, similarities between ourselves and others scare us, as we like to have clarity and objectivity and not make decisions based on any form of enmeshment. We are uncomfortable when others presume that our friendship will enable them to get by with doing less driving us to maintain distance from them to prevent this from occurring.
Initially as a Distant-Dynamic Defense style individual, we are less concerned about our past and constantly analyzing our future to determine the potential impact of any action. This shows up as more unconscious, free-floating anxiety when the future becomes clouded or compromised by factors outside of our control. As we become more confident about the value we provide, we move from being worried about our security to being more concerned about our safety because we are beginning to engage our deeper fears about the lack of intimacy in our experience. We also feel quite vulnerable when others are emotionally reactive to us or actions we have taken. While we are happy to support others seeing their truth in the situation, we do not advocate caretaking or even mentoring others in an undefined manner. Chaos and change are inherently threatening and more easily dealt with externally than internally. As a result, we are very selective and discriminating particularly around people we do not know.
Usually, in this type of defense structure, we become clearer about how our thoughts guide our actions so we can see the patterns that work. While we still find it difficult to own or honor our feelings, we are open to becoming more embodied in our actions by seeing the consequences of not speaking up. In this way, we err on the side of saying more when things do not seem to be going well. Our focus on being consistent and solid in our motivations reflects a rather narrow approach as we only honor those emotions that produce results. One benefit is that as we amplify our ability to get things done, we build greater confidence than Distant Defense style individuals. We seek to prove our value so we can be distinguished from the mainstream. This allows us to believe that we deserve greater universal support than others.
The real issue for Distant-Dynamic individuals is that we want to avoid fixed beliefs about how to be with others. The less flexible or accepting a potential partner is, the more fearful we are that we won’t be able to meet his needs. Since it takes us a long time to become deeply involved and it is easy to say no to our partner, we can be callous and indifferent if our partners’ expectations seem too much. We test the limits of our newfound reputation by going beyond others’ expectations of what we will and will not do. This acknowledges that we need to be able to tell our partner when we are being emotionally overwhelmed so we can slow the process (and go deeper into it). Since the last thing we want to do is stir up dissent or disagreement, it is ironic that we distance ourselves by making critical or judgmental statements that others are likely to perceive as attacks. It is hard for us to see that by distancing ourselves, we evoke the very response we seek to avoid. The more we take a stand (and care for ourselves), the more we are an example of being vulnerable and open without losing our inner sense of strength. It is only by acting with intimacy that others are inspired to provide the adoration we crave.
Distant Disarming Defense Style
Distant-Disarming Defense style individuals, use intention to help and serve others and to protect ourselves from their judgments. We over identify with our desire for goodness and expect others to act civilly to us. Because of our conviction about how things should be, others rarely disagree with us. We are not satisfied until we know that we are doing all we can to encourage others to be all they can be. Others may view our behavior as being overly demanding or idealistic, however, we consistently feel we are not doing enough.
We seek a sense of relatedness and expect others to want the same. We attempt to see the best in others and to keep options open, which is the primary means by which we contribute to others. We see ourselves as people oriented because we do not get much joy from wrestling with ideas or taking pre-emptive action. The downside is that many things, which inspire us, never get beyond a conceptual stage. We find it difficult to complete thoughts or take action when we need to do it alone. While we believe we are capable of doing anything we want to do, we doubt our motivation when it is not in alignment with those around us. We give ourselves the benefit of the doubt in predicting the likely behavior of others because we trust our observations and believe we have sufficient insight to effectively predict their behavior.
When stressed, we tend to distance ourselves from others while we recuperate because of our inner belief that since we do not enjoy ourselves, why would anyone else. Unfortunately, this isolation frequently sends us into a tailspin, further reducing our ability to regenerate. The judgments we make about how others will negatively respond are reinforced when we are in a particular mood. The desire to be seen as a good person drives us to hide our true nature, so noone will learn the range or diversity of our experience. While we are sensitive to what others think about us, it is easy to get caught up in comparisons where we cannot win. As a result, we separate and isolate from others as a form of penance that also confuses those who love us. What they do not understand is we care most about them, so we try to protect them from our unruly parts where we act out our fears.
While our main fear is not being wanted by others, the growing fear is that we will be proven inadequate in our contributions. As a result, we continually set up situations where we under-promise and over-deliver. We are highly motivated to hide our fears of inadequacy and prove to the world just how capable we can be. One of the ways we prove our capabilities is by becoming a leader others can follow. As a Distant-Disarming Defense style individual, we are growing in our ability to appreciate people. Our capacity to provide effective feedback to others is increasing and we become more cognizant about the differences between people. Unfortunately, differences are scary if we cannot see how they can be worked out. When they seem bigger than our capacity to deal with them, we automatically avoid discussing them. Otherwise, we are on the front line helping people to accept their differences with others. This is one of the ways we provide value.
As we become more confident about the value we provide, Distant-Disarming Defense style individuals move from being worried about our safety to being more concerned about our security. This means we become less concerned about re-creating our past (where our safety was established) to worrying about the future because of the changes we see going on around us. While we are happy to support others in changing their circumstances, we do not always appreciate the changes happening in our own life. This is because change is threatening and is more easily dealt with internally rather than externally. As a result, we are very selective with how and where we decide to address changes.
Usually, we become clearer about our own feelings, which allows us to accept the feelings of othersmore easily. While we still find it difficult to own or honor our sensations, we are open to becoming more embodied in our actions by accepting their consequences. Ironically, this increased acceptance of our energetic wellbeing is not the result of how others treat us but rather how we come to accept and treat ourselves. One benefit is that we amplify our ability to love ourselves and accept support from the universe. This shows up as being less judgmental or being as stuck as Distant Defense style individuals. While the sense of scarcity becomes less pronounced, overall, we seek to understand and know the structure of others’ expectations so there will not be any unexpected demands.
The real issue is that we want to avoid fixed beliefs about how we should be with others. The less flexible or accepting a potential partner is, the more fearful we are that we won’t be able to meet his needs. Since we easily become involved and it is very hard to say no to our partner, we can get submerged in situations where others’ expectations become too much. In this situation, we test the limits of our newfound ability to share our truth with others in a way that minimizes their reactions. This reflects that we need to admit our limits and acknowledge appropriate boundaries with our partner. Since the last thing we want to do is to hurt our partner, we fear he will think we are callous and non-accepting if we limit our support in any way. It is hard for us to see that defining ourselves independently of the situation, actually increases our ability to address the problem. The more we take a stand (and care take ourselves), the more we are an example of what our partner needs to accomplish. It is only by being selfish enough to honor our own minimum requirements, that others are encouraged to do the same.
Distant Defense Style individuals can best heal by addressing the following:
- We need to stimulate our inner energetic connection with our Self so we are free to fully be our Self with others. The first step is to minimize our negative, critical self-dialogue. Instead, we need to build a positive inner framework for affirming and re-interpreting (from the glass is half empty to it is half full) our creative process. We also need to eliminate whatever beliefs limit our creative re-birth. This means in situations where we feel driven to make things perfect, we need to let go of this image and find ways to see the perfection in what actually is in front of us. This will increase and build a sense of connection that will lead us to discover how much we are wanted.
- We need to stop personally engaging guilt as a Creative Self-denial process. The more we need to justify our existence by caretaking and providing support to others, the more we will be caught in activities that do not honor or support us. When we use guilt to get our Self to do things we do not want to, it is easy to use guilt to get others to do what we want. If we do this, we will be more likely to take on their guilt when they want something in return. In short, using guilt opens us up to being guilty about others.
- We need to stir up our lives and increase our willingness to engage change so we do not fall into pre-established expectations that limit our spontaneity. In other words, we need to use the fire of Transmutation to burn through our entranced, conditioned behavioral patterns. Inertia is the primary obstacle to shifting out of defensive interactions. Recognizing and healing our unconscious reaction patterns demonstrates that we are not these patterns and can change and evolve. This will allow us to playfully engage new opportunities without getting caught up in performing.
- It would be useful to investigate our thoughts and emotions on a deeper level in a way that allows us to see how they do not always need to calibrate to one another. As Distant defense style individuals one of our core protection patterns is to constantly shift between thoughts and emotional perspectives, to create a less reactive interpretation of what is occurring. When we see how our thoughts and emotions are just two out of five frameworks (physical, feeling, emotional, intellectual, and intuitive) it reduces our need to explain everything in terms of these two. The result is we are less reactive. This allows us to be more open and responsive to others in the moment. Currently, we may be scared by divergent emotions and seemingly contradictory thoughts and end up disappearing in the confusion.
- It is time to question and challenge our perceived Safety Fears and Security Desires that were instilled in us as children and may no longer serve us. While many of these old patterns were useful to us as a child, as adults they keep us from being present with our Self and our outer circumstances. We can start by challenging our fears in areas where there is little to no consequence, moving on to larger issues, such as our fear of death. We want to release the energy trapped in these patterns (which is causing use to become rigid) so we can regain our fluidity and be spontaneous.
- We can investigate how we create a superficial sense of harmony between us as people by avoiding conflicts and reactions. By addressing our internal conflicts and reactions, we discover that we have nothing to fear about them. We also can at the same time, release our frustrated desires about how others should love us. The more we can see that our Personality Fears and Desires are past conclusions we do not need to act out in the present, the less relationship baggage we need to bear. We also need to examine whether our roles are actually keeping us from building a creative flow and expression with others. If possible, we should try changing our roles, experimenting with how creative and flexible we can become.
- With the help of a partner we trust, we can explore how we can simultaneously feel emotionally connected and physically affectionate. The key is to “unthaw” the frozen energy caught up in past patterns. We can also try to slow down the process in order to notice how we ebb and flow between these our emotions and sensations. We may need to share our reactions and patterns as they arise for some period until we can be completely present with our Self. This will be a great healing process as long as we do not judge our self (or own up to it as it is occurring) or our partner. This should allow us to learn how to relax and be present with our partner as well as our Self.
Dynamic “self” Perception Framework
We Dynamic Defense Style individuals have a particular scientific orientation that is based on the premise that we need to validate our hypotheses. An hypothesis is a statement that we are willing to examine and verify based upon reason, logic, and deductive understanding. In this way, we are always trying to distill our higher ideas down to the most grounded and focused assumptions. This occurs because we “subjectify” our personality self, leading us to objectify and subjectify the thoughts of those around us. When we are Subjectified or subjectify others, at the base of this distortion is the belief in a certain truth. When we are unsure, we tend to take on the Beliefs of others without examining them in terms of our own Knowing. This eventually leads us to want to be seen for our Truth so that others will respond to us. What we want them to do is to agree with us without question. By this we mean that we define our “self” in terms of some ongoing process that has a larger purpose that others will defer to.
Unfortunately, we are not completely in control of this larger force. We can validate this by how polarized we become when someone else attempts to shift us to serve their purpose. We tend to over-identify with our Individuation Identity, and therefore perceive others only on the basis of their thoughts match our own. While it may be our ideas and research that distinguish us from others, we believe it is our clarity and focus that makes us powerful in the world. While we are selective about moving forward, when we want something, we are the first ones to “go for it.” Others would say that it is our attention to detail and our time orientation that allows us to push things forward, even when others are resistant. Another view of this is that we are determined not to be overlooked.
We as Dynamic Defense Style individuals believe we are optimistic because of our willingness to move into action, but we are often viewed by others as pessimistic because we are so self-focused, practical, and hard-headed. We can often appear unwilling to see things from another’s perspective. While many attribute this stubbornness to a strong intellectual focus, it is actually the result of a strong physical will and the belief that others should not interfere in ways that might compromise the success of the mission. This is why we have the reputation of being tough, self-directed, and unwilling to accede to a possibility that appears beneath our dignity.
The blind spot of our Dynamic Defense Style arises when we are co-opted into a process without our full consent. Others’ assumptions about how we should participate do not typically allow us to determine our own way of participating. Our driving force is to take control of any situation and adopt it to maximize personal benefits and returns. We are not interested in having our Intention subverted to benefit others. What makes us uncomfortable is when other Defense Style individuals seem to want reinforcement that we are aligned with them, without actually expressing the need directly. We only respect directness and up-front negotiation. Anything else is self-delusion, confusion, and whining. We are naturally suspicious of others with high ideals who have not organized themselves to accomplish their objectives in a productive manner. We focus on the accomplishment of the tasks, oftentimes at the expense of the interpersonal relationship dynamics with others. As we Dynamic Defense Style individuals evolve, our scientific foundation can migrate to become that of a Western style mystic. In both situations, there is a centeredness of purpose that progressively becomes more transparent the more we follow our bliss.
Dynamic Defense Style
Individuals who have adopted a Dynamic Defense Style need to prove outer strength and resilience. We call this a “perimeter” defense because it is designed to keep those whom we believe are unsafe from getting too close. We associate with whatever position gives us a feeling of greater strength and outer power, believing this will allow us to protect our inner sensitive nature. We try to control our destiny by quickly moving into action and pursuing our goals. Order and mastery of external tools are the way we make others feel secure around us. We rely on our intellectual perceptions to clarify our truth and distinguish our beliefs from what we perceive to be the misguided beliefs of others. Taking this position allows us to use the structure and content of what is going on to demonstrate our superior understanding of the situation. When others threaten us, we either intimidate them into silence or destroy their confidence by pointing out the flaws in their plans. We call this position a “Dynamic” one because of how we assert that we are in charge.
Dynamic Defense Style people attempt to use their skills in task management to convince others to obey them. By relying on our cleverness, we get ourselves into situations where our hands become increasingly tied because of the agreements we have made. Our agreements make us feel more secure at the outset, but they become a huge source of insecurity when we cannot find ways to bring them into alignment with each other. As we are driven to prove ourselves capable in order to earn the love of others, we frequently get caught up in activities that keep us from feeling loved. In these situations, we can easily believe others love us for what we do and not for who we are. For instance, a Dynamic defense style woman may work very hard to prove her outer strength and capability, which makes her seem unapproachable, when in fact she would appreciate being hugged, particularly if it is not connected to any predefined romantic intention.
We can recognize if we are a Dynamic defense style individual by the degree to which we attempt to assert ourselves in any situation. Our intellectual and physical presence can put off other defensive styles who typically have not defined themselves in terms of taking action. As we Dynamic defense style individuals develop our inner ability to manage time and activities around us, we naturally become more masterful. Early in our life we typically resented the intrusions of our mother in our life, so we are more sensitive to being shamed or made wrong in front of others. We feel obligated to present our perspective in the situation. As a result, we discount our fears and use our anger to push them away. We will confront any confusion because we are not comfortable around ambiguity. The advantage of this defense style is that we are automatically focused on defining our life work and finding ways to make it be more valued and effective. The down side of the Dynamic defense style is that we do not feel comfortable in undefined situations where emotions and intuitions are being used to make decisions. We do not realize that our fear of Intimacy keeps us from owning our relationship skills.
No matter what our Gender Identity, intellectually we adopted the “masculine” framework for proving our value in the world. The more we used this framework to represent ourselves, the more vulnerable we became to the blind spots of taking a purely masculine expression. As a result, we became affected by chaos, emotional turbulence and the intuitive beliefs of others. While our masculine focus helped us bring order and effective action to the task we were engaging, it kept us from wanting to interact freely and in undefined ways with others because then our objectives would no longer be assured. We started to believe our own propaganda that working with others would only needlessly waste our energy and reduce the certainty we had in manifesting our results. Until we find a way to simultaneously operate in both our masculine and feminine energies, we will not be able to understand and appreciate fully the Disarming defense style population.
As Dynamic defense style individuals, we use our Aliveness and physical agility to create quick responses to others and their situations. We use our intellectual strength and physical confidence to organize and manage our sense of direction. Typically, we use excitement to hook others into our desires. We can lose ourselves in intensity falsely believing that clear, more definitive arguments will lead to resolution. Since we believe we need to be on top of what’s occurring in the moment, we over-direct and over-plan our growth. This allows us to build a false sense of security because we become proficient at managing and organizing our use of time. In the first stage of this defense we seek to be Admired. As we begin to see the limits of our defensiveness, we seek to be Adored. We develop a sense of self by holding and expressing clear and physical and intellectual boundaries. This makes us appear self-centered and self-focused to others.
As a Dynamic defense style individual, it is easier to distance ourselves from those who possess striking differences from us. We use a physical connection to minimize the need for emotional connection. It is not until we consciously understand our defensive pattern that we begin to be more inclusive and open to others. What we fear is to be compromised by the thoughts of another, which drives us to be in charge of the direction of a creative interaction. We are most susceptible to falling into the trap of becoming over-identified with our thoughts. As a result, we are most sensitive to the distracting effects of the illusions of others. This sensitivity pushes us to be hyper-critical when others are not seeing the deeper truths of a circumstance or situation. We could end up falling into the perspective that we are the only ones who can see beyond the current situation. We tend to avoid engaging our emotions and feelings where possible because such experiences tend to promote fuzzy thinking. As a result, we are perceived by others as having limited intimacy skills.
Whenever there is a problem, we seek to resolve it immediately. We tend to dislike procrastination because we think it is a way others avoid the truth. If there is bad news to be discovered, we want to get it over right away, because we are afraid of being intellectually/emotionally blindsided. Typically, it is hard for us to receive support, particularly on the emotional level. This is because we are afraid to be indebted to others, particularly emotionally. It is our defensive perspective that others could take advantage of us, so we want to avoid up-font unconditional giving to others until they have a track record with us. Our Dynamic defense style always pushes us to be an outward performer and we end up fearing people who do not have the same commitment in life. This commitment to living life needs to be externalized and obvious to others, for us to be comfortable.
Dynamic Defense style individuals seem aloof, in charge and self-directed, wanting everything clear so we can be personally powerful. We create security through structured learning, planning and physically making things happen. We assert ourselves on intellectual and physical levels, as a way to earn the admiration and love of others. We use what we do to build self-esteem, wanting others to acknowledge that we produce unquestionable results in a methodical manner.
EXAMPLES
Clint Eastwood – actor, director
Winston Churchill – former Prime Minister of Britain
John Wayne – actor
Barbara Bush – wife of former U.S. President
Bette Davis – actor
Joan Rivers – TV personality
Cher – singer, actress
Robert Dole – politician
Elizabeth Dole – former Director of American Red Cross
Vanna White – TV game show personality
Humphrey Bogart – actor
Tina Turner – singer/musician/dancer
Janine Turner – actress
Robert Mitchum – actor
Ernest Hemingway – author
Howard Cosell – sportscaster
Mohammar Kadafy – leader of Libya
Max von Sydow – film actor
Rod Sterling –host of the Twilight Zone
Adlai Stevenson –UN- U.S. Representative during Cuban missile crisis.
Diane Feinstein – Senator from CA
Barbra Streisand – singer, actress
Lucille Ball – comedian
Diane Sawyer – TV news broadcaster
Mario Cuomo – former Governor of NY
Candice Bergen – actress
John Glenn – former astronaut and politician
Bill Walsh – former football coach
Hillary Clinton – U.S. Senator and wife of former U.S. President
Carrie Fisher – actress, author
Susan Sarandon – actress
John F. Kennedy – former U.S. President
Linda Carter – actress
Madonna – singer
Roseann Barr – comedian
Mae West – actress, entertainer
Barbara Stanwyck – actress
Fidel Castro – revolutionary and leader of Cuba
Paloma Picasso – designer, daughter of Pablo Picasso,
General George C. Patton – tough WWII U.S. Army General
Marshall MacLuhan – media critic (the Global Village guy)
Elizabeth Taylor – actress
Gloria Steinem – author, feminist, former magazine editor
J. Edgar Hoover – former Director of the F.B.I.
Spiro Agnew – disgraced former U.S. Vice-President
Billy Graham – TV evangelist
Melvin Belli – lawyer
Mary Kay Ash – founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics
Bette Midler – singer, actress
Arthur Miller – playwright
Orson Welles – author, screenwriter, director, actor
Bella Abzug – NY politician/gadfly with big hats
Angela Lansbury – actress
Kirk Douglas – actor
Yul Brynner – actor
Sylvester Stallone – actor
Arnold Schwarzenegger – actor, former Mr. Universe
Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. – former Congressman, civil rights leader, preacher
Dionne Warwick – singer
Ella Fitzgerald – incredible jazz singer
Yvonne Goolagong – multi-time Australian tennis champ
Martina Navratilova – multi-Wimbledon tennis champ
Jane Fonda – actress
Jamie Lee Curtis – actress
Barbara Bain – actress
Marsha Clark – prosecutor in the OJ Simpson case
Sophia Loren – actress
Angie Dickinson – actress
Barbara Walters – TV newscaster and talk show host
Helen Gurley Brown – magazine editor
Ann Bancroft – actress
Diana Rigg – actress
Lena Horne – singer, actress
Kirsti Alley – actress
Katerina Witt – multi-time world and Olympic figure skating champion
Dynamic Pioneering Defense Style
Dynamic-Pioneering Defense style individuals, understand a defensive reaction within ourselves when it occurs. This empowers us to honor that the defense does not necessarily reflect the truth of the circumstances we are in and that there are larger more inclusive ways of engaging the process. In this case, while our defensive tendency is to try to come up with a plan and establish a timeline for solving the problem, we know that it might be better to give some time to the experience. This means feeling what is going on and lettingourselves explore being out of control. Instead of avoiding the fear that we need to respond immediately, we embrace it and recognize that it can shift into a greater acceptance of possibilities. Rather than falling into a Dynamic Defense of attempting to minimize problems by breaking them into more manageable chunks, we can examine the possibility that there may be patterns within the problem that need to be explored before taking action. It is also important to recognize that our feelings and emotions need to be included in the exploration in order to develop an intuitive sense of how things can be engaged differently. Instead of responding to the problem by trying to figure it out, we can be with it intellectually, physically and intuitively and open to unexpected insights that could change our perspective at any moment.
While it is easy to use tools to categorize and analyze the situation, instead, what if we turned the problem over to our creative self and giveourselves time to contemplate the situation (both waking and sleeping). This allows our sub-conscious a chance to come up with new possibilities and perhaps even suggest a solution. This would support and help us to accept that we have many different types of resources that could emerge if we would allow it. Opening up possibilities in this way, encourages us to get out of our fears of being shamed and/or not loved because we are not doing what others’ want us to do. The more we break out of a time validated, content focus perspective, where details are most important, the more likely we will come up with solutions that will work with everyone and be mutually supportive. Our defense will emphasize our need for order and because it is security driven, it will use anxiety and finally anger to precipitate action if nothing seems to be getting done. We, of course, will need to listen to all the concerns that our defense has about why action needs to be taken immediately. In doing so, we honor the defensive reality that time is criticalsimultaneously deploying all our resources for a certain period. This eliminates wasting resources on partial solutions. The degree that we can be with our desire for a solution and not be driven by the fear that we will run out of time, is the same degree to which we have learned to trust ourselves.
Our confidence grows as we see that there are always solutions that arise as long as we support their emergence. This sense of spacious presence supports us in becoming more pioneering and being less attached and driven to take immediate action particularly when doing so would be counter-productive. This indicates we have learned that counter-reactions commonly reinforce the problems and therefore prevent the solutions from emerging. Instead of reacting, be with the process and allow time to find a new way of looking at it that is not as attached or compromised as our natural reaction would be. Some individuals visualize this by going against the grain and thinking in a different direction to break up preconceptions about the problem. Connecting our feelings and emotions, particularly so we do not amplify our existing reactions to the problem can also facilitate the process of building a larger context. As feelings are a reflection of our physical sensations, they help us explore ourbody wisdom. When we speak about these feelings, it helps to check in with our body awareness. Connecting our feelings to our emotions is facilitated when we acknowledge that out emotions are reflections of the congruence we experience in our thoughts and therefore, reflect changes in our mental/emotional state through time. We have the right to experience the differences between our feelings and emotions, even though it may be uncomfortable. This discomfort shows the degree to which we want to embrace the dissonance around us and our inability to accept it.
Paradox and ambiguity become resources as we learn to relax into our fears. Instead of thinking we can identify the problem and address it quickly, we learn to enjoy deepening into the situation without attempting to categorize or oversimplify different elements. We practice exploring the Mystery by searching for hidden connections, dependencies and consequences. We need to assume that there is always more to learn. If we pay attention to our subtle reactions and the reactions of others we can identify potential problems before they become major obstacles to growth and development. By allowing ourselves to create open-ended statements of intention that provoke new thinking we can investigate our own experiences and stop asking others for their opinions. Consider that any reaction within can be an indication of a disconnection when we begin to express our ideas. Assert the possibility that time spent on considering our problems is useful despite the lack of any apparent immediate effect. It is our consciousness that attracts problems to us. If we shift our awareness we can shift the type, nature and degree of problems that show up.
Dynamic Defense Style individuals can best heal by addressing the following issues:
- We need to stimulate our inner feminine connection to our Self, realizing we want to relate to our Self in a more fulfilling way. This will empower us to see the many different spatial dimensions energetically arising between people. Through this we learn to maintain an inner space that cannot be invaded, compromised, or taken away by others.
- We need to stop shaming our Creative Self as a way of making us appear unworthy of love. Otherwise, we continually have to prove our lovability. When we recognize that we focus on our personality self to keep from being distracted by others, we start to understand that our fear of being with others is self-generated. If we are able to stop shaming ourselves, we will not need to shame or blame others in order to protect our inner space.
- We need to soften and slow down our interactions with others so we are able to better appreciate the perfection of how things turn out. This means taking time to nurture our Self and lessen our need to use time to manage our activities and our interactions with others. This will greatly assist us in our intimacy challenges. Taking our Self off a fixed production schedule teaches us to enjoy the Mystery of what will occur rather than trying to force it to be what we want it to be.
- It would be useful to investigate our emotions and feelings to determine how they could communicate with one another more effectively. Remember, feelings reflect changes in our body experience while emotions reflect changes in our intellectual thought patterns. When we can integrate these two reflective intelligences, it greatly deepens our ability to relate intuitively. This will allow us to be more receptive to others on personal, social, and intellectual levels, because we will be more balanced within our Self.
- It is time to question and challenge how we never have things completely handled in terms of our long-term security. Imagine that we are secure within our identity to our Creative Self. Who would we be? The answer is we would be a person without defenses who now finds intimate ways to express our Self without self-sabotage. It is ironic our defenses actually create our perceptions that we are not secure. Let us recognize our true security comes from recognizing how the universe has always supported us to this point, no matter how much we have denied it. Consider how we could enjoy interacting with others even when there is nothing in common. We could discover we do not need a purpose in order to connect with others.
- We can investigate how we do not believe relationships are real when they are not dealing with the logistics and/or perceived tensions in the situation. We tend to want to confront these issues, believing doing so will reduce their effect. Unfortunately, when we are with Disarming defense style individuals the opposite, actually occurs. The true challenge is to create a sense of intimacy which naturally occurs when we are vulnerable and can admit when we do not know what to do. It is important that we do not over-direct others, but rather create a safe space with them so they will not feel criticized or judged. For a while, practice going overboard in the commitment to be intimate as a way to neutralize past imbalances.
- With the help of a partner with whom we feel a sense of Unity, Trust, and Love, we can explore how to listen deeply to our feminine side by demonstrating that we can listen to their feminine side. When we establish this common connection it dramatically reduces our ability to maintain separate positions without falling into any unconscious merging or Co-Dependent behavior. Valuing our inner feminine naturally enables us to be compassionate with others. When we no longer feel impatient or driven to manage the process we will know a shift has occurred within us around our feminine nature. Over time we will gradually become stronger and more balanced between our feminine and masculine expressions.
Disarming “self” Perception Framework
We Disarming Defense Style individuals have a particular metaphysical framework that is based upon the belief that we should work with and adapt to whoever and whatever shows up. Usually, this means that we are unreasonably optimistic about seeing the good in everything. Usually this feedback comes in terms of feelings and emotions that let us know how things are working out. Our spatial relationship orientation means that we rely on others to provide feedback in a way that reinforces our reality. This occurs because we tend to deny our personal self, leading us to “idealize” those around us. We can validate this by how lost and/or repulsed we are when others objectify us or are unwilling to confront their personality biases. It seems an insult to hold them in high regard (seeing their higher purpose) while they seem unable or unwilling to do the same for us. We also tend to project our problems on others, making them responsible for taking care of us. This, of course, polarizes us from Dynamic Defense Style individuals, even though we seek them out.
We tend to over-identify our Connection Skills Identity, and therefore we perceive others only on the basis of their self-defined connection to us. This no object/no subject orientation can be viewed as transcendental or even escapist.
It is frequently viewed as impractical and idealistic from the perspective of a Dynamic Defense Style individual. Why these individuals need Disarming Defense Style individuals is because they don’t usually know how to take care of their Feelings and Emotions and validate their own spatial understanding in terms of others. The real problem is that our defense denies our in-completions regarding Individuation and Gender Identity skills. This means that we are incomplete in our understanding of where we came from and have difficulty in grounding ourselves as we are. While we do have a similar perspective to Eastern mystics, this is mostly superficial, as we commonly believe in an inner guidance that is not reflected in Eastern spiritual practices. What seems apparent to others is that we seem more motivated to avoid things, rather than to take responsibility for where we are going.
We Disarming Defense Style individuals, when evolved, can be great innovators who often become loners because there is not anyone to consciously “get” or reflect us. Usually, our gifts are in our ability to see the future, but somehow, we are unable to apply this to ourselves. At our worst, we get caught up in spiritual materialism and end up glorifying our own limitations. This is because we are comfortable with distorted ways of loving (quid pro quo and Protective Love). We are challenged to come to grips with loving as a creative experience of Self. The power we Disarming Defense Style individuals experience is that we see many of the connections beyond the outer form. The challenge is to effectively use this information in the outer world. It is this lack of ability to apply this information externally that can be so self-sabotaging. It is ironic how comfortable we are in maintaining the relationships that others want of us, while at the same time, we have difficulty loving our own relationship with our Self. We heal by accepting our Self and seeing this Self in others. We also heal by taking responsibility for our Self in the outside world, owning our needs, our skills, and our desires.
The blind spot we have as Disarming Defense Style individuals is that because of our relationship focus, we can easily be blindsided around task management issues. Because we Disarming individuals tend to define ourselves in relation to others, we tend to allow Dynamic individuals to define the terms of engagement. This means that we do not tend to organize ourselves in terms of Time, events, and outcomes. We can fear the Dynamic ‘dissentionist’ attitude that everything has to be quantified in terms of what is. This reflects our lack of confidence in our ability to manage task skills directly. We also may not be confident that our big ideas can be translated into simple, concrete steps, or, if we were to do so, we fear it would lose our spirit and passion in the translation. We Disarming Defense Style individuals evolve from being more mystical to engaging practical details, allowing for a more pragmatic and more effective engagement with others on intellectual and physical levels.
It is our intention to show how the defense styles develop into more clearly defined prisons where their Beliefs inhibit them. The more defensive we are, the more likely we are to attract complementary (opposite) Defense Style individuals which reduces our ability to grow together. Defenses then become a struggle rather than an opportunity; the way we interact with others becomes a burden, rather than a joy. Some individuals over-identify with these defensive limitations and become depressed and disillusioned with life. Still, many of us hold on to our Defenses, as if our Defenses are us. It is time to recognize that what we are holding on to is an anchor that will ultimately drown us. Only on the personality level do defenses demonstrate a sense of value or manifest as our complete reality. Most of these manifestations reflect how we can artificially, through fear, convince others to do what we want them to do. This occurs because they realize and manipulate our defensive weaknesses. Defenses provide us the justifications we need to take personally the behaviors of opposite Defense Style individuals. Although they allow us to differentiate ourselves through our ideas, it is mostly reactive. It is through the pain and torment of not being seen by others that we realize our ideas are only outer expressions of us as personality level thinkers.
Disarming Defense Style
Disarming Defense Stylepeople need to prove innocence and flexibility. We call this a “guerrilla warfare” approach because it is all about diverting and distracting others from our true intentions. In this situation, we become extremely familiar with the weaknesses of others and know how to make suggestions that will keep them busy (distracted) so they cannot become a threat to us. We embrace chaos and mystery as a way to emphasize our intuitive and emotional nature. In this position, we like to use secrecy so we can attain the element of surprise when we do take action. We love to exploit circumstances to facilitate the occurrence of things that are not part of any plan so we can maximize our influence over others. We have discovered that our ability to predict the behaviors of others can be a strategic tool that distinguishes us from others. We call this position a “Disarming” one because of how friendly and easy-going we appear.
As Disarming defense style individuals we use relationships to build consensus about what should occur to make independent individuals unsure about their power. The collective bargaining (union) movement is an example of Disarming individuals being frustrated about the demands and structure of a Dynamic management style. Instead of head-on confrontations, Disarming individuals frequently change the framework or terminology of the discussion to gain an advantage. In this situation, we can more easily rename what we are doing in a way that helps create new results. Usually, when we are in a Disarming defense style we do not want to declare in advance what our goals are, so we will not look bad if we do not achieve them. Our power comes from our ability to convince others to join our group or activity, because typically we distrust self-centered ego power. As Disarming individuals, we usually fixate on a vision until it becomes too large to tackle or we become unable to affect the results.
We can recognize if we are a Disarming defense style individual by the degree we attempt to connect with others to get along. Our emotional and intuitive presence can put off other defensive styles who have typically not defined themselves in terms of their Primary Creative Expression. As we Disarming defense style individuals develop our inner ability to manage space and the interconnections with people, we naturally become more mysterious. Since early in our life we typically lost ourselves trying to please our parents, we are more sensitive to being blamed or criticized even though we easily accept it. As a result we hide and discount our own anger and use the fears of others to push them away. The advantage of this defense style is that we are comfortable in redefining ourselves in terms of others, particularly in romantic relationships. The down side of the Disarming defense style is that we do not feel comfortable in confronting our life work and we tend to procrastinate and doubt ourselves when it comes to making contributions to others. We do not realize that our fear of Autonomy keeps us from owning our life expression.
Regardless of our Gender Identity, intellectually we adopted the “feminine” framework for proving our value in the world. The more we used this framework to represent us, the more we became vulnerable to the blind spots of taking a purely feminine expression. As a result, we became affected by order, intellectual turbulence and the intimidation that comes from others taking unilateral action without consulting us. We use our feminine side to connect before we develop the safety to connect physically. While our feminine focus helped us bring creative opportunities to the relationships we were engaging, it kept us from wanting to take charge and implement our ideas because then we would be completely responsible for whatever occurred. We started to believe our own propaganda that independent action would only create more work for others in the group. We ended up believing that work that was not coordinated with others would naturally undermine group efforts. Until we find a way to simultaneously operate in both our masculine and feminine energies, we will not be able to understand and appreciate the Dynamic defense style population.
As a Disarming defense style individual, we tend to lose ourselves in excitement because fantasy seems preferable to the harsh reality of the world. Others would say we look at the world through idealistic, rose-colored glasses. Our excitement tends to focus us on a hedonistic pleasure seeking approach to life that other defense styles automatically distrust. This does not mean that as a Disarming defense style we abandon all sense of propriety or appropriateness, for we do not. However, we do tend to use pleasure as an ultimate objective as part of our process, which others believe gets in the way of being productive. As a Disarming defense style individual, we also tend to use Intensity to create more space for our Self by provoking conflict in a way that cannot be directed toward us. In this way, others subtly get the message that if they want to keep us around, they should take care of “our needs” and us. We also use chaos, particularly with Dynamic individuals, because we know they are at a loss when confronting situations that they cannot effectively organize.
Our undirected growth approach means that we can be spontaneous and use the circumstances in ways that are unpredictable. Usually, we use this approach because we do not want to re-invoke the patterns of our past. This is also the reason we tend to avoid in-depth planning. Because of our strength in our feelings and intuition, we trust that we can create what we want without a pre-existing structure which would make us accountable to others in a way we do not wish to be. It is safer for us to do things our own way and to create in the moment. Due to our strength in feelings and intuition, we trust that we can create what we want without a pre-existing structure which we choose to avoid because it would make us accountable to others in a way we do not wish to be responsible. Initially, as we are getting comfortable with our defense style, we seek Adoration from others. As the defense style becomes more mature, we switch to seeking the Admiration of others.
We are typically seen as other-centered because we protect ourselves by making sure others are okay around us. This means we initially develop stronger skills in being with others than in being with ourselves. In fact, we typically fall into the trap of proving to others how selfless we are by sacrificing our personal growth for them. We use our emotional and intuitive boundaries to protect our own sense of self. While we do develop a relationship with our self over time, we do not believe others will accept us as we are so we end up hiding it. As we individualize, we become more capable or interacting transpersonally, through our pre-established interest in understanding others. It takes time and practice to develop and bring out who we are equally with others. To do it, we need to establish strong intellectual and physical boundaries.
As a Disarming defense style individual, one of our biggest challenges is to love ourselves enough to engage similarities with others. Our basic issue is we fear losing ourselves, particularly in individuals who are like us. Superficially, we operate in an over-sentimental and intimate way, to cover up our core fear of not being able to establish clearly our own path. This core fear keeps us attempting to reassure our partners and take care of them on a personal level, so we do not have to be responsible for the expression of our own power. When we are overwhelmed, we tend to withdraw from others to let them stew in their own fears that we will not take care of them. We are frustrated when we cannot intuitively understand the needs of our partners. It is even more difficult when we intuitively experience our partner asking for things that we do not perceive they need because we are extremely sensitive to their being congruent between their internal and external process and expression.
As a Disarming defense style individual, our safety is environmentally defined. We like to be around people we have a pre-existing relationship with or operate in places where we have had a past experience in order to have a degree of physical confidence in our physical surroundings. It is easy for us to become resentful and envious of those who do not seem to care as much as we do about others. Our interpersonal connection with others encourages us to develop our Wisdom. This Wisdom, which focuses on what others need, permits us to create a sense of flow in groups and with others that can be misunderstood as transpersonal. We are not operating transpersonally until we accept and honor our personal self and relate to it in an autonomous way. Our creativity therefore has a tendency to be group-oriented, and we need to learn to accept and honor our personal inner creativity to balance ourselves in the world.
Disarming Defense style individuals seem innocent, easygoing, friendly, emotionally emphatic and available. We create safety by taking care of others emotionally, believing in the potential of ourselves and others and relating with a sense of spiritual possibilities. We use intimacy and interpersonal skills to cover up our fears that we are personally inadequate. We use what we imagine to build self-respect, wanting others to accept our vision of a harmonious world where we can get along without conflict.
EXAMPLES
Michael J. Fox – actor
Pierce Brosnan – actor
John Belushi – actor, comedian
Dudley Moore – actor
Johnny Mathis – singer
Raul Julia – actor
Billy Crystal – actor
Liza Minnelli – singer, actress
Sammy Davis, Jr. – singer, dancer, entertainer
Richard Pryor – comedian, actor
Jim Baker – evangelist convicted of fraud
Sean Penn – actor
Chevy Chase – actor, comedian
Robert Downey Jr. – actor
Michael Keaton – actor
Lisa Kudrow – actress
Timothy Dalton – actor
David McCallum -- actor
Sandra Bullock – actress
Andy Griffith -- actor
Bill Clinton – former U.S. President
Kevin Costner – actor
George Lucas – movie director, producer
Bo Derek – actress
Gene Kelly – actor, singer, dancer
Hubert Humphrey – politician
Meg Ryan – actress
Jerry Lewis – comedian, actor
Kim Bassinger – actress
Arsenio Hall – entertainer, comedian
George Bush – current U.S. president
River Phoenix – actor
Molly Ringwald – actress
Michael Jackson – singer, dancer
Flip Wilson – comedian
Liberace – piano-playing entertainer
Jeff Bridges – actor
Nicolas Cage – actor
Jesse Jackson – preacher, activist, politician
Dan Akroyd – actor
Drew Barrymore – actress
Willie Brown – Mayor of San Francisco
Don Johnson – actor
Corason Aquino – former President of the Philippines
James Taylor – singer, songwriter, musician
Elvis Presley – singer, actor
William Shatner – actor
Nick Nolte – actor
Paul Hogan – wrestler
Alan Alda – actor
Tim Allen – actor
John Cleese – actor, comedian, business education entrepreneur
Jay Leno – TV talk show host
Harry Morgan – actor
Phil Donahue – TV talk show host
Ted Kennedy – politician, Senator from MA
Ceasar Chavez – activist for migrant workers
Tom Hanks – actor
Martin Luther King, Jr. – civil rights activist, preacher
Goldie Hawn – actress
Marilyn Monroe – actress
Elton John – singer, composer, musician
Steven Spielberg – movie director and producer
Disarming Pioneering Defense Style
If we are a Disarming-Pioneering Defense style individual, we understand a defensive reaction within when it occurs. This empowers us to honor our defense which may not necessarily reflect the truth of the circumstances and that there may be larger more inclusive ways of engaging the process. In this case, while our defensive tendency is to wait and consider what the problem is, it may be appropriate to take immediate action by operating from our gut-knowing. Instead of avoiding the anger that makes us passive, we can embrace it and explore a course of action that makes us feel most alive. Rather than falling into a Disarming Defense of attempting to maximize the engagement of problems by sitting with them until they are fully expressed, we can examine the possibility of breaking them into manageable chunks that we can immediately address. It is also important to recognize that we are defensively resistant to taking immediate action because we do not want to make matters worse or more confused. Immediate action can minimize others’ defensive response if we are quick enough. Instead of responding to the problem by trying to wait it out, we can be with it physically, intellectually and intuitively to see if there are immediate opportunities to address it.
While it is easy for us to read the reactions of others and collect perspectives from them about what we can do, what if we turned the problem over to our active self and just did the best thing that came up in the moment. Our Aliveness can itself be the primary resource to rely on which means we can try something out and quickly shift to another possibility if it is not working. This would help us to accept our Body Wisdom and how it can respond to many problems effectively without the requirement to analyze the situation completely. Opening up opportunities in this way, encourages us to get out of our fears of being blamed and/or not considered adequate when we do not match up to others’ expectations. The more we break out of a spatially defined, context focus where relationships are everything, the more likely we will come up with solutions that immediately change our results. Our defense emphasizesour need for chaos and being safety driven, we use excitement and finally fear to procrastinate if no clear solution arises. Of course, we need to listen to all the concerns that our defense has about why we need more time to consider options. In doing so, we honor the defensive reality that relationships are critical and we would rather not preemptively or unilaterally change circumstances until we knew the reactions and/or responses of others. This enables us to avoid getting caught up in considerations that may not provide an answer. The degree to whichwe can be with our desire for a solution and not be driven by the fear that we will make a mistake, is the degree to which we have learned to be unified with our creative selves.
Our confidence grows as we see that there are always ways to address problems in the moment if we are fully engaged and committed to the process. It is our lack of commitment to being Alive and responding in the moment, which minimizes our ability to do what is best. This sense of pregnant duration where we shift our ability to create a solution in the moment helps us shake up the situation enough to allow a new possibility to emerge. This indicates we have learned to create the time necessary to focus on our actions so others experience our intent. Ironically, since others want us to be aligned and speak our Truth clearly, they are likely more than willing to support our actions and give us the benefit of the doubt about the possible consequences. This opening allows us to adjust for unanticipated reactions and apply appropriate contingencies. Some individuals visualize this as having enough space to refine the choices as we do them. Connecting our sensations and feelings, particularly so we do not amplify our excitement can also facilitate the process of deepening our intent. As sensations are a reflection of various stimuli, they help us deepen into our Body Wisdom. When we act from the Life energy of making a choice, it helps build a connection to our Inner Knowing. Connecting our feelings to our sensations is facilitated when we acknowledge that our feelings are reflections of the inner congruence we experience in our actions. We have the right to experience the differences between our sensations and feelings, particularly when they indicate it is not a time to take action. Honoring our Body Wisdom by acting in alignment with it is ultimately what we need to neutralize our defenses.
Playfulness and direct truth telling become our best resources as we learn to neutralize our personality desires. Usually the problem with desires is that we are holding onto things we wanted in the past that were not fulfilled. How we establish balance is to prioritize and focus on what is needed in the moment, rather than be overwhelmed by the vast number of options. Instead of trying to wait so we know we have covered all the bases, we need to trust what is appropriate in the moment and take action so we do not lose our future to procrastination. Practice exploring the Mastery by prioritizing actions sowe are always in motion. Assume that each action we take will naturally inform the next action and this will build confidence in our ability to respond to what is needed. Pay attention to the resistance and/or internal dissonance we feel engaging certain subjects. This provides an ongoing guide to clearing out obstructions to movement that limit our capacity to show up with others. Let yourself create clear, unambiguous statements of intention that bring out your best. See how much fun it is to not ask for the opinions of others before we have directly investigated our own experience. Consider that any reaction we experience can be an indication of a disconnection when we begin to express our ideas. Assert the possibility that our body’s immediate impulse can be an effective guide, particularly because in the past we have discounted immediate action. Since it is our consciousness that attracts problems we need to pay attention to what we are attracting and do something about it.
Disarming Defense Style individuals can best heal by addressing the following issues:
- We need to stimulate our inner masculine connection to our Self, realizing we want to relate to our Self in a clearer, interactive but determined way. This will empower us to see the many different time orientations we have been ignoring. We will learn to ground and express our thoughts and actions more succinctly. Through this we learn to master our ability to organize ourselves to be self-sufficient and self-generating. We then create a sense of mastery that cannot be denied, compromised, or affected by others.
- We need to stop blaming our Creative Self as a way of making us appear intellectually and physically unworthy to be with others. This creates a situation where we lose our Self while trying to take care of others in order to keep them from attacking us. Our focus on others, at the cost of our own well-being, is a protection mechanism that actually attracts attack because we make ourself appear weak. If we are able to stop blaming our Self, we will not need to shame or blame others in order to protect our limited, apparent choices.
- We need to listen to our creative source and move more decisively into action so we are able to better appreciate how capable we are at manifesting our life expression. By assuming a passive position about our “self” and Creative Self expression, we unconsciously communicate we are okay with our current situation. Since we do not take action, others, particularly Dynamic defense style individuals, accept what we are currently doing is our limit. As we are not clearly expressing our inner discontent, for fear of appearing demanding or inappropriate, others discount our creativity because we are discounting it.
- It would be useful to investigate our intellectual doubt and physical passivity to determine how they are related to our creative Self-denial. Healing this breach requires more passion and commitment to go beyond our personality fears. This means creating the inner space necessary to create an effective, productive environment. This way we will not be dependent upon others for our own productive expression. We need to learn to enjoy making commitments we will meet no matter what. Imagine how we can build our Self-Esteem by keeping our word – doing what we say we will do. Consider how a more active outer presentation might increase others’ ability to relate to us and to listen to what we have to contribute.
- It is time to question and challenge how we never have things completely handled in terms of our short-term safety. Imagine that we are able to manifest our safety within our Self. Who would we be? The answer is we would be a person without defenses who now finds productive ways to express our Self without self-sabotage. Our defenses actually create our perceptions that we are not safe. Let us recognize our true safety comes from recognizing how the universe has always supported us to this point, no matter how much we have denied it. Consider setting out on adventures by ourselves where we have nothing to rely on but our own resourcefulness. Who are we? We could discover we do not need someone else to reflect us and make us real.
- We can investigate how we do not believe relationships are real when they ???are not discussing our aspirations, our feeling/desires, and how we would like to get there. We tend to want to ignore the practical side of circumstances, hoping for the best. This is partly because we do not want to interfere with someone else’s way of engaging a process. Unfortunately, when we are with Dynamic defense style individuals, the opposite actually occurs. The true challenge is to create a sense of autonomy and mutual, harmless truth telling. We cannot accomplish this by trying to protect others, but rather by creating a secure structure with others where both of us will not be criticized or judged. For a while, practice going overboard in our commitment to be outrageously direct, as a way to neutralize past withholding.
With the help of a partner with whom we feel a sense of Unity, Trust, and Love, we can explore how to act in alignment with our masculine side by taking action with others in creative projects where we work together. In this situation, we experience Co-Creativity as a team, and we all feel a greater sense of Aliveness. This indicates that we are embodying our masculine side. When we no longer feel limited in our ability to successfully engage projects out of our own perseverance and will, it reflects our masculine is becoming more capable of working with our feminine, producing a sense of balance, wholeness, and grace.
Disnamic Defense Style
Dis-namic Defense Style individuals try to create a sense of safety and security by identifying and being who others want us to be. This means we have created a series of flexible perspectives and operate within a range of choices based on how others engage us. Since we fear the judgments of others and need to find a way to keep ourselves separate while keeping others happy, some of the justifications we create change quickly when we engage new people. The challenge, is to deal with others’ lack of understanding about how we change perspectives based on circumstance. Dealing with the confusion others have because they cannot predict our response or reaction, makes us seem to be a larger enigma. It is also difficult to not get into set patterns with certain individuals in our life based on how much we trust them. As a result, we tend to build upon what works, which reflects the limitations of how others see and accept us.
We seek a sense of openness in how we engage the world. Having different responses with different individuals creates a sense of freedom and a variety in our day to day existence. While we may seek to be consistent with each individual, there will always be times when new responses are introduced because of changes they make. If others assume we are fixed in our perceptions, then they are usually surprised and/or dismayed when these shifts occur. What we are doing is attempting to maintain a balance between being connected and preserving our own space. Naturally, if the behavior of others shifts, it creates a need for us to respond or react differently. If others change their expectations without informing us, it creates more tension and fear. The opposite is also true because our ability to change quickly can cause mistrust and fear in others, particularly Distant individuals. This is why a Dis-namic individual tries to be more incrementally fluid and take small steps, checking with others before proceeding. We can validate this by how much we observe others around us and watch for any signs of reaction. As soon as we notice a reaction, we are the first to talk about it and quickly change our course of action if we can see a way to neutralize it. How close we feel to someone is a direct reflection of how physically close we want to be with him or her. In other words, we get physically close when we trust someone, but create distance when we perceive unresolved conflicts. Every conflict consumes energy, resources and time, so we are constantly adjusting ourselves to minimize the expenditure of these resources while maximizing the results we seek.
When stressed, we distance ourselves leading to problematic relationships if it happens too often. The cost of continually attempting to read circumstances and adjust ourselves to the needs of others creates an overhead making it difficult for us to be social. Frequently we find ourselves getting overwhelmed when we are in groups for any length of time, because we cannot meet the needs of anyone when we are in this circumstance. This is why we prefer interactions with only one or two people because we can learn about ourselves and others, and engage in deeper ways. The key issue is that being Dis-namic allows us to be more fluid in our self-perceptions but causes greater opportunities to be misunderstood and not accepted by others. The desire for acceptance and the fear we will not ever be seen for who we are keeps us from relaxing. This hyper vigilance prevents us from growing and fully learning that how others see us is not as important as honoring our own nature. The problem is that we end up making others’ perceptions more important than our own.
Over time, we become better at reading whether individuals want us to be consistent physically and intellectually or more in terms feelings and emotions. This allows us to develop a feeling or intellectual response to any situation. Since our experience has taught us not to mix these responses, others may consider us somewhat stilted in our expression. Many times, our behavior is read as being socially undeveloped or inept. Actually, separating these two frameworks is how we maintain a connection with others, even if it is not the way they would like or expect. We also use their misperceptions and allow them to underestimate us, so we can gather a better understanding of who they are and what they want. This is why we frequently surprise others with our insightfulness, the more they come to know us.
We may also find it hard to relax because we are simultaneously concerned with both our safety and long-term security. We can easily become overwhelmed when friends are fighting and we are unable to facilitate a resolution. As we can see both perspectives, it is easy to become entangled in their views about how we should be helping them. It is hard for us to maintain intellectual and emotional boundaries when people are arguing. We develop a sixth sense that tells us to leave a situation when fights are likely to occur. The difficulty we experience comes from absorbing the tension that leads to feeling more anxious, even when we are not directly involved. When conflicts occur and we cannot escape the immediate vicinity, we freeze, going into shutdown mode, hoping to make ourselves less involved. If there is no way to avoid the argument, we try to establish ground rules so neither party canhold our actions (as an independent third party) over us later. Unfortunately, everyone has a tipping point; when under severe stress, we may react in waysothers later regret. After calming down, we may find it challenging to know what to do or how to operate differently. Our desire for the approval of others and our fear of being misunderstood and unappreciated becomes a dilemma where no matter what we do, the future is problematic. The way out of this dilemma is to begin to see how all points of view are acceptable and we do not need to take sides in any way.
We prefer those who are less judgmental and/or more flexible in the perceptions of their truth. We enjoy others who do not need to hold any fixed way and do not seek us out because we will make them feel more stable and secure. This means we are able to build a sense of momentum when others are willing to be more adventurous and playful, which naturally expands our perceptions about possibilities. When we do not need to use our energy to contain reactions, we are more likely to express ourselves. The more we do not need to fix, support or be there for others, the more we can explore who we want to be. This begins the process of questioning authority, admiring strength and adoring openness. Instead of adapting to others, we begin to formulate a course of action that allows us to go deeper within ourselves. We will either seek Mastery, Mystery or both in our interactions. In this way, we become more conscious of our growth process and what works for us. This requires that we balance our need to prove how selfless we are by honoring that we need to be selfish to fully manifest who we are. Without a degree of selfishness, we cannot develop our contribution and be of service to others in any sustainable way.
Occasionally, we get carried away and over commit ourselves, which makes it awkward to reestablish what works in a way that does not cause us to lose face. The challenge is to see that we are stronger than the misperceptions of others. The less we feel compelled to explain ourselves or attempt to put a different face on the situation, the more autonomy we experience. It is key to see that others’ perceptions are inherently their own business and that it is up to them to come to their own conclusions. Any friend or acquaintance who would indiscriminately accept a superficial reinterpretation of what had occurred would not likely be the best friend or supporter. Their lack of personal autonomy would eventually make us question their ability to reflect and honor our experience. Since what we wish to avoid most is abandonment and the risk of rejection, it may be fortuitous that we experience these so that we can see the upside of getting over our fears of being different. It is effective to recognize those individuals with whom we can deepen and release those individuals who cannot engage us in real ways. Fears of rejection and abandonment primarily keep us from growing and honoring the Truth of our creative nature. The paradox of this process is that we need to be able to abandon and/or reject the parts where we have compromised, in order to guarantee our survival.
Unfortunately, we frequently feel (after the fact) that we have not always taken advantage of the opportunities presented. It is time to forgive ourselves for all the second-guessing we have done and focus on fully responding to the moment. While this may keep us from following through on preset plans, it will develop an ability to go deeper and support us in trusting our experience. Learning how to respond and complete a process before moving forward requires that we do not sabotage ourselves by fearing what we want. We need to take our “in-the-moment” experience and allow ourselves to embody it by breathing deeply into it. On each exhale; reflect upon its Beauty, Truth and Goodness. On each inhale; feel it growing within. When we feel complete, take action that is in alignment with our intention. Initially, pick those items where we have the greatest congruence so we will experience our power to manifest. Eventually, seek out more complex or convoluted issues and see if we can own their natural wholeness before taking action to fulfill them. In this way, we learn to embody our intent and align our motivations so things come to fruition.
Our tendency is to respect those with a clear sense of direction and purpose. We wish we were more this way, but instead we are outwardly satisfied that exploring each option piece by piece is necessary to get where we want to go. Ultimately, we realize we prefer to take things slowly and examine the positives and negatives of each choice because we want to find a course of action that is independently and uniquely our own and not defined by others. Instead of constraining ourselves to what is known, we now begin to see the value of engaging the unknown. In these situations, we need to be prepared to think outside the previous framework and embrace more of the chaos inherent in unexpected results. Our capacity to be outwardly flexible to please others can now be turned inwardly to create more possibilities in how we define ourselves. For example, which ways of being generate a natural sense of power and congruence. What interests or life questions naturally uplift and call forth a commitment to deepen in some way? Which individuals actually bring out greater harmony, focus or an ability to manifest who we authentically are? It is time to examine how we want to create a new direction or focus onour development that supports the evolution of our capacity to contribute.
The result is that we come to incorporate more options and begin to operate with a sense of greater choice. This expansion is frequently experienced as being arrogant, self-obsessive and even delusional, particularly if it calls on us to step into our power. We are being invited to take a stand for contributing in a way that may not initially be comfortable. This fear is a natural result of stepping outside our defensive safety and security frameworks. We frequently find ourselves taking actions that are unimaginable. Not only are we breaking down our defensive frameworks, but we are embracing the possibility that our creativity will triumph. Coming to enjoy this process means we have either become more aware of our body sensations and are using them to get into action or we are becoming more cognizant that we are able to think without judgment so our thoughts become powerful, creative tools with others. In either situation, we are more willing to take risks to explore our Beauty and Truth, rather than fantasizing about it. Another way of describing this is the increased sensitivity we have to either our sensations and feelings or emotions and thoughts. The important thing to recognize is that we will no longer be tolerant of others physically Objectifying or intellectually Subjectifyingus so that we are at the effect of them. Instead we will hold forth and honor our own experience even if others do not agree with us.
Pioneering Affirmation Style
We transcend our defenses and become Pioneers when we can simultaneously embody both our masculine and feminine sides. Releasing ourselves from our defenses means we can get into a creative flow and respond to the moment in the best possible manner. In this way, we can use chaos and order, mystery and mastery, and recognize that we are both being and becoming who we are. As Pioneers, we manage our own space, time and energy with others, without taking on their projections or issues. This means we have created clear boundaries on physical, emotional, mental and intuitive levels so we know what works and does not work within us. We are extremely flexible because we know who we are from the inside out, as Creative Beings. We are no longer caught up in the games of self-image, because we do not actually care about protecting our image. Instead, we would rather live for today and do all that is necessary to express ourselves.
As Pioneers we use the skills of Playfulness, Paradox and Mutual Learning to manifest our Aliveness and connection in the moment. We do not take ourselves seriously, which enables us to be whatever is required to fulfill our intentions. Since we trust our in-the-moment experience, we operate as we are inspired, based on fully meeting the circumstances as they arise. We enjoy whatever happens in each situation, which reflects our ability to interpret our reality in ways that serve and support our development. In identifying ourselves as Pioneers, we completely accept ourselves as we are. This Self-acceptance is manifested primarily in our physical self-presence, reflecting a deep congruence in our being. We speak in an embodied way, simultaneously conveying sensations, feelings/emotions, thoughts and insights. This experience is enriching to others who can feel an energetic or spiritual transmission when they are simply being near us.
As Pioneers, we take the time to do things completely and simply. We realize that everything will unfold at its own rate. We do not get anxious or fearful about the future, and thus we do not occupy too much of our time with plans. Pioneers have a deep capacity to be with others wherever they are. Our flexibility arises because we do not see our Self as any particular quality, and therefore we can explore our truth with the truth of others in each moment. Pioneers are healthy, vibrant and perhaps even a little mischievous as we encourage others to find their own natural expression and creative flow. Some Pioneers are extremely passionate and dedicated to certain life expressions, while others are focused more on just being themselves. Whatever our expression, we attract individuals who are interested in transcending their defenses and being more present and whole within themselves.
What makes Pioneers powerful is our ability to hold our own space and identity internally while simultaneously manifesting ourselves externally. Being self-reflective and introspective allows us to manifest a sense of perspective about what is going on within us. Being of service to others by making our authentic contribution makes us effective in coordinating our activities with other people. As Pioneers we are able to develop our inner process through Meditation, Contemplation, and other Body-Mind Integration techniques. We are developing our outer manifestation skills by learning how to serve and evoke the most fulfilling possibilities for those around us. Being of Service awakens our creative energies, helping us realize our natural contributions, and supporting us in deepening our ability to contribute to others. Meditation, on the other hand, helps us to release our attachments to our behavior, our emotions, and our thoughts. It allows us to experience the reality that we are the Knower behind the experience, rather than the experience itself.
As Pioneers we develop a strong capacity to learn from our inner and outer experiences, integrating the two. This foundation allows us to transcend reactions and Defenses because we no longer have to prove anything to others. The paradox is while we own our core Creative Being, the process of life helps us experience our ongoing Becoming. We are typically unconcerned with where we are going, because we know we will get there when we arrive. This allows us to simultaneously become solid, clear, and open to change by using Chaos and Order interactively, based on what is needed in the situation to best facilitate growth. For example, we might decide to create a plan (which reflects a desire for Order), while realizing that we can take advantage of certain opportunities that come up (which reflects Chaos), without worrying about how the plan or lack thereof will affect us.
Pioneers transmute Excitement into Aliveness. As Pioneers, we seek to embody ourselves as fully creative individuals able to meet others where they are. Our curiosity and desire to understand how the world works makes us patient and guides us in aligning our interactions with others. We do not force things nor do we run away from them. We allow them to occur, recognizing that they will do so at the right pace if our personality fears and desires stay out of the way. Because we love ourselves, we can relax into our bodies, our feelings, and our thoughts without being attached to how others respond and react to them. When we recognize that others need to take responsibility for their own growth process, we are able to avoid falling into caretaking behavior.
When others approach us using intensity, we transform it into wisdom by recognizing the intent of what they’re saying and how it can contribute to our common lessons. While we have the capacity to deal with opposition, we neither encourage nor revel in it as a way to create false boundaries. Instead, we seek to bring things back to a common foundation where we can be seen in ways that honor one another. Because we are conscious in our growth process, we are able to share with our partners both our inner perspective and our outer focus, with a minimum of difficulty. When our partners are able to do the same, it creates infinitely greater possibility for alignment allowing us to trust our in the moment experience so we read the situation and see the balance between what is needed on both a masculine and a feminine level. This encourages our response to fit the circumstances so whatever we seek to accomplish can be done with greater ease.
As Pioneers, we are adventurous risk takers who want to learn as much as possible about our environment and the people in it. We do not fear making mistakes, abandonment or rejection. Rather, we use every interaction to further understand and appreciate the perfection of how things turn out. Instead of viewing a relationship breakup as a setback, we see the silver lining that is all the lessons we learned informing us in choosing a more compatible partner. As Pioneers, we have consciously learned the lessons of our past so we do not need to repeat them. What makes us so open and spontaneous is that we neither define ourselves in terms of our past nor fear re-creating it. Our natural passion, playfulness, and inspiration keeps us focused on what is working for us in our growth process. Our ability to tell our truth in harmless ways allows others to reveal themselves without fear of judgment.
As Pioneers, we own and freely express our core values. We do not need others to validate or agree with them to know who we are. We recognize that each relationship brings forth different aspects. We further recognize that we need not express all aspects of ourselves in all of our relationships. This allows us to operate in a more decentralized way. Where we meet one another then becomes the basis from which we determine how to co-create. This requires that we accept our creative nature enough to both see and honor the differences and similarities we share with each of the people in our lives. When we do this, we further reinforce our own inner knowing in a way that not only serves our partners but our own growth process as well. Others feel a sense of grace when they are around us. This is a reflection of our ability to be intimate, even in adverse situations. The most noticeable characteristics others see in us are:
- Closeness and Availability— We respond to the needs of the situation and the lessons and awareness of the individuals while determining how best to serve the circumstances. Over time, Pioneers develop the ability to recognize our own glamour and illusions and then apply this knowledge to threading the eye of the needle when it comes to our personal romantic relationships.
- Interdependent— We know where the appropriate boundaries are on all levels. Pioneers operate from a clear inner compass that others may not understand. We are able to balance and re-distribute energy within a group to allow it to serve its purpose. We support others in balancing their masculine and feminine by accentuating the issues and showing how they can find their own inner balance.
- Comfortable with Differences and Similarities— Pioneers are at ease around all types of individuals. We are able to honor and support, with completely intuitive precision, the issues going on with any person or group.
The best illustration that we have become Pioneers is our flexibility in bringing out the best in others around us. People around us naturally feel that they are seen, valued, and accepted as who they are, where they are. While this may appear from the outside to be a form of adaptation to others, in truth, if we are grounded in our being then it allows us to deepen our own Self-appreciation while reflecting others. From this we can begin to appreciate how every relationship that shows up teaches us more about ourselves, reinforcing our common humanity. Finally, as Pioneers, we end up completing and transcending many of our personal fears and desires, allowing us to focus our energies on our interactions with others. We become a unifying energy that increasingly holds the transpersonal view so others can see their deeper truths. Sometimes, this process does not seem to be serving us as much as it is serving others. The key is to recognize that we always attract more conscious partners as we own and embody our full creative nature.
The benefits of Pioneering individuals choosing other Pioneers is that neither looks to the other to fulfill their fantasies. Instead, our flexibility and joy for learning together leads to pursuing new and mutual directions that neither of us can anticipate. Pioneering couples leave the past behind to find their creative power in the present. Whatever we need to do to climb the next mountain we do together, realizing that mistakes along the way make learning more interesting. We see the perfection in everything we do, and believe there is a valuable lesson in every situation. Usually Pioneers have considerable experience in unequal relationships and have seen the light about the distortions and bias caused by defenses. Pioneers therefore are committed to choosing partners and friends consciously based on an appreciation of compatibility factors and defensive styles. This means that Pioneers do not let instinctive attractions or the lure of Maya, Glamour or Illusion get in the way of seeing the inner truth about the situation.
Pioneers are “conscious insiders,” who have typically made many mistakes, but have learned from them. We recognize unconscious and instinctive fears and desires and have learned how to neutralize them. Pioneers typically have experience with all defensive styles and can predict their natural unconscious behavior. We seek out relationships that do not play defensive/reactive games, increasing the intensity of interactions, and instead know how to find quiet, intimate, easy-going partners who love themselves.
Pioneering Affirmation style individuals are fluid, strong (by honoring weakness), paradoxical, non-reactive and available on all levels. We use both chaos and order simultaneously to meet others where ever they are. We are creative, flexible and self-defined and do not seek others forour comfort. In short, we look for relationships that are fun, playful and joyous. Since we know that individuals living outside of defensive relationships are living life fully, we search uniquely creative individuals that have defined themselves on their own terms, and are totally unpredictable. Pioneers, like their friends, do not feel the need to prove themselves or make others wrong for their defensive behavior patterns or perceptions. We can also be identified by our ability to see underlying intuitive patterns in everything. These patterns both amuse and inform us about the tide of human endeavor and allow us to quietly place ourselves where we will do the most good.
EXAMPLES
Oprah Winfrey – actress, TV talk show host
Dolly Parton – singer
Mary Tyler Moore – actress
Teri Cole Whitaker – New Age preacher
Marianne Williamson – author
Denzel Washington – actor
Confucius – Chinese philosopher
Aristotle – Greek philosopher, logician & scientist
Lech Walenza – Solidarity Union leader
George Fox – Founder of Quakerism
Sir Francis Bacon – English philosopher, scientist, statesman
Abraham Lincoln – 16th President of the United States
Woodrow Wilson – Founder of the League of Nations, predecessor to the United Nations
Ken Wilbur – Author, lecturer on transpersonal issues
Mark Twain – American writer
Mohandas Gandhi – Indian political revolutionary
Annie Besant – founder & president of Theosophical Society, past President of India’s congress
Plato –Greek philosopher
Nelson Mandela – President of South Africa
Dalai Lama
Patanjali – Indian sage creator of Raja yoga
Socrates - Greek philosopher & teacher of Plato
Mother Teresa – Founded Mothers of Charity
Defensive Facades
If one of our parents was repulsed by our Defense Style, and we needed to present ourselves in a different way to be seen by them, we developed a defensive Façade on top of our defense. We can have any combination of Defense and Façade. Society’s expectations also play a role in facades, so we describe them separately for men and women.
If You Have A Distant Façade (Male)
A Distant Façade is a form of Pretense where you create another defensive layer so you can pretend to be someone who others will accept more easily. You have learned to automatically distance yourself from others when you feel pressured or others place unfair demands upon you. You pretend to be independent and above the fray so others do not know how much you are affected by their attacks. A Distant Façade Defense style creates another layer of disengagement so you will have more time to respond to that which you wish and can more easily distance yourself from that which you do not wish to create. While you appreciate that you need to know what to do before you do it, you see your own hesitancy in taking action as weakness. Therefore you are sensitive about the judgments of others particularly regarding how quickly you respond to potential problems. Your natural desire is to be disconnected and unable to be hurt by the projections of others so you invest a lot of time convincing others that no matter what they do, you will persevere.
The problem with the Distant Façade is that it reinforces the perception that you do not want to be involved. This inadvertently sends the message that you are indifferent to whether or not others want you around. As a result, many individuals could preclude you from social events, which hurt your feelings. The challenge is letting people know that you want to be involved without appearing to be needy, demanding or difficult. Balancing the need to be close with the need to be distant is what makes the Distant Façade a tough juggling act. Commonly, you get caught up in contradictory impulses where one moment you believe you should call people and let them know you are available and the next moment you find yourself back pedaling and unwilling to discuss what you would like.
A Distant Façade is a great tool to use when your parents are less conscious than you. It allows you to hide your precocious perceptions and appear to accept their Truth and your own. It works particularly well, the more individuals are caught up in gender-based role-playing and need greater reassurance that you will not judge them or make them wrong. The usefulness of a Distant Façade is so your role-playing will blend with the role-playing of others. In this way, there is an unspoken agreement not to bring up anything that could be threatening to the stability of what others believe. The more authentic and conscious you behave, the more it naturally threatens others who are less conscious or aware. Role adaptation is also a natural response when you collapse energetically, have a life threatening illness or are threatened in a way that you cannot effectively defend yourself. In this way, a Distant Façade is an acquiescence approach that allows others to acknowledge their supposed superior status. You do this because there does not seem to be an easy or useful way to change the terms of the relationship. You go along to get along.
Over time, you develop inertia about who you are and how you act. It is your self-denial of who you are creatively, which creates an anchor that effectively makes it more difficult to deal with new possibilities of change. This sense of profound isolation can be further accentuated by the degree you had parents who ignored you or were unwilling to actively support you. This creates a disconnect as you believe there must be something wrong with you because you are unwanted. Instead of confronting this defensive belief, you seek to distance yourself by either being constantly busy or becoming seriously depressed and unwilling to do much of anything. While a Distant Façade does provide another layer that keeps you from feeling your pain, eventually, you find yourself disheartened by your circumstances and unwilling to go along with them anymore.
If You Have A Distant Façade (Female)
A Distant Façade is a form of Pretense where you create another defensive layer so you can pretend to be someone who others will accept more easily. You have learned to acquiesce to others and define yourself in terms of them in order to be accepted. It is easy for you to pretend to be dependent and unable to respond in a different way. Initially, this allows you to avoid making any major choices. The real reason you procrastinate in your decision making is to give you time to assess your options and make sure you will be able to get what you want with the changes that are occurring. A Distant Façade Defense style creates another layer of disengagement so you will have more time to respond to that which you wish and can more easily distance yourself from that which you do not wish to create. While you appreciate that you need to know what to do before you do it, you see your own hesitancy in taking action as weakness. Therefore you are sensitive about the judgments of others particularly regarding how quickly you respond to potential problems. Your natural desire is to be disconnected and unable to be hurt by the projections of others so you invest a lot of time convincing others that no matter what they do, you will persevere.
The problem with the Distant Façade is that it reinforces the perception that you do not want to be involved. This inadvertently sends the message that you are indifferent to whether or not others want you around. As a result, many individuals could preclude you from social events which hurts your feelings. Underneath everything, you desperately want to be seen as a human being. The challenge is letting people know that you want to be involved without appearing to be needy, demanding or difficult. Balancing the need to be close with the need to be distant is what makes the Distant Façade a tough juggling act. Commonly, you get caught up in contradictory impulses where one moment you believe you should call people and let them know you are available and the next moment you find yourself back pedaling and unwilling to discuss what you would like.
A Distant Façade is a great tool to use when your parents are less conscious than you. It allows you to hide your precocious perceptions and appear to accept their Truth along with your own. It works particularly well the more individuals are caught up in gender-based role-playing and need greater reassurance that you will not judge them or make them wrong. The usefulness of a Distant Façade is that your role-playing will blend with the role-playing of others. In this way, there is an unspoken agreement not to bring up anything that could be threatening to the stability of what others believe. The more you show up as authentic and conscious, the more it naturally threatens others who are less conscious or aware. Role adaptation is also a natural response when you collapse energetically, have a life threatening illness or are threatened in a way that you cannot effectively defend yourself. In this way, Distant Façade is an acquiescence approach that allows others to acknowledge their supposed superior status. You do this because there does not seem to be an easy of useful way to change the terms of the relationship. You go along to get along.
Over time, you develop inertia about who you are and how you act. It is your self-denial of who you creatively are, which creates an anchor that effectively makes it more difficult to deal with new possibilities of change. This sense of profound isolation can be further accentuated by the degree you had parents who ignored you or were unwilling to actively support you. This creates a disconnect as you believe there must be something wrong with you because you are unwanted. Instead of confronting this defensive belief, you seek to distance yourself by either being constantly busy or becoming seriously depressed and unwilling to do much of anything. While a Distant Façade does provide another layer that keeps you from feeling your pain, eventually, you find yourself disheartened by your circumstances and unwilling to go along with them anymore.
If You Have A Dynamic Façade (Male)
When you have a Dynamic Façade, it indicates that you do not have a Dynamic Defense Style but that you cover up it by acting overtly masculine. This usually means that you were wounded by your father or both your mother and father and believe the only safe way to get attention is to achieve an alpha male status. This also means you received a message that appearing weak could lead to disaster. Therefore you tend to over emphasize your commitment to activities and under emphasize your sensitivity to getting along with others. The more you seem demanding and determined to get what you need, the more you fit into a Dynamic Façade. It is important to distinguish this façade by the constant effort needed to dominate others around you, which is different from a Dynamic Defense Style where you merely need to succeed. With the Dynamic Façade, the emphasis is on appearing to be in charge and making sure everyone else knows they are a failure relative to you.
The inherent contradiction is that underneath you want to be a “good guy”. You may not even be comfortable with getting attention or believe yourself able to accomplish the goals you set for yourself. One of the ironies is that you may have to act more coarse and unconscious in order to convince others that you mean what you say. This inner conflict between authentic and inauthentic power creates tremendous Intensity. You falsely believe that you need to demonstrate a commitment to living your Truth, even if it is not internally congruent with where you want to go. The more you operate from a Dynamic Façade, the easier it is for you to go through the motions of making others accept your hyper-vigilant masculinity, even if the way you are invoking it is not authentic. Commonly, you express yourself in more determined, forceful, or preset ways that push the envelope in a way that reveals differences with others. You have found that provoking the concerns of others keeps them from examining your Truth or the lack of it.
Putting pressure on others accomplishes your primary goal of demonstrating your assertiveness. The more you can follow up in a structured manner and the timelines that you feel are important to manifest, the easier it is for others to believe the masculine projection of who you are. Acting in control is also a necessary ingredient in selling a Dynamic Façade to others.
It is important to remember that a Dynamic Façade places another layer on top of your defenses where you are protecting yourself against others judging you as inadequate. In order to avoid being seen as inadequate, you constantly stir the pot and act as though you are indifferent to others so you are not seen as being feminine. It is ironic that you falsely believe that you have to act masculine to get accepted when you could actually be masculine and not care what others think. It is a testament to your internal fragmentation that you have conflicted goals and aspirations that end up compromising what you wish to express rather than fulfilling them. Healing your Dynamic Façade means confronting the fear that someone else’s judgment of you will be more compelling than your own self-knowing.
If You Have A Dynamic Façade (Female)
When you have a Dynamic Façade, it indicates that you do not have a Dynamic Defense Style but that you cover up it by overtly acting masculine. The source of a Dynamic Façade is primarily the drive to take care of yourself and not be taken advantage of by others. This usually means that you were wounded by your mother or both your father and mother and believe the only safe way to get attention is to prove you can do everything on your own. Therefore you tend to over emphasize your planning, control, and fixation on making sure that things go as intended. While you may not appreciate the abrasiveness necessary to convince others to respond to you in a pre-eminent way, you cannot fault the necessity for it. Usually you doubt your clarity, focus and/or direction but cannot admit it to others without their suffering a loss of confidence in you. This encourages you to come up with plans that cannot be questioned where you are able to predominantly establish your commitment to a course of action. Otherwise, you will get caught up in trying to convince others about your ideas, which will dramatically minimize the results. The more you seem demanding and determined to get what you need, the more you fit into a Dynamic Façade. It is important to distinguish this façade by the constant effort needed to dominate others around you, which is different from a Dynamic Defense Style where you merely need to succeed.
The inherent contradiction is that underneath you want to be a “nice person”. You may not even be comfortable with getting attention or believe yourself able to accomplish the goals you set for yourself. One of the ironies is that you may have to act more belligerent and overly assertive in order to convince others that you mean what you say. This inner conflict between authentic and inauthentic power creates tremendous Intensity. You falsely believe that you need to demonstrate a commitment to living your Truth, even if it is not internally congruent with where you want to go. You have found that provoking the concerns of others keeps them from examining your Truth or the lack of it. Putting pressure on others accomplishes your primary goal of demonstrating your assertiveness. The more you can follow up in a structured manner, the timelines that you feel are important to manifest, the easier it is for others to believe the masculine projection of who you are. Acting in control is also a necessary ingredient in selling a Dynamic Façade to others.
It is important to remember that a Dynamic Façade places another layer on top of your defenses where you are protecting yourself against others judging you as inconsequential. One of your greatest fears is that you will never be appreciated or seen for the power you possess. In order to be seen, you constantly stir the pot just to keep a certain tension occurring so that you can prove you do not acquiesce to others. It is ironic that you falsely believe that you have to act masculine because the inner strength of your feminine could be a more supportive and transformative path. It is a testament to your internal fragmentation that you have conflicted goals and aspirations that end up compromising what you wish to express rather than fulfilling them. Healing your Dynamic Façade means confronting the fear that someone else’s judgment of you will be more compelling than your own self-knowing.
If You Have A Disarming Façade (Male)
When you have a Disarming Façade, it indicates that you think you need to be softer and more personable to get what you need from others. Usually it is a result of being rejected as being ,,too uncouth, animalistic, impolite or belligerent. This indicates that you were wounded by your father or both your mother and father and believe the only safe way to get attention is to learn to meet others in a way that builds quality relationships. A part of this process is learning how to listen and adapt to others rather than act assertively in a way that upsets the sensibilities of others around you. Being overtly powerful could lead to disaster because people could refuse to cooperate with you. Therefore you tend to over emphasize your desire to meet others and under emphasize your task management desire to get something done. The more you seem easygoing, adaptive, and responsive to others, the more likely you are operating with a Disarming Façade. It is important to distinguish this façade by the constant effort needed to prove “you are the guy who can bring together people and make things happen interpersonally”. With the Disarming Façade, the emphasis is on finding a way to bring harmony into a situation so that you can be a great interpersonal facilitator.
The inherent contradiction is that underneath you want to point out all others’ inconsistencies in their Truth and demand that they be accountable. You may not even have great skill in listening to or being present with others, yet this façade forces you to pay attention to what is going on with others around you. One of the ironies is that you may have to act more available, refined, and open to prove you are actually a caring person. This inner conflict between authentic and inauthentic love of others creates Resistance. You come to recognize that you cannot force yourself to behave in a “good way’ without tremendous resentment. This internal Resistance shows up as a fundamental compromise in your Autonomy where the more you try to be there for others, the more you naturally sabotage your self-interest. This pattern is amplified, when you have had parents who tried to convince you to be more like them. Even if you were more like them, you learn the value of following your own path. You falsely believe that you need to demonstrate a commitment to living your Truth, even if it is not internally congruent with where you want to go.
The more you operate from a Disarming Façade, the easier it is for you to go through the motions of being genteel and nice, even if you feel anger underneath. Commonly, you express yourself by being forgiving, easygoing, and accepting. Learning to slow things down and examine what must be true for others places a self-discipline on any situation which keeps you from falling into unconscious patterns. Not putting pressure on others demonstrates your compassion and ability to be forgiving in all situations. The more you can create space for yourself and other people, the more you come to appreciate how differences do not have to compromise the relationship. Acting in a way that honors your space and the space of others simultaneously, brings about a more inclusive perspective about what it takes to be in more conscious relationships. Otherwise, you find yourself trapped in unsatisfying interactions that never seem to get anywhere. A Disarming Façade gradually builds up a reservoir of frustration, which eventually explodes into emotional dumping through the sharing of grief or the projection of anger.
It is important to remember that a Disarming Façade places another layer on top of your defenses where you are protecting yourself against others judging you as difficult, demanding, or unlovable. In order to avoid being seen as a challenging acquired taste, you constantly second guess yourself and attempt to reassure others that your intentions are theirs. It is ironic that you falsely believe that you have to act feminine to get accepted when you could actually be integrated and responsive without any type of false humility. It is a testament to your internal fragmentation that you have conflicted goals and aspirations that end up compromising what you wish to express rather than fulfilling them. Healing your Disarming Façade means confronting the fear that others will reject or abandon you if you reveal your natural Aliveness. The opportunity is to step into a harmless way of communicating your experience without losing the natural masculinity and assertiveness that makes you who you are.
If You Have A Disarming Façade (Female)
When you have a Disarming Façade, it indicates that you think you need to be softer and more personable to get what you need from others. Usually it is a result of being rejected as too unrefined in your social skills. This indicates that you were wounded by your mother or both your father and mother and believe the only safe way to get attention is to learn to meet others in a way that builds quality connections. A part of this process is learning how to listen and adapt to others rather than act assertively in a way that upsets the sensibilities of others around you. Being overtly powerful could lead to disaster because people could refuse to cooperate with you. Therefore you tend to over emphasize your desire to meet others and under emphasize your task management desire to get something done. The more you seem easygoing, adaptive and responsive to others, the more likely you are operating with a Disarming Façade. It is important to distinguish this façade by the constant effort needed to prove “you are the person who can bring together people and make things happen”. With the Disarming Façade, the emphasis is on finding a way to bring harmony into a situation so that you can be a great interpersonal facilitator.
The inherent contradiction is that underneath you want to point out all others’ inconsistencies in their Truth and demand that they be accountable. You may not even have great skill in listening to or being present with others, yet this façade forces you to pay attention to what is going on with others around you. One of the ironies is that you may have to act more available, connected, and open to prove you are actually a caring person. This inner conflict between authentic and inauthentic love of others creates Resistance. You come to recognize that you cannot force yourself to behave in a “good way’ without tremendous resentment. This internal Resistance shows up as a fundamental compromise in your autonomy where the more you try to be there for others, the more you naturally sabotage your self-interest. This pattern is amplified, when you have had parents who tried to convince you to be more like them. Even if you were more like them, you learn the value of following your own path. You falsely believe that you need to demonstrate a commitment to living your Truth, even if it is not internally congruent with where you want to go.
The more you operate from a Disarming Façade, the easier it is for you to go through the motions of being genteel and nice, even if you feel anger underneath. Commonly, you express yourself by being forgiving, easygoing, and accepting. Learning to slow things down and examine what must be True for others places a self-discipline on any situation which keeps you from falling into unconscious patterns. Not putting pressure on others demonstrates your compassion and ability to be forgiving in all situations. The more you can create space for yourself and other people, the more you come to appreciate how differences do not have to compromise the relationship. Acting in a way that honors your space and the space of others simultaneously, brings about a more inclusive perspective about what it takes to be in more conscious relationships. Otherwise, you find yourself trapped in unsatisfying interactions that never seem to get anywhere. A Disarming Façade gradually builds up a reservoir of frustration, which eventually explodes into emotional dumping through the sharing of grief or the projection of anger.
It is important to remember that a Disarming Façade places another layer on top of your defenses where you are protecting yourself against others judging you as difficult, demanding or unlovable. In order to avoid being seen as a challenging acquired taste, you constantly second guess yourself and attempt to reassure others that your intentions are theirs. It is ironic that you falsely believe that you have to act feminine to get accepted when you could actually be integrated and responsive without any type of false humility. It is a testament to your internal fragmentation that you have conflicted goals and aspirations that end up compromising what you wish to express rather than fulfilling them. Healing your Disarming Façade means confronting the fear that others will reject or abandon you if you reveal your natural Aliveness. The opportunity is to step into a harmless way of communicating your experience without losing the natural balance between masculine and feminine energy.
If You Have A Disnamic Façade
When you have a Disnamic facade, you learned at a very early age from the example of our parents that we needed to hide ourselves and establish our strength relative to others by opposing them. The only strength that you saw emphasized was being different as a way to distinguish yourself from others. Usually in this situation, one of your parents was more Dynamic and the other was more Disarming. They taught you, by example, that the only way to survive is to make sure that their partner did not take advantage of them or become complacent in accepting them was to oppose them. The way to prevent these issues from occurring was to create a superficial structure that made sure that others had to engage them by exploring differences and working out a negotiated settlement for how to work together. Ironically, underneath the Disnamic facade, you are either naturally Dynamic or Disarming, which, if you showed our parents either one of them, would cause them to think you were weak. This facade indicates that you were sensitive to getting the approval of both parents (usually because there was greater turbulence and/or uncertainty in the family dynamic).
As you begin to heal your Disnamic facade, you are able to appreciate that you do not have to be different to gain others’ respect. Instead of amping up your differences (with others), you learn to settle into your natural defensive way of being and own your defense style as it really is. While this is another layer to heal, it is worthwhile to engage this process because it reduces internal confusion and fear (that if you are not opposing others then they will not value you). As you ground yourself in your natural defensive style, other people may be initially surprised but will come to accept you more. This happens because, from their perspective, you are not switching back and forth to meet others in an automatically opposing way any more. While you may think that you are consistent because you have opposed everyone equally, this creates uncertainty in people who are not Disnamic and do not have a Disnamic facade. Other defense styles cannot predict which way you will jump in any situation. Many individuals locked into defensive structures and personality perspectives are challenged when they cannot predict your response in advance. What you need to do to fully heal yourself of this facade is to ask the question, “How do I really want to engage this person?” You need to equally consider whether agreeing with them (and moving in the same direction as they are) is as valuable a response as the opposing them. When this healing occurs, not only will you be more congruent with your internal truth, but other people will naturally trust you more.
Validating Our Defense Style
Which of the following are we the most sensitive to?: Guilt (where someone tries to manipulate us to do what they want –Distant Defense), Blame (where we are made wrong so that we feel inadequate –Disarming Defense), or Shame (where someone interrupts us to make us look bad in front of others –Dynamic Defense)?
- How do we approach creativity: Conditionally (based on how the other person engages and how receptive they are to what is suggested —Distant Defense), Interactively (by focusing on the other person to create new possibilities based on our interaction –Disarming Defense), or Self-Generating (by focusing on our own experience and relying on our internal sense of organization to bring clarity to others –Dynamic Defense)?
- When we are attracted or interested in someone, how do we let them know? Are we: Indecisive (making them indicate some interest before we respond to them –Distant Defense), Assertive (do we make some kind of gesture that’s obvious to them – Dynamic Defense), or Passive (do we let them figure it out, making our interest very subtle and easy to be misinterpreted in case they are offended—Disarming Defense)?
- When we are upset, how do we demonstrate our anger? Do we Ignore or Deny our feelings (not letting others get the best of us—Distant Defense), or do we become Combative or Confrontational (letting others clearly know weare offended—Dynamic Defense), or do we put a temporary Space Between our self and others (trying to figure out what we could have done differently—Disarming Defense)?
- What do others most notice about us? Do we keep our agreements and are reliable and consistent (Distant Defense), are we direct, masterful, active, alive and a risk-taker (Dynamic Defense), are we open, easy-going, mysterious, wise and able to attract what we want (Disarming Defense style)?
- In our communications, are we: Perfectionist (wanting to make sure we say things with just the right emotional tone and caring—Distant Defense), Precise (up-front and clear, with strong intellectual focus—Dynamic Defense), or Self-deprecating (fluid, wanting to make sure others know their importance—Disarming Defense)? Or fluid and accepting (Pioneering).
- When meeting others for the first time, do we find more often than not, that we are: Emotionally Distant (Dynamic Defense), Physically Distant (Disarming Defense), or both Emotionally and Physically Distant (Distant Defense)?
- Do we feel more capable on: Mental and Emotional Levels (Distant defense), Physical and Mental levels (Dynamic Defense), or Emotional and Intuitive levels (Disarming Defense)? Are we open both physically and emotionally, revealing a balance of Aliveness and Wisdom (Pioneering)
- When others observe our energy: are we denying both physical and emotional styles seeming constrained, rigid, with a sense of Inertia? (Distant); are we emotionally available, soft, easy-going but not fully grounded? (Disarming); are we physically available, clear, precise, grounded, but without a sense of higher connectedness? (Dynamic); are we both physically and emotionally available, demonstrating a balance between being grounded and the capacity for higher unrestricted expression? (Pioneering)
- When asked to make a commitment, what is our natural response: We try to delay a decision until we’ve had time to consider all the options? (Distant); we say yes conditionally, hoping that it will all work out? (Disarming); we attempt to pin down and define every contingency in advance? If we can’t, do we refuse to commit to the task? (Dynamic); we seek to clarify the different expectations of people and to provide a group framework for appropriate action? (Pioneering)
HOW TO BE PIONEERING
When we are Creative Pioneers we accept both the masculine and feminine nature within us, fully seeing that either way can be effective in many of our endeavors. Optimally, it is best to use both our masculine and feminine energies in order to produce a synergistic effect, which supports us in being more present and aware. Pioneers operate from the following basic premises:
1. Pioneers do not accept that they need to be compromised in any way. They know that there is always a Creative solution to every problem. They also realize that Intensity and personal Desire repulses wisdom minimizing Creativity.
2. Pioneers do not fear that anyone can compromise them in any way. They understand that Fear and Excitement attracts compromises, decreasing Aliveness, and Creativity.
3. Pioneers use mutual respect and esteem to neutralize imbalances caused by our partner’s Attachment to their false identity. This arises from completely accepting themselves as they are, recognizing their own self-esteem and self-respect.
4. Pioneers choose to operate with less defensive people as much as possible because it effectively supports their larger Creative Expression. One of the largest benefits is that they don’t need to explain themselves as much to people who are less defensive. In other words, the more defensive people are, the more caught up others are in the Pioneer’s lack of defenses.
5. Pioneers expand their Autonomy skills by allowing themselves to heal and let go of the compromises of their past. They create a new level of Being which is present and not attached to the past.
6. Pioneers increase their Intimacy skills because it supports them in being connected in a way that is spiritually and socially uplifting. They realize that sharing and cooperating are ways of being that produce synergy.
7. Pioneers, by accepting their true inner nature (not looking to others to provide that for them), allows them, paradoxically, the ability to let the Universe indicate to them what to do next. Ironically, this allows Pioneers to go full cycle of letting go of outer appearances and Attachments, to honor their Internal Knowing so that they can be open to seeing the spirit move in the world and thus facilitate their alignment.
Finally, you will see the results of defensive healing when you realize that you have been in a Creative Flow where you trusted the process and allowed your Creativity to come out. In other words, the complaints, concerns, and fears of your personality were quieted, allowing you to fully experience your Creativity. This awe-inspiring event can be a daily occurrence if you were only to adjust yourself to not being defensive.
One way this occurs is by letting go of your Belief system. Instead of using Beliefs to keep you from examining your Truth in the moment, you can begin to realize that you now have the consciousness to create and know your Truth in each moment by your ability to be in the moment.
You could seek out clear, non-defensive individuals to help you see the effects of your growth. Unfortunately, it is easier to project your stuff onto non-defensive individuals and actually believe it is their stuff. This is because truly non-defensive individuals don’t care what you think. The ironic thing is that the more you believe a person who is not being defensive is defensive, the more you are projecting your issues and judgments on them.
It has also been my experience that many people who do not buy into the possibility of a non-defensive reality do not understand how you could not be a part of their process. Instead, they believe and insist that you are reacting to the situation, when in fact you experience no reaction at all. They experience your "illusiveness" as defensiveness, or at best, being smarter than they are. Of course, this is all their Projection. We know this process as “not taking a Position”.
What this means is that you could more effectively grow if you were to assume that your defensive issues are entirely your own. To do so indicates great confidence in your ability to own the entire process so that defensive Projections can be resolved and are a thing of the past. Owning the entire process means that you know how people operate defensively; you know, most likely, what their projections will be; you sometimes say things that could appear to be defensive as a way to minimize the time they are in their defensive identity; but you always keep the opportunity open that they are going to operate non-defensively, and pray for this.
The burden of the people without defensive identities is that everyone with a defensive identity has to make them wrong and different in order to maintain their own sense of safety and security. I recommend that you don’t take these attacks seriously or personally and accept that they are attacking you because they don’t know better. Instead I suggest that, while we do operate in the world fully, we also see ourselves living beyond it on a spiritual level. It is our spiritual anchor that keeps us stable and growing despite the sabotage of others who do not understand us.
It is time now to accept that you know all that you need to in order to do your defensive healing and in fact, many of you have been practicing being Pioneers for some time and can now be encouraged by the perspective you have about Defenses. What has been revealed is not only how to operate non-defensively but how to accept and understand others when they are defensive. Underlying our defensive identity are our Autonomy and Intimacy needs, which were not being met. When we take responsibility for creating Autonomy and Intimacy in our lives, our defensiveness will be a thing of the past and the outcome will likely be that we will be happy with ourselves and where we are going.
For it is only our Defenses that were locking us into ways of operating that kept us from being happy. Now that we know that our happiness is in our own hands, then the incentive to try to prove ourselves at the cost of others is lost allowing ourselves to grow and be with others in ways that are Creative and uplifting. It is time now to be Pioneers and by doing so be examples in a world that needs new ways to operate.
HEALING OUR DEFENSES
Distant Defense Style individuals can best heal by addressing the following:
- We need to stimulate our inner energetic connection with our Self so we are free to fully be our Self with others. The first step is to minimize our negative, critical self-dialogue. Instead, we need to build a positive inner framework for affirming and re-interpreting (from the glass is half empty to it is half full) our creative process. We also need to eliminate whatever beliefs limit our creative re-birth. This means in situations where we feel driven to make things perfect, we need to let go of this image and find ways to see the perfection in what actually is in front of us. This will increase and build a sense of connection that will lead us to discover how much we are wanted.
- We need to stop personally engaging guilt as a Creative Self-denial process. The more we need to justify our existence by caretaking and providing support to others, the more we will be caught in activities that do not honor or support us. When we use guilt to get our Self to do things we do not want to, it is easy to use guilt to get others to do what we want. If we do this, we will be more likely to take on their guilt when they want something in return. In short, using guilt opens us up to being guilty about others.
- We need to stir up our lives and increase our willingness to engage change so we do not fall into pre-established expectations that limit our spontaneity. In other words, we need to use the fire of Transmutation to burn through our entranced, conditioned behavioral patterns. Inertia is the primary obstacle to shifting out of defensive interactions. Recognizing and healing our unconscious reaction patterns demonstrates that we are not these patterns and can change and evolve. This will allow us to playfully engage new opportunities without getting caught up in performing.
- It would be useful to investigate our thoughts and emotions on a deeper level in a way that allows us to see how they do not always need to calibrate to one another. As Distant defense style individuals one of our core protection patterns is to constantly shift between thoughts and emotional perspectives, to create a less reactive interpretation of what is occurring. When we see how our thoughts and emotions are just two out of five frameworks (physical, feeling, emotional, intellectual, and intuitive) it reduces our need to explain everything in terms of these two. The result is we are less reactive. This allows us to be more open and responsive to others in the moment. Currently, we may be scared by divergent emotions and seemingly contradictory thoughts and end up disappearing in the confusion.
- It is time to question and challenge our perceived Safety Fears and Security Desires that were instilled in us as children and may no longer serve us. While many of these old patterns were useful to us as a child, as adults they keep us from being present with our Self and our outer circumstances. We can start by challenging our fears in areas where there is little to no consequence, moving on to larger issues, such as our fear of death. We want to release the energy trapped in these patterns (which is causing use to become rigid) so we can regain our fluidity and be spontaneous.
- We can investigate how we create a superficial sense of harmony between us as people by avoiding conflicts and reactions. By addressing our internal conflicts and reactions, we discover that we have nothing to fear about them. We also can at the same time, release our frustrated desires about how others should love us. The more we can see that our Personality Fears and Desires are past conclusions we do not need to act out in the present, the less relationship baggage we need to bear. We also need to examine whether our roles are actually keeping us from building a creative flow and expression with others. If possible, we should try changing our roles, experimenting with how creative and flexible we can become.
- With the help of a partner we trust, we can explore how we can simultaneously feel emotionally connected and physically affectionate. The key is to “unthaw” the frozen energy caught up in past patterns. We can also try to slow down the process in order to notice how we ebb and flow between these our emotions and sensations. We may need to share our reactions and patterns as they arise for some period until we can be completely present with our Self. This will be a great healing process as long as we do not judge our self (or own up to it as it is occurring) or our partner. This should allow us to learn how to relax and be present with our partner as well as our Self.
Dynamic Defense Style individuals can best heal by addressing the following issues:
- We need to stimulate our inner feminine connection to our Self, realizing we want to relate to our Self in a more fulfilling way. This will empower us to see the many different spatial dimensions energetically arising between people. Through this we learn to maintain an inner space that cannot be invaded, compromised, or taken away by others.
- We need to stop shaming our Creative Self as a way of making us appear unworthy of love. Otherwise, we continually have to prove our lovability. When we recognize that we focus on our personality self to keep from being distracted by others, we start to understand that our fear of being with others is self-generated. If we are able to stop shaming ourselves, we will not need to shame or blame others in order to protect our inner space.
- We need to soften and slow down our interactions with others so we are able to better appreciate the perfection of how things turn out. This means taking time to nurture our Self and lessen our need to use time to manage our activities and our interactions with others. This will greatly assist us in our intimacy challenges. Taking our Self off a fixed production schedule teaches us to enjoy the Mystery of what will occur rather than trying to force it to be what we want it to be.
- It would be useful to investigate our emotions and feelings to determine how they could communicate with one another more effectively. Remember, feelings reflect changes in our body experience while emotions reflect changes in our intellectual thought patterns. When we can integrate these two reflective intelligences, it greatly deepens our ability to relate intuitively. This will allow us to be more receptive to others on personal, social, and intellectual levels, because we will be more balanced within our Self.
- It is time to question and challenge how we never have things completely handled in terms of our long-term security. Imagine that we are secure within our identity to our Creative Self. Who would we be? The answer is we would be a person without defenses who now finds intimate ways to express our Self without self-sabotage. It is ironic our defenses actually create our perceptions that we are not secure. Let us recognize our true security comes from recognizing how the universe has always supported us to this point, no matter how much we have denied it. Consider how we could enjoy interacting with others even when there is nothing in common. We could discover we do not need a purpose in order to connect with others.
- We can investigate how we do not believe relationships are real when they are not dealing with the logistics and/or perceived tensions in the situation. We tend to want to confront these issues, believing doing so will reduce their effect. Unfortunately, when we are with Disarming defense style individuals the opposite, actually occurs. The true challenge is to create a sense of intimacy which naturally occurs when we are vulnerable and can admit when we do not know what to do. It is important that we do not over-direct others, but rather create a safe space with them so they will not feel criticized or judged. For a while, practice going overboard in the commitment to be intimate as a way to neutralize past imbalances.
- With the help of a partner with whom we feel a sense of Unity, Trust, and Love, we can explore how to listen deeply to our feminine side by demonstrating that we can listen to their feminine side. When we establish this common connection it dramatically reduces our ability to maintain separate positions without falling into any unconscious merging or Co-Dependent behavior. Valuing our inner feminine naturally enables us to be compassionate with others. When we no longer feel impatient or driven to manage the process we will know a shift has occurred within us around our feminine nature. Over time we will gradually become stronger and more balanced between our feminine and masculine expressions.
Disarming Defense Style individuals can best heal by addressing the following issues:
- We need to stimulate our inner masculine connection to our Self, realizing we want to relate to our Self in a clearer, interactive but determined way. This will empower us to see the many different time orientations we have been ignoring. We will learn to ground and express our thoughts and actions more succinctly. Through this we learn to master our ability to organize ourselves to be self-sufficient and self-generating. We then create a sense of mastery that cannot be denied, compromised, or affected by others.
- We need to stop blaming our Creative Self as a way of making us appear intellectually and physically unworthy to be with others. This creates a situation where we lose our Self while trying to take care of others in order to keep them from attacking us. Our focus on others, at the cost of our own well-being, is a protection mechanism that actually attracts attack because we make ourself appear weak. If we are able to stop blaming our Self, we will not need to shame or blame others in order to protect our limited, apparent choices.
- We need to listen to our creative source and move more decisively into action so we are able to better appreciate how capable we are at manifesting our life expression. By assuming a passive position about our “self” and Creative Self expression, we unconsciously communicate we are okay with our current situation. Since we do not take action, others, particularly Dynamic defense style individuals, accept what we are currently doing is our limit. As we are not clearly expressing our inner discontent, for fear of appearing demanding or inappropriate, others discount our creativity because we are discounting it.
- It would be useful to investigate our intellectual doubt and physical passivity to determine how they are related to our creative Self-denial. Healing this breach requires more passion and commitment to go beyond our personality fears. This means creating the inner space necessary to create an effective, productive environment. This way we will not be dependent upon others for our own productive expression. We need to learn to enjoy making commitments we will meet no matter what. Imagine how we can build our Self-Esteem by keeping our word – doing what we say we will do. Consider how a more active outer presentation might increase others’ ability to relate to us and to listen to what we have to contribute.
- It is time to question and challenge how we never have things completely handled in terms of our short-term safety. Imagine that we are able to manifest our safety within our Self. Who would we be? The answer is we would be a person without defenses who now finds productive ways to express our Self without self-sabotage. Our defenses actually create our perceptions that we are not safe. Let us recognize our true safety comes from recognizing how the universe has always supported us to this point, no matter how much we have denied it. Consider setting out on adventures by ourselves where we have nothing to rely on but our own resourcefulness. Who are we? We could discover we do not need someone else to reflect us and make us real.
- We can investigate how we do not believe relationships are real when they ???are not discussing our aspirations, our feeling/desires, and how we would like to get there. We tend to want to ignore the practical side of circumstances, hoping for the best. This is partly because we do not want to interfere with someone else’s way of engaging a process. Unfortunately, when we are with Dynamic defense style individuals, the opposite actually occurs. The true challenge is to create a sense of autonomy and mutual, harmless truth telling. We cannot accomplish this by trying to protect others, but rather by creating a secure structure with others where both of us will not be criticized or judged. For a while, practice going overboard in our commitment to be outrageously direct, as a way to neutralize past withholding.
With the help of a partner with whom we feel a sense of Unity, Trust, and Love, we can explore how to act in alignment with our masculine side by taking action with others in creative projects where we work together. In this situation, we experience Co-Creativity as a team, and we all feel a greater sense of Aliveness. This indicates that we are embodying our masculine side. When we no longer feel limited in our ability to successfully engage projects out of our own perseverance and will, it reflects our masculine is becoming more capable of working with our feminine, producing a sense of balance, wholeness, and grace.
DEALING WITH SIMILAR DEFENSE STYLES
In this process, we naturally avoid potential partners with the same defense style. This is because anyone that could deeply see us would be able to see and call us on our defensive behavior. At the core of this issue is our ability to see ourselves as we are. As long as we are denying our Authentic Nature, we will continue to attract opposite Defense Style individuals into our life because they help us to regain our wholeness. As long as we have imbalances in our perception, we will continue to hold onto what we fear and what we desire at the cost of our own creative wholeness. Recognizing defenses are an important step in regaining our wholeness. Eventually we come to realize these defensive distortions are not real. We made them up as a way to make our Fears and Desires seem more attainable. The more we can balance our perceptions of each level (Sensations, Feelings, Emotions, Thoughts) the less defensive we will be.
It is our under-doing and over-doing or ignoring a particular level that is the source of our defense pattern. When we begin to accept our Creative Nature (and love our Creative Self) it shifts our ability to attract and be with individuals like us. The basic sequence of energies we deal with are Life, Light, and Love. Each defense compromises a particular energy. Distant Defense Style individuals compromise life by over-fixating on intentions. Dynamic Defense Style individuals compromise Light by over-fixating on thinking. Disarming Defense Style individuals compromise Love by over-fixating on their emotional reality. It is ironic and paradoxical that what we most want and seek is what we compromise by being defensive. We engage Life by confronting fears; we balance desires to find our inner Light, and our Authentic Creativity leads to Self Love. This shows up on both the levels of development and the type of defense.
If we are Distant Defense Style individuals, it is good to be able to see our Life energy and inherent Beauty by being with people who are also Distant. This is not new to us because Distant Defense Style individuals with a nurturer focus, even if they do not love themselves, will be attracted to those with a provider focus, and vice versa. This means that to really shift our energy, we need to not only be with Distant Defense Style individuals, but be with those Distant Defense Style individuals that are the same role (either nurturer or provider.) The core benefit is to accept the natural capabilities we have within us. The more we step into this possibility, the less we are concerned whether others want us. We become a source of our own wellbeing because we are not longer seeking others out to care for us. Instead, it becomes an opportunity to choose partners based on expanding our sense of self. We would suggest that this shifts because we want to be with ourselves. This Life energy shifting occurs because we have come to love ourselves. Being with nurturers means we come to accept our inherent goodness and the desire to connect with others. Being with a provider, means we have come to accept that we are able to transcend our fear by contributing in a way that transcends the need to take care of another. If we are making a transition out of a Distant Defense Style, it is important that we find partners that are making the same transition. What we don’t usually recognize is that this creates greater synergy and automatically helps to balance both of us in the larger picture.
If we are a Dynamic Defense Style individual, it is good to be with another Dynamic Defense Style individual so that the defense style cannot get in the way of our Creativity. Since both of us have clear perspectives about where we are, and we are similarly motivated to create our security through planning, it is good to engage this energy together with someone else. Instead of seeking out a co-dependent partner where we become unable to grow, being with someone similar to us actually requires us to question our assumptions about what is productive because we need to take care of the relationship side of this issue as well. What happens is that we begin to shift out of the need for security because we are seen and accepted the way we are and where we are. When two Dynamic Defense Style individuals get together, they mutually create better relationship dynamics, which helps to introduce more feminine energy. In effect, over time, they become Pioneers. This of course is the path to greater harmony and natural responsiveness to the needs of others. This last statement reflects just how great a shift in perspective there can be.
When we are Disarming and engage other Disarming Defense Style individuals, our immediate safety is continually reinforced and deepened. This permits us to experience our natural power and recognize how much we have been holding back by not engaging the possibilities in front of us. As we become clearer about our power together, we start to see how physical and intellectual alignment can actually complement our natural passion. This focuses us and clarifies how we can become more productive with each other. As a result we shift into a more balanced way of being with each other where productivity becomes a given. By moving into the masculine side more powerfully, we counter-balance our feminine perspective so we become more Pioneering. Our natural trust is supported by a greater sense of mutual Aliveness. This also enhances our ability to deal with Content together and embrace details previously unimagined.
In conclusion, what we are seeking to do is to balance ourselves and be present to our Sensations, Feelings, Emotions and Thoughts. When we are able to respond on these levels, it allows us to bring more Passion, Pleasure and Power to any relationship. In effect, each of these levels helps us to show up in a way that allows us to respond either in a masculine or feminine way simultaneously. This is the Pioneering perspective where our true experience can be shared without fear of retribution. The more we know who we are on this level, the less impressionable we are around others who are unbalanced. It is also easier to see what is going on with others so we have a clearer way to navigate without triggering their defenses. Learning to be harmless means understanding the distortions of each defense structure and not believing that these perceptions need to be proved or disproved. When we accept our Truth, it becomes possible to seek Truth with others by neutralizing our defensiveness.
The primary problem with defenses is that whenever we react to how others see us, we in fact unconsciously deny and discount who we naturally are. The more others question us because of our apparent differences with them the more we begin to doubt that we have anything to contribute. Our gifts naturally get lost and/or denied the more a parent or caretaker cannot honor our own natural way of being. In their attempt to make us conform to what they believe would make us safe and secure they inadvertently reinforce a reactive way of being that covers up our Authentic Creativity.
It is important now to look at how our parents questioned us to the point where we started believing their perspective about us rather than our own. In the following document for each Creative Expression or Intelligence, we will identify natural gifts that are developed with this Expression. We invite you to consider if these gifts were acknowledged, denied, and/or discounted. To the degree that you have any reaction or any confusion, it represents that in some way this gift or capacity was questioned. In extreme situations you may also experience the desire to ignore or distance yourself from whatever is being said. This reflects how you learned form others to avoid engaging in this way because you perceived your safety and security would be threatened.
Each section has been further refined into three levels: Primary Intelligence or Creative Expression, Secondary Intelligence or Creative Expression and Mental Body Intelligence or Creative Expression. We develop the Mental Body Expression first, which is usually our way of surviving our parents. Then, we develop our Secondary Expression, which reflects our ability to assert our contribution in the world and be successful. Finally, we develop our Primary Expression, which reflects the capacity to be present with ourselves and be fulfilled by our natural ability to serve others. While these differences may not be great for some individuals, they will be important to some readers, particularly when a parent expresses that energy on a Primary level and the child may operate the Intelligence on a Secondary or Mental Body Level. Remember, your parents primarily set the standard for what Expression was or was not acceptable. The more you were repressed by them or naturally suppressed yourself to please them, the greater confusion you will have about expressing yourself. At the end of this document we will discuss how we can go about forgiving ourselves for taking on these false perspectives.
It is important for us to examine each statement to determine if we can be present to it without any reaction. When we have eliminated our Imprinting we will be free to be ourselves. Then, our Creativity will flow naturally through us. The more fearful and/or judgmental we are about any qualities we do or don’t have, the more carefully we need to examine these issues because it indicates that we were judged a lot by our caretakers. It is important to realize that any desire to be a certain way can also reflect how we were trained to be by our parents. This requires us to deconstruct this desire to see if it is really a natural expression for us and determine how our parents played a role in creating our current reaction to it. The things we are searching for are Attachments, Positions, and Projections that may not be authentic for us. Some readers would do well to read through the list first identifying reactions, and then later coming back to those statements that they feel a natural heart affinity for. The challenge is to see how each discovery can liberate you from a defensive past where limited options prevailed. It is important to remember that our defense requires us to accept the creative compromises of our history to continue to exist.
QUESTIONS TO VALIDATE OUR DEFENSE STYLE
1) Which of the following are you the most sensitive to: Guilt (where someone tries to manipulate you to do what they want –Distant defense), Blame (where you are made wrong so that you feel inadequate –Disarming defense), Shame (where someone interrupts you to make you look bad in front of others –Dynamic defense) or a combination of these which reflects a Disnamic Defense.?
2) How do you approach creativity: Conditionally (based on how the other person engages me and how receptive they are to what I suggest —Distant defense), Interactively (by focusing on the other person to create new possibilities based on our interaction –Disarming defense), a combination of personal and interpersonal experiences reflecting Disnamic, or Self-Generating (by focusing on our own experience and relying on my internal sense of organization to bring clarity to others –Dynamic defense)?
3) When you are attracted or interested in someone, how do you let them know? Are you: Indecisive (making them indicate some interest before you respond to them –Distant defense), Assertive (do you make some kind of gesture that’s obvious to them – Dynamic defense), Passive (do you let them figure it out, making your interest very subtle and easy to be misinterpreted in case they are offended—Disarming defense) or selectivity engaging as a way to get others to respond to you—Disnamic?
4) When you are upset, how do you demonstrate your anger? Do you Ignore or Deny your feelings (not letting them get the best of you—Distant defense), or do you become Combative or Confrontational (letting them clearly know you were offended—Dynamic defense), do you put a temporary Space Between yourself and others (trying to figure out what you could have done differently—Disarming defense) or do you try to underplay the interaction and wait to see what develops—Disnamic defense)?
5) What do others most notice about you? Do you: keep your agreements and are reliable and consistent (Distant defense), that you are direct, masterful, active, alive and a risk-taker (Dynamic defense), that you are open, easy-going, mysterious, wise and able to attract what you want (Disarming defense style) or that you understand their needs (Disnamic Defense Style)?
6) In our communications, are you: Perfectionistic (wanting to make sure we say things with just the right emotional tone and caring—Distant defense), Precise (up-front and clear, with strong intellectual focus—Dynamic defense), Self-deprecating (fluid, wanting to make sure others know their importance—Disarming defense) or complementary (always showing the other of the situation—DIsnamic Defense Style)?
7) When meeting others for the first time, do you find more often than not, that you are: Emotionally Distant (Dynamic defense), Physically distant (Disarming defense), Intellectually Distant (Disnamic defense) or both Emotionally and Physically Distant (Distant defense)?
8) Do you feel more capable on: Mental and Emotional Levels (Distant defense), Physical and Mental levels (Dynamic defense), Physical and Intellectual levels (Disnamic defense or Emotional and Intuitive levels (Disarming defense)?
NOTICING THE DIFFERENT PERCEPTIONS OF A DEFENSE STYLE
It could be clear by now that Defenses are merely reactions to differences in perceptions. Our incompleteness drives us to make our perceptions right over the incomplete perceptions of others. There are countless opportunities to shoot ourselves in the foot regarding our Defenses. The ironic aspect of this is that until we can see and accept the full range of possibilities, we are all inaccurate and misguided, at best. We also tend to get caught up in our opinions and attempt to prove them as facts in the world when it doesn’t really do us any good. What we come to see, as we grow beyond our defenses, is that everyone’s Truth is the best they know and understand of themselves at a point in time. Since everybody has an opinion, what good is it to try to change an opinion, especially when it only leads to further defensive reactions? The solution, of course, is to not get attached to our Sensations, Feelings, Emotions and Thoughts as a reflection of who we are, but rather see them as ongoing expressions that are constantly evolving and changing. This also leads us to be more accepting of the differences in others because there are obviously multiple ways of seeing and expressing our Truth. Another way to get to the same point is to recognize how defensive differences do not need to be taken seriously. While it is good to honor people’s perceptions of their experience, is it really something we have to react to? As we become more Pioneering, we realize that following defensive perceptions has less importance than the larger creative opportunities in the world.
Distant Defense Style individuals tend to see themselves and others as objects, which automatically creates repulsions in Dynamic and Disarming Defense Style individuals. They frequently believe the Truth is absolute because they believe since they see their own Truth clearly, other people should be able to agree with them. This is why establishing common expectations is such an important part of their lives. In effect, Distant Defense Style individuals create fixed patterns of interacting where nothing changes. When it comes to connecting with Dynamic or Disarming Defense Style individuals, they have more sympathy for the Dynamic Defense Style individual because they are a little more aligned with them. What Distant Defense Style individuals do not appreciate (probably because it mirrors some of their own Feelings about being victimized) is the Disarming perspective, which they view as being an overemotional whiner. It is important to recognize the foundation of these distinctions is actually in our judgments about each of these levels (Sensations, Feelings, Emotions, Thoughts). The more they fixate on outer appearances, the more this reinforces superficial role playing and inauthentic behavior. Until they can break this logjam and stop getting caught up in Pretenses, they have a hard time being present to others in a neutral way.
Dynamic Defense Style individuals see clearly on the Sensation level and overdo their thinking which makes them want to direct and tell the Distant (and other) Defense Style individuals what to do. This attempt to fix Distant Defense Style individuals is not usually accepted without resistance and resentment. While they may outwardly respond, internally, they are conflicted and angry that the Dynamic Defense Style individuals do not consider them equal partners. On the other hand, Dynamic Defense Style individuals do initially love engaging Disarming Defense Style individuals as partners even though they are opposite-based attractions. This is because Dynamic Defense Style individuals have not internalized their capacity to accept their value as relationship partners. They are struggling to create Intimacy within themselves, which can then be linked to others. They see themselves as contributors in making task management contributions, which then sets up a co-dependent relationship with their partners who nurture them. This co-dependent relationship can increase the amount the Dynamic Defense Style individual leans on the Disarming Defense Style individuals and vice versa, or, in its highest expression, it can support each individual to become more balanced within themselves.
The other aspect of the co-dependent relationship is that the more the Disarming Defense Style individuals accept the leadership of the Dynamic Defense Style individuals, means they do not build their own masculine side out to create an internal balance. It is important to note that Dynamic Defense Style individuals are trying to overtly be in control while Disarming Defense Style individuals always feel covertly in control. This is because Dynamic Defense Style individuals see their influence in terms of Thoughts and Actions while Disarming Defense Style individuals recognize the Dynamic Defense Style individuals have no effective management of Passion (because they are not balancing their Feelings and Emotions) which means that they can be led around without even realizing it. They key issue for Dynamic Defense Style individuals is to learn how to balance their own Thoughts and Emotions to see multiple points of view. This means they have to let go of Attachment to their own Truth as the pre-eminent unifier to begin to actually work with others in a meaningful way. When unbalanced and positional, they get caught up in their own sense of power and end up believing that others must be pushed to make things occur so they become the dictator they hate themselves being.
Disarming Defense Style individuals are easily swayed by their own idealization of potentials and people. This means they are attracted to those who define themselves separately in unique ways and are trying to live into those possibilities. Ironically, when others do not live up to these expectations, they can then feel superior and needed. This suggests that they have more acceptance of Distant Defense Style individuals than the Distant Defense Style individuals have of them. It also means that while certain Dynamic Defense Style individuals have their respect, they are fundamentally afraid of the Dynamic Defense Style individuals becoming belligerent or angry at unexpected times. Disarming Defense Style individuals really work to maintain their inner spaciousness by not taking on the time frames of the Dynamic Defense Style individuals or the scarcity of energy perspective of the Distant Defense Style individuals. To accomplish this, they need to become more selective as to what is the best allocation of their energy and time. Their major difficulty is recognizing to what degree they should support certain endeavors. Careful allocation of the amount of energy they make available to a project in a certain time frame is necessary. Not defining themselves in terms of others and instead, strengthening their own Autonomy would be in their best interests. The core issue is they feel alone and unseen in their Passion by Distant and Dynamic Defense Style individuals, which makes things seem lonelier than they need to be.
Disnamic Defense Style individuals specialize in having much smaller disagreements with everyone because they want to reinforce a certain status quo. They are in the middle and are constantly making small adjustments for the benefit of others because they tend to believe or see themselves as not as strong. Ironically, their increased sensitivity can lead to more blow-ups when others are not calibrating and are oblivious to them. This means that many times they make greater demands that their partner be available to them. It is interesting to note that having less defensive ballast as only the Disnamic Defense style individuals have can actually lead to quicker self-acceptance and growth. The core problem they have with Distant Defense Style individuals is that Distant Defense Style individuals think of them as unreliable and inconsistent. Dynamic Defense Style individuals do not know how much to trust them and Disarming Defense Style individuals tend to feel compassionate for them because of their common capacity to become overly adaptive to others. Their biggest growth opportunity comes with people who are Pioneering because they learn to be more present with themselves and follow their own heart.
The important things to know about the Disnamic Defense Style is that they irritate everyone a little, but refuse to get caught up in fixed, long term perspectives about who they are. What this means is that Disnamic Defense Style individuals have a more versatile view of themselves and see themselves as always changing. Unlike Distant Defense Style individuals, they see their own inconsistencies and do accept them when they are pointed out. This is because they see change as natural and taking different points of view at different times as supportive. Distant Defense Style individuals do not accept that they have changed and completely ignore any inconsistencies through time.
Pioneers have the ability to meet every type of Defense Style and yet they have to shift their focus to match the assumptions of the Defense Style they are speaking to in order to have maximum alignment. For example, with a Disarming individual, a Pioneer would match the spaciousness and inner self-respect about their capacity to engage others. In this way, a Disarming Defense Style individual would relax and respond so that eventually, with greater support, they could expand into more masculine expressions. With a Dynamic Defense Style individual, a Pioneer would honor the self-esteem and internal capacity to organize structure and time. By being accepted in this way, the Dynamic Defense Style individual would relax, which would, over time, support the Pioneer in bringing in more relationship possibilities. The important point to notice is that the Pioneer always accepts and builds on the strengths of those people they are around. In this way they neutralize the conflicts, and overcome what is discounted and denied in others that is reinforcing Defense Style perceptions. With Distant Defense Style individuals, it is more difficult to find a strength that is being manifested. Sometimes the best thing to grab onto is the person’s perception that they are making the best contribution they can. The more a Pioneer reinforces their Desires, the more likely a Distant Defense Style individual can continue to engage.
Defense Style Compatibility Considerations
Defenses are initially created in relationship to our parents. This drives us to seek parental substitutes in both our personal and professional lives. Each individual seeks to be affirmed in ways we did not get affirmed by our parents. This sets us up to try to find parental substitutes who, unlike our parents, accept and honor us for our true creative nature. The difficulty is that the defense itself in many ways sabotages our being able to create this rare occurrence. Even if others are able see through our defenses and acknowledge our authentic creativity, the defense operates as a buffer with the belief that this state of connection cannot prevail because the defense, in its attempt to protect us, cannot have us be successful or its usefulness would end. When we break out of defensive ways of operating, it throws off others who need us to be a particular way to validate their own defensive interactions. This is because when we choose others with an opposite defense style, it paradoxically keeps alive the hope we have denied in ourselves. For example, Dynamic Defense Style individuals act strong and certain as a way of hiding their true sense of vulnerability. They choose to be around Disarming Defense Style individuals who represent the innocence they have denied within themselves. The Disarming individual is naturally sensitive and flexible and appears responsive to others to hide their internal strength. This reveals that defenses inherently assert the opposite of what people internally fear they are.
This is also true with a Distant Defense Style individual and our attraction/repulsion to a Pioneering individual. If we have a Distant Defense Style we get caught up in proving how valuable or important we are as a way to offset how empty or disconnected we feel with others. We choose to be around those who can be completely accepting and nonjudgmental or who at least appear to be this way. If we are Pioneering, we simultaneously accept both our masculine and feminine natures, and discover opportunities to apply our conflict resolution skills by making clear that others have choices in any situation. If we are Distant, there is an attraction/repulsion to a Pioneering person because we want to be seen, yet fear being seen because we may have to deal with the conflicts that have internally perplexed us. Unpacking past experiences can seem scary because we associate negative feelings/emotions with being closed down or denied by others. Engaging these experiences establishes a new level of consciousness, which allows us to release the charge that has kept us contracted, stuck and self-sabotaging.
Introduction to Defense Style
Every individual who grows up in a defensive society has a defense. This reflects the need to establish an independent identity separate from others. Each defensive identity is a partial view of how we hold our inner masculine and feminine energies. Despite our different gender identities, our evolutionary process guides us to be more creative, reflecting the degree to which we can operate in masculine and feminine energies simultaneously. Therefore, our Defense structure is temporary, which helps us discover our limitations when we do not honor the fullness of who we are. As long as we operate from Defenses, our safety fears and security desires will be our primary motivating force in life, which keeps us from being fully creative. We either deny our authentic masculine and feminine and act in roles (which reflects a Distant or Dis-namic Defense structure) or affirm our masculine and deny our feminine (a Dynamic Defense structure) or we affirm our feminine and deny our masculine (which reflects a Disarming Defense structure). There are also four Defense Styles that reflect that we are between Defense Styles (Distant-Dynamic, Distant-Disarming, Pioneering-Dynamic and Pioneering-Disarming). Eventually, we affirm both the masculine and feminine within us, which is called being Pioneering (see Diagram Defensive Variations).
In childhood, we develop defenses because we do not feel seen or affirmed in a creative manner. The more we experience ourselves as different from our parents or similar in ways that are confusing, the more we are driven to protect our own individuality by taking opposing points of view. Over time, these self-perceptions become more unified into fixed ways of seeing the world called Defense Styles. Initially, Defense Styles make us feel more powerful and clear about who we are. This is because we draw clear boundaries about what works and what does not. Unfortunately, over time, these set ways of operating create the need to attract opposite Defense Style individuals to us. In other words, if we are holding one point of view, we increasingly become attracted to the other end of the spectrum in order to counterbalance our perspective. Defenses, in this way, become positions where we no longer experience flexibility to make a larger choice because we pre-identify and limit our options. Over time, the defense precipitates greater conflicts with others and becomes a major liability because it sabotages our ability to fulfill our goals.
Defenses, therefore, are a temporary means of affirming a part of ourselves that awakens us to the fact that we may be more than we admit. We become free of Defenses when we can ‘be’ and can express ourselves in any particular way without self-judgment or attachment. The three major defensive judgments or attachments are 1) Objectifying ourselves (where we define ourselves in terms of outer appearances), 2) Subjectifying ourselves (where we define ourselves in terms of what we know and compare it to others), and 3) Idealizing ourselves (where we define ourselves by external standards of goodness we have not yet internalized). When we judge ourselves, it fragments our inner awareness into parts of ourselves that we accept and parts we do not. By denying our unique intelligence, we come to rely on the intelligence framework of our parents to protect ourselves. This occurs initially because the negative perspectives of our parents (about how we are operate) are the main issues that need to be neutralized for us to feel safe and secure. The problem is that our defenses are undeveloped and require time to become a more generalized protection mechanism.
We develop our defenses by collecting reasons and rationales for the situation’s being what it is. As children, we commonly use fairy tales or other stories to try to make sense of the dilemmas we find ourselves in. for example, the Cinderella story, where a girl loses her mother and father and needs to deal with a wicked stepmother and half sisters provides a framework for accepting that our situation may not be unique. Each fairy tale creates justification for feeling separated and isolated, and therefore our need to accept the compromises of the situation. In our research, the literal components of the story do not need to be true (such as in Cinderella both parents dying) as much as the emotional experience being metaphorically appropriate. Each defense allows us to believe we will be protected when we disassociate or give up an aspect of ourselves that is in pain. Unfortunately, it institutionalizes the inner conflict and guarantees that we attract the same types of experiences over and over. As the defense matures, we become more adept at distancing and denying our pain because we come to believe in our defense as who we really are, rather than just one perspective.
As we are seeking our inner truth, our reactions to others become the primary indicator that there is some larger truth that has been personally denied. Every reaction we have indicates an unresolved conflict within us. We develop even greater Defensiveness when we superficially examine our reactions and come up with more reasons to avoid deepening our own self-awareness. Distant Defense style individuals are completely run by their Defenses out of a fear that their reactions will be revealed to others if they have any deep conversations. As a result, they tend to keep conversations superficial to protect themselves. Dynamic Defense style individuals like to confront reactions so others will not realize how fearful they are about them. Disarming Defense style individuals will attempt to minimize the reactions of others in order minimize their responsibility. They appear more involved and act as a caretaker so they can minimize the possibility that things will get out of hand. We can only transcend and heal our Defensiveness by being willing to honor the truth about our reactions so we do not have to project them on others around us.
Defenses reflect emotional and intellectual positions that separate us from others. We develop greater understanding and appreciation of our Defenses when we begin with the premise that each of us is both masculine and feminine (particularly on the Intellectual level - Thoughts and Emotions). The more we assume positions about who we need to be to succeed, the more we develop a self concept of who we are that is out of synch with our authentic nature. Some individuals frame this as developing an ego. We call this being identified with our Defense Style, which is how we protect ourselves from undefined differences.
A Defense is a perceptual framework of apparent power, which allows us to justify our choices in the name of personal safety and security. As our experiences become framed by what others think about us, it diminishes and distorts the authentic awareness of our Creative Self. Instead, we identify with our personality ‘self’ which attempts to recover from past objectification by “subjectifying” others with the power of our Emotions and Thoughts.
Defenses originate as a way to maintain our own understanding in the face of adversity. The result is that defenses promote competition. By identifying with our Thoughts we lose sight of the effects that our Thoughts have on others. All we realize is that that our defensive self-perceptions insulate or isolate us from the negative effects of others’ Thoughts. The paradox is the more we judge others, the more we open ourselves up to be judged. When we are caught up in defensive thinking, we get lost in differences and cannot see unifying possibilities. All Defenses are the assertion of our personality self-concept on the Universe, falsely believing the Universe is working against us.
While defenses indicate a maturing of our personality, they also reflect a preoccupation with thoughts as explaining our reality. We either become attached to a particular Thought to explain our circumstance (called a ‘position’) or we justify a course of action to resolve the denial of past or present Emotions. Each defense has its own particular distortion which keeps it from seeing and accepting the larger creative opportunity. In short, we end up defining our self in terms of those around us, which creates artificial ways to distinguish our individual self from others. In this way, defenses act as a buffering mechanism where the dissonance of our internal conflicts isolates us from others’ conflicts. Ironically, we are each creatively different, but our true creative differences become lost when we identify with the defensive differences of others. This occurs because Defenses emphasize the projection of false strengths (where we want to grow and be seen in our developing power) while requiring the acceptance of our way of being by others.
There are three basic defenses (Distant, Dynamic and Disarming) that form the basis for nine defensive patterns. Distant Defense Style individuals are working towards embodying either masculine or feminine energies and are currently caught up in Gender Identity role-playing. Dynamic Defense Style individuals embody the masculine and have yet to integrate their feminine. Disarming Defense Style individuals embody the feminine and have yet to embody their masculine. Disnamic Defense Style is a combination of Disarming and Dynamic. Defenses can be neutralized when we embody both the masculine and feminine simultaneously, which is called being a Pioneer. It is important to remember that defenses are based on an incomplete perception of our Truth, which is neutralized when we accept our full creativity. Instead of arguing for our limitations, let us honor our ability to grow and expand in our wisdom so defenses become a thing of the past.
We are attracted to people with opposite defenses because they are the only ones who reinforce our defensive stories. When we are around romantic partners with the same defense, we end up confronting our own inner Truth and learn how this is different from our defensive perceptions and distortions. Defenses allow us to believe that our half-truths are actually whole Truths. Healing our Defense means embracing the wholeness of who we are and not just the parts. Embracing our wholeness allows our Emotions and Thoughts to work together, creating the possibility of authentic power. When we are able to stand in our Truth and not define ourselves in terms of others, we will have individuated ourselves sufficiently to know and tell our Truth without compromise. Most importantly, healing our Defenses permits us to discover harmless ways to share our Truth without causing reactions in others. This course uses discussion, partner processes and self-reflection to break out of preconceived ways of protecting ourselves. Let us look at our Defensive patterns to determine the lessons they teach, so we can create new possibilities in our lives.
How we relate to others is the whole point of healing our Defensiveness. Until we experience the choice of how we can respond to others, we are trapped in a Defensive way of interacting. This is a difficult proposition for many of us because we get caught up in perceptions that others can discount, deny or ignore our intellectual truth. From past experiences of being hurt, we manufacture the possibility that we can be hurt at any moment and use it to justify our Defensive projections. Others may deny both themselves and our support, rather than affect the expression of our intellectual truth in any way. It is our perception about their perception of us that effectively reinforces the belief that we need to be Defensive. We begin eliminating defensiveness by not reinforcing the line that distinguishes others’ thoughts from our own and try not to artificially distinguish our thoughts from their thoughts, because ways to energetically do this already exist.
The paradox of Defenses is that we have to understand defenses in order to transcend them.Without understanding the motivations of why we separate ourselves from others, we cannot counterbalance and neutralize our energy. This means we need to interpret our imbalance in a way that maintains our harmony with others. The more we believe their outer presentation over our inner reality, the less effective we will be at neutralizing these imbalances. When we step into these zones of fear, we tend to trigger the issues rather than honor them. Healing defenses is recovering our inner flexibility to see and honor all points of view. The more people fixate on proving they are not their fears, the more we must take their fears into account when we are creating a common meaning that can unify us. A more conscious person is prepared to take leadership by holding the reality that things can and will work out. People who have transcended their Defenses know how to connect with others to bring out the more expansive, unified meanings, thus enabling creative possibilities to be manifested more easily. Unless we take ownership of our Defensive framework, it will continue to define our actions in ways that sabotage our Creative Expression.
Our Defense Styles can actually constrict our ability to be creative, because we believe a part of ourselves is our whole Self. In other words, we fixate on a piece of ourselves at the cost of the whole, creating obstacles in our ability to be valued and seen for our contribution. While this focus does add to our intensity and drive us to manifest something that will seem successful, it does so at the cost of our own inner harmony. When we are defensive, we continually try to leverage the perception of our power versus others around us. As a result, we either become overly ambitious, need to be seen as important or become self-righteous in our indignation that others are not conforming to meet our expectations. Each of these three obstacles reflects fears that we are not willing to confront directly. These fears are: not being loved by Dynamic Defense Style individuals, not being adequate by Disarming Defense Style individuals, or not being wanted by Distant Defense Style individuals.
We create positions to protect ourselves when we are not clear that we can just be ourselves and still be accepted by others. Most of the time, our Defenses reflect positions we have seen people adopt in order to demonstrate their power over others. There are three basic types of positions. They are: 1) that we are stable and consistent; 2) that we are strong and resilient; and 3) that we are innocent and flexible. While most individuals operate from one of these positions, if we initially grew up in a Distant family, we could recognize a little of ourselves in all three positions as a way of protecting us with different people or situations. It is also likely that if we had a Distant background, we could over identify with it at the cost of our present circumstances. If we have been able to read this book to this point, it is not likely that we are a Distant Defense style individual. Most individuals who read this book have evolved to either a Dynamic or a Disarming defense style. See if you can identify your defensive experience from these short descriptions.
Understanding The Three Types of Deffenses
Defenses represent positions or beliefs about who we are and who we are not. There are three basic Defense styles and each one has three levels of expression. As Defenses are created by trying to hide our fears and promote a presentation that is the opposite of our fears, it is easy to see that we cut ourselves off from our own power by being Defensive. Defenses are caused by differences in how we engage people, things, or processes. The three defense styles are Distant, Dynamic, and Disarming. They can be organized both in terms of the degree of expression of masculine and feminine and the degree to which we are able to be conscious with ourselves and others simultaneously. The diagram “Three Defenses” illustrates how these defenses form a quadrant. This diagram reveals that individuals evolve from the bottom, or Distant defense, to the top, Pioneering, which or operating without defenses.
Defense styles compromise the masculine and feminine equally, expressing neither one effectively. The Distant Defense style is at the bottom of the chart, reflecting the fact that we are not conscious of choices and feel caught up in patterns of behavior in which we feel victimized. In a Dynamic Defense style, we affirm an out-of-balance masculine expression that comes from denying our feminine side. It reflects a stepping into one side of our being and trying to express ourselves, at least on a semi-conscious level. In a Disarming Defense style, we over-express an out-of-balance feminine, while denying the masculine. Again, this energy, being equal to the Dynamic Defense style, is semi-conscious in nature. When we finally express the masculine and feminine simultaneously we will truly be able to be ourselves; this is the Pioneering stage. It represents the conscious level of our development that comes about by first adopting our feminine or masculine and then integrating the opposite energy.
Defense styles are partial expressions of our beings that are highly reactive because we do not see the whole picture. As a result, all Defense styles become charged when another individual with a different Defense style makes assumptions we do not hold as being true. The result is perpetual conflict or competition that keeps us from cooperating with others. It is important to realize we are not our Defense style. We are whole beings who, unfortunately, happen to be identified with a part of ourselves. The more we let go of this partial identification and embrace our wholeness, the less natural conflict we will have. The purpose of this chapter is to support our self-recovery process so we will no longer be polarized by the partial views of others and ourselves. Let us first discuss these three Defenses and how we learn to affirm our creativity by becoming Pioneering.
Distant Defense Style
When we have a Distant Defense style, we are caught up in our focus on outer appearances and want more than anything else to be emotionally accepted and intellectually valued for the perfection we manifest. Typically we do not embody the masculine or feminine, but instead get caught up in role-playing as provider or nurturer. In this style, we can be identified by our fear of growth and change, our inability to look others in the eye, and our focus on doing what is expected and proper. In this style, we look to others to maintain and affirm our safety and security because we believe that being with good people will protect us. This is why we call this Defense “Circling the Wagons”, because it reminds us that we only feel safe when others are committed to protecting us.
As Distant Defense style individuals, we see relationships as opportunities to prove we are wanted and needed. While we appear very solid and even rigid to a degree, most of us are both afraid to commit to something and, simultaneously, afraid to not commit to it. This paradox, in which we unconsciously shift from thing to thing, not realizing our inconsistency, confuses others. When we give others mixed messages, it makes relationships even more difficult because most of us only feel safe with people who are consistent. Paradoxically, because we desperately want to be needed, it is even more difficult for us to be seen as being needy. As a result, we get into behavior to preserve our images and suppress ourselves on both physical and intuitive levels. This focuses us on our emotional and intellectual perceptions, so we seek others who are clearly established and have pre-defined expectations with which we feel comfortable.
When we have a Distant Defense style, we fear we are not assertive enough or risk-taking enough to impress others. Others can use our guilt, if we believe we are not being perfect or living up to their expectations, to guide our choices in ways that are not always good for us. What we most fear is not being wanted and or valued for who we are. Frequently, we find ourselves being followers of others because it is easier to find someone to follow than to establish our own path. Another way we try to get along is to develop a sense of humility so we are able to let people know in a soft way when we do not feel capable of performing in the way they expect. One of our biggest challenges is our difficulty in maintaining boundaries because we find ourselves adapting ourselves to other’s boundaries. This makes us want to be Distant so we won’t feel compromised by the needs of others.
Our challenge is to learn how to embrace our own masculine and feminine so we can let go of the role-playing versions of being masculine or feminine. We often don’t notice the difference between when people want to be with us and when they don’t, which causes us to always be seeking assurance that they are with us for their own reasons. Another prime indicator that we are still doing some Distant Defense style behavior is how we protect our energy so others cannot affect us in that area. The key indication of this energy is how we make ourself unavailable and distance ourself from others when they request something of us we feel we cannot deliver. Another indication is how we use Expectations to protect ourselves from doing too much.
Dynamic Defense Style
As individuals with a Dynamic Defense style, we try to prove our capabilities in order to earn love. When we are in a Dynamic Defense Style, we will tend to over-identify with our masculine energy, at the cost of our feminine side, so that we define ourselves independently. The paradox is that we desperately want to be loved but unconsciously make it difficult for anyone to show love to us. In other words, we act tough and strong on the outside to cover up our inner softness and vulnerability. What we want is someone strong to love us without reservation so we don’t need to prove ourselves. By defining ourselves independently of others, in a Dynamic Defense style, we become masters of time and task management. We embrace order and love finding new tools that allow us to accomplish certain tasks more efficiently.
Dynamic Defense style individuals focus on the masculine to the exclusion of the feminine. Being seen as strong, assertive, focused, orderly and masterful in outer actions is key to our vision about ourselves. Our perspective that everything has a purpose that is either fulfilled or not leads to judgments about usefulness and capability. We study the content of the circumstances to determine how to best leverage or intervene in ways that have immediate results. Tactical implementation of strategies leads to a sense of accomplishment and power. The more out of balance the masculine is, the more it leads to aggressiveness and outbursts of anger. This is why we also treasure self-discipline and depth of character that can offset our unconscious need to control or coerce others. Our goal is to get things done, whatever the cost.
As people in a Dynamic Defense style, we don’t believe we have strong relationship skills because we feel weak on the emotional and intuitive levels. Instead, we over-develop our intellectual and physical capabilities to be able to make things happen quickly. In this process, we are disconnected from our higher knowing and often end up doing things we later wish we hadn’t. This is because, when we become anxious and feel we must figure out a solution to the problem, we lose ourselves in the activity needed to solve it. The most important quality we wish to manifest is a sense of robust, silent power. Our intellectual clarity allows us to get into action quickly so we impress others by the systematic way we sort through options to find the most grounded approach.
Our biggest fear is that people might abandon or leave us, particularly if they really knew us on an emotional level. Our independence is also the cause of our isolation and loneliness, which tends to confirm that we are not lovable. Overall, we hide our emotional dependence on others very carefully by focusing on what we provide them, rather than what they provide us. A problem arises when our emotional insecurity is triggered and we tend to try to control others in order to keep our inner focus. Many times just having too many options in front of us can create such confusion as to lead others to believe we are weak. Instead, we would rather be seen as selfish and self-centered, yet with everything in order and under control.
The Dynamic Defense style is typically called a “Perimeter” Defense because of our desire to keep everything in place. While we may appear to be invincible from the outside, anyone that really knows us will be able to call our bluff and will not believe outer strength is the truth of who we are. As people with a Dynamic Defense style, we are much better at dealing with people similar to ourselves rather than people who are different than us. The more differences there are, the more uncomfortable we become. Most of the time this is simply the fear of the unknown. This is supported by the fact that we do not want to be intrusive with others because we don’t want others to be intrusive with us. It is ironic, then, when we end up being so direct. This is because we have a commitment to both telling and hearing the truth.
Disarming Defense Style
Disarming Defense style people believe they are inadequate and, therefore, have difficulty completing things. Men and women in a Dynamic Defense Style will tend to over-identify with our feminine energy, at the cost of our masculine side, so that we define ourselves in terms of others. This means that others become a defensive screen around us to help us establish our own safety. The paradox is that we desperately want to express ourselves authentically, but end up getting lost in the job and overdoing things in order to make a good impression. In other words, we act soft, flexible, and innocent on the outside to cover up our inner strength and inflexibility. What we want is someone to accept our capability and greatness so we don’t have to constantly prove ourselves. By defining ourselves in terms of our peer group, we Disarming Defense style persons become masters of relationship skills. We embrace chaos and love to invoke new possibilities without knowing how they will be accomplished.
Disarming Defense style individuals focus on the feminine to the exclusion of the masculine. Being seen as receptive, nurturing, protective of life, evocative and mysterious in our inner world is key to our vision about ourselves. Our perspective is that everything has a creative context that is either attracting what we want or not. It is our faith and commitment to engage life as it is that engenders hope. Our lack of focus is clearly seen in our trust in ambiguous processes. The more out of balance the feminine is, the more it leads to chaos and rebelliousness against the existing structure. This is why we also treasure spontaneous impulses and desire to contribute in ways that are unexpected that can offset our unconscious need to be critical or complain about others. Our goal is to hold the highest possibility, whatever the cost.
As Disarming Defense style people, we don’t believe we have strong task management skills because we feel weaker on intellectual and physical levels. Instead, we over-develop our emotional and intuitive capabilities to make sure we are doing only the best things at the right times. In this process, we are disconnected from our physical being and actions and often regret that we don’t take action immediately when we know we should. This is because, when we go into excitement or intensity, we lose our sense of focus and end up doing what other people want. The most important quality we wish to manifest is essential, simplified power. Our emotional clarity allows us to see all the possibilities so that we can better consider what to do when. Mist of the time, we don’t take advantage of our intuitive insights.
Our biggest fear is that people may reject us because we don’t live up to their standards. Our consensus-orientation with others makes it difficult to get into decisive action when necessary. Overall, we hide our physical dependence on others by carefully supporting them on an emotional level so that they are deeply connected to us and want us to have what we want. A problem that comes up is that, when our intellectual insecurities are triggered, we either disengage or try to convince them that they don’t know as much as we do. Many times, we feel limited because the possibilities in front of us don’t fit our real needs. This is hard on us, because we are very uncomfortable telling the truth about our needs, particularly in a group.
This Defense style is typically called a “Guerrilla Warfare” approach because of the covert way we divert people’s attention away from what is critical to us, so we can then do what we want in the areas they are not focusing on. While we may appear to be soft and unimposing from the outside, anyone who really knows us recognizes that we have tremendous strength that can come into play if we actually feel threatened. As persons with a Disarming Defense style, we are much better at dealing with people who are different than us rather than people similar to us because we have an ability to create intimacy that makes people feel safe being different from us. The more similarities there are, the more uncomfortable we become. Most of the time this is the fear of being seen and valued in our true creativity. As Disarming Defense style people, we see ourselves as peacemakers who wish everyone would get along. It is for this reason that, as Disarming Defense style individuals, we end up being so indirect and undemanding. This is because we have a predominant commitment to make people feel at ease even at a cost to ourselves.
Pioneering Defense Style
When we move into the Pioneering Affirmation style, it counters all previous Defenses because we see ourselves as a whole human being. We realize that our fears and personality desires no longer define who we are. This means we are able to transcend our identification with our safety and security needs, usually because we have become more identified with our creative nature. The biggest shift in us is that we are no longer attached to our positions or opinions and no longer feel the need to prove ourselves right. Instead, we look to create the whole picture around us and learn how to embrace solutions rather than be locked into a “problem state” mentality. The key quality that enables us to do that is the ability to be with both our masculine and feminine sides simultaneously without inner conflict.
An example of doing masculine and feminine can be found if we were to balance the activities of a planning group in an organization. The Dynamic defense style individuals are seeking to accomplish goals with an urgency that would tend to stifle feminine expression. The Disarming individuals will try to create an openness and flexibility by not assigning a fixed timetable, which would end up denying the masculine. If we were to put these together in a way that both the masculine and feminine could mutually be present, how would it look? It could occur by taking a structure designed by the Dynamic individuals (and doubling or tripling the timeframe) so the Disarming individuals could experience the spontaneity of invoking new possibilities along the way. Usually, a Pioneer could see both sides of the equation and seeks to optimize the situation between both extremes, so everybody could participate fully but equally.
Shifting from being Defensive to not being Defensive means we have let go of our attachments and fears that things won’t work. Instead, we trust ourselves and the process enough to give others all benefit of all doubt so we can effectively see their point of view as easily as we see our own. The major difference is we no longer need credit for what we accomplish and can instead do what is best for all concerned. In this way, we become much more effective, creative implementers because we are not susceptible to polarization based on the fears and misguided desires of others. It should be noted that by using the term “misguided”, we are not judging others, it is just that many fears are based on safety and security needs that no longer are appropriate. In other words, our defensive separation actually gets in the way of producing solutions for everyone. The more we demand that others protect us, the more we prevent higher possibilities from occurring. This is one of the common dilemmas we face as Pioneers.
Another of the key benefits of the Pioneering stage is that we know how and when to trust others because it is related to the degree they trust themselves. We also know how to create a sense of unity so our group efforts can focus us in synergistic ways of engaging others, allowing our creativity to enrich and enlarge the outcome. As Pioneers, we recognize that the value of the process matches the value of the people and the goal. Discounting any of these three things creates an imbalance, making it difficult to engender effective solutions. The more we embody our authentic creative energy and can express it with others, the more we can support others expressing themselves authentically. To the degree that we are not in our creative energy, we are uncomfortable with others being creative around us, and end up discounting or denying their contribution.
Cooperation is one of the prime indicators of a Pioneering individual. The amount of playfulness, paradox and ambiguity contribute to the adventure of interacting with a Pioneer. Pioneers also are able to be fully passionate, embrace beauty, enjoy wisdom and appreciate the dance of living. We are typically congruent on physical, emotional, intellectual and intuitive creative levels and are able to express our truth without effort or delay. This is because we live in an experience of creative alignment. It makes our interactions with others not only delightful, but informative and occasionally transformative. Finally, it is the calmness, serenity and compassion we experience with others that distinguish us from them. Most of all, we enjoy serving others by being conscious with them.
As Pioneers, we knows how to affirm the contribution of others because we treasure and revere individuals being authentic and operating in a way that benefits others. The more we know who we are as creative beings, the more we realize we can never be compromised by others. The only way we could be compromised is to believe we are a victim of the circumstances. The more we are conscious, the more we could choose a sub-optimum choice temporarily until a change could be implemented. This degree of ownership means we are not a victim of the situation. We see ourselves as transpersonal beings that are able to work with others without our inner fears or conflicts becoming obstacles. This allows us to operate with mutual respect for others. In a way, we are able to anchor directly in others the experience they want. Our alignment also makes us very persuasive, as we seem to have the magic of being able to honor others concerns without being trapped in their fears. Finally, Pioneers operate with autonomy and intimacy that provide the foundation for a creative expression that is bigger than who they are.
DEFENSES REFLECT STAGES OF SELF AWARENESS
Defenses use the perception of power to convince ourselves and others of our greatness. In the initial stages of defensive development, we typically identify with our perceptions of how we are capable without considering other points of view. Losing ourselves in our defense assists us in owning our defense, which is a necessary prelude to transforming them. Defenses, therefore, are a temporary means of affirming a part of ourselves that awakens us to the fact that we may be more than we admit. We grow defensively by using the pain of being identified with some aspect of ourselves to awaken our deeper, more inclusive creative nature. Defenses help us to first acknowledge our separation so we can consciously affirm our natural connectedness. Through defenses we experience a rite of passage where we individuate our self. As long as we believe we need to protect our personality it reflects that we are not yet fully aware of our creative nature.
We become free of Defenses when we can ‘be’ and express ourselves in any particular way without self-judgment or attachment. The three major defensive judgments or attachments are 1) Objectifying ourselves (where we define ourselves in terms of outer appearances), 2) Subjectifying ourselves (where we define ourselves in terms of what we know and compare it to others), and 3) Idealizing ourselves (where we define ourselves by external standards of goodness we have not yet internalized). When we judge ourselves, it fragments our inner awareness into parts of ourselves that we accept and parts that we do not. It is ironic that by denying our own unique Creative Intelligence, we come to rely on the Creative Intelligence framework of our parents to protect ourselves. This initially occurs because the negative perspectives of our parents (reflecting how we operate) are the main issues that need to be neutralized to feel safe and secure. The problem is that our defenses are undeveloped and require time to become a more generalized protection mechanism.
We develop our defenses by collecting reasons and rationales for the situation being what it is. As children, we commonly use fairy tales or other stories to try to make sense of the dilemmas we find ourselves in. For example, the Cinderella story, in which a girl loses her mother and father and needs to deal with a wicked stepmother and half sisters, provides a framework for accepting that a situation may not be unique. Each fairy tale creates justification for feeling separated and isolated, and therefore needing to accept compromises in the situation. In our research, it is interesting that the literal components of the story do not need to be true (such as both of Cinderella’s parents dying) as much as the emotional experience being metaphorically appropriate. Each defense allows us to believe we will be protected when we disassociate or give up an aspect of ourselves that is in pain. Unfortunately, it actually institutionalizes the inner conflict and guarantees that we attract the same types of experiences over and over. As the defense matures, we become more adept at distancing and denying our pain because we believe our defense is who we really are, rather than just a perspective of who we are.
In the movie “Waitress”, the lead actress plays a typical Distant Defense Style woman who feels incapable of changing her life. She unconsciously chooses a partner based on a sense of familiarity and the desire to be wanted. At first, she believes this partner (even though tremendously insecure) to be a good parental substitute because he did what was necessary to win her over. She comes to realize that he is an abusive, manipulative seducer that she cannot trust and she needs to get away from him. When he gets her pregnant one night after getting her drunk, she finally has to confront her fears of being a victim and finds her own voice. The circumstance appears in the form of a new doctor with whom she has a love/hate attraction. She needs the affirmation of someone, but at the same time seeks to affirm herself by leaving her husband. She has an affair with the doctor (who has a Distant Disarming Defenses style) because he is more understanding of her. She plays out her Distant Defense Style whenever he attempts to break it off by throwing herself at him. In fact, one of the sub-texts of the affair, is when one of them tries to break it off, it always motivates the other to go beyond their fear and embrace their love of the other.
Defenses reflect how we insulate ourselves from these islands of scarcity, fear and polarization by unifying ourselves on an intellectual level into a self-perceived consistent way of being We create internal justifications for how we are an attractive, intelligent and good person. Over time these self-reinforcing concepts increasingly diverge from our current reality, creating a dualistic framework of viewing the world. As we get older, the Defense becomes stronger by unifying these patterns into more consistent frameworks of what we present to others. We believe this framework will improve our outer circumstances. We increasingly hide from others because we believe we will be rejected. We solidify our Defensive beliefs by engaging individuals with opposite Defenses who challenge us to be what we believe we are. Of course, our Defenses keep us operating in a dualistic state where everything we affirm covers up what we believe we need to hide to be accepted. The more we believe our Defenses, the more ‘phony’ we feel.
As we are seeking our inner truth, our reactions to others become the primary indicator that there is some larger truth that has been personally denied. Every reaction we have indicates an unresolved conflict within us. We develop even greater Defensiveness when we superficially examine our reactions and come up with more reasons to avoid deepening our own self-awareness. Distant Defense Style individuals are completely run by their Defenses out of a fear that their “reactiveness” will be revealed to others if they have any deep conversations. As a result, they tend to keep conversations superficial to protect themselves. Dynamic Defense Style individuals like to confront reactions so others will not realize how fearful they are about them. Disarming Defense Style individuals will attempt to minimize the reactions of others in order minimize their responsibility. They appear more involved and act as a caretaker so they can minimize the possibility that things will get out of hand. We can only transform and heal our Defensiveness by being willing to honor the truth about our reactions so that we do not have to project them on others around us.
How we relate to others is the whole point of healing our Defensiveness. Until we experience the choice of how we can respond to others, we are trapped in a Defensive way of interacting. This is a difficult proposition for many of us because we get caught up in our perceptions that others could discount, deny, or ignore our intellectual truth in a way that diminishes us. From past experiences of being hurt, we manufacture the possibility that we can be hurt at any moment and use it to justify our Defensive projections. The larger truth may be that others actually deny themselves and our support, rather than affect the expression of our intellectual truth in any way. So, in effect, it is our perception about their perception of us that reinforces the belief that we need to be Defensive. We begin the process of eliminating defensiveness by not reinforcing the line that distinguishes others’ thoughts from our own. In this way, we do not try to systematically distinguish our Thoughts from their Thoughts, because CNG ways to energetically do this already exist.
The paradox of Defenses is that we have to understand Defenses in order to transform them. We learn to understand our own defensive structure and by doing so, we learn how to work with others’ defenses. We need to understand the motivations (defenses) of why people separate themselves from others. People separate themselves in order not to be responsible for what others think about them. Defenses are a way to artificially to distance ourselves from Thoughts of connections that we are not comfortable. We cannot counterbalance and neutralize their reactions until we understand our need to distance ourselves from them. This means we have to interpret their imbalance in a way that maintains harmony with them. The more we believe the outer presentation of others over their inner reality (Fears and Desires), the less effective we will be at neutralizing reactive imbalances. This is because, once we identify with a Fear or Desire, we are in fact, compounding the problem.
When we unconsciously step into their zones of Fear, we will tend to trigger their issues rather than honor them. Healing defenses is recovering our inner flexibility, to see and honor all points of view. The more that people fixate on proving they are not their Fears, the more we must take their Fears into account when we are creating a common meaning that can unify us. A more conscious person is prepared to take leadership by holding the reality that things can and will work out. People who have transcended their Defenses know how to connect with others to bring out the more expansive, unified meanings, thus enabling creative possibilities to be manifested more easily. Until we take ownership of our Defensive framework, it will continue to define our actions in ways that sabotage our Creative Expression.
When we transform our Defenses, we do not need to hide our Truth or hide from the Truth of others. We are no longer fixated on forcing others to operate in a particular way to offset our Personality Fears or to accept our Personality Desires by default. People who are defensive automatically seek to negotiate the differences in Personality Fears and Desires as a way of maintaining the connection. People who have transcended their Defenses determine if it is expedient to acknowledge these Personality Fears and Desires in others with Defenses in order to determine if there is a larger creative opportunity. If an opportunity to serve a larger good exists, the non-Defensive person not only unifies with the other, but also shows them how being attached to their Defenses keeps them from connecting with the group. This common experience of isolation and separateness is the real price we pay for being in our Defenses.
9 DEFENSIVE VARIATIONS
Initially, we suggested that our defensive position was a point of view between two extremes – valuing the masculine over the feminine (Dynamic) or the feminine over the masculine (Disarming). We also suggested that a Distant Defense Style did not embody either the masculine or feminine, but rather operated from a place of masculine and feminine roles. In effect, this is the opposite of Pioneering, which is characterized by the simultaneous embodiment of the feminine and the masculine.
However, not everyone fits neatly into the framework of these three defensive patterns. To allow us to reflect greater variation, we have expanded these three frameworks into a total of nine combinations.
We can clarify our defensive situation by identifying where we are in the diagram Defensive Summary. There are nine possible positions in this expanded defense style framework, which expands our original framework, both horizontally and vertically. In order for us to more clearly see and accept how we have grown and modified our defense style in our own history, we are now going to categorize how these combinations are actually expressed in the world. Some individuals more easily see their acceptance of both the masculine and the feminine at different points in their lives. If we have had to adapt to different parental defense styles, it may be more difficult to see how circumstances have re-focused us in our expression. For example, a Disnamic individual (one who sometimes responds as a Dynamic and sometimes as a Disarming, depending upon the other person), will likely find it difficult to distinguish how events define their response. Other individuals experience a more direct path to their current level of embodiment.
Life circumstances, such as having children and then re-entering the workforce after an extended absence, will likely shift the expression of our masculine and feminine polarities. Many of us are sophisticated combinations of both masculine and feminine. We invite you to examine how various changes in life direction have modified or otherwise shifted the focus of your expression. These changes are most likely the result of parental influence, degree of survival and success, and how aligned we are with others’ perceptions of us. If our parental relationships are/were difficult, and we have not individuated ourselves, the process of defining who we are can lead us to want to make drastic changes that effect our choice of defense. If we are isolated, and we do not have a large number of friends who expect us to be a certain way, it is easier to make such a shift. The more we are able to embody both the masculine and the feminine, the less limited and the more adaptive we are.
Our research indicates that we can identify the defensive pattern in a child, with 70% accuracy, by the time he or she is eighteen months old. This reflects the fact that the defense style is actually a learned process that arises as a result of the relative degree of bonding or lack thereof, with both parents. Our purpose is not to judge parents for their bonding or lack of bonding with their children. Some children’s creative energy combination is more dissonant with their parent’s creative energies, whereas some combinations flow more easily. When there is a dissonant mix, bonding is more difficult. The key thing to remember is that each child is a unique, pre-existing combination of creative energies. What they learn in their development process is the Imprinting, Pretense, and Defense structures. To some extent, children simply are who they are.
Diagram: Defensive Variations
If a child does not receive adequate bonding with either parent, they initially learn to relate to others through the Distant Defense Style. When a baby boy does not bond with his father, but has a bond with his mother, it leads to a Disarming Defense Style. If a baby boy has little connection with his mother, but bonds primarily with his father, it will lead to a Dynamic Defense Style. Conversely, when a baby girl bonds primarily with her mother and not with her father, it leads to a Dynamic Defense Style. And finally, when a baby girl bonds with her father and not with her mother, she is likely to manifest a Disarming Defense Style. What can often be confusing is that these bonding issues typically lead us to later idealize the parent with whom we had the most difficulty. This occurs because we want to believe that our initial impressions about their availability (or lack thereof) were inaccurate. It is also important to remember that the defense structure is essentially formed by the age of 18 months.
While the above is true in approximately 70% of situations, it does not fully take into account changes in family dynamics or the personal growth of the parents throughout the child’s young life. For example, the death of one parent may lead to greater bonding with the remaining parent, especially if the loss is a shared one. Siblings, particularly those who serve as caretakers, also have an effect on the formation of our defensive structures. As the child becomes more mature and is able to see things from the parents’ point of view, they often come to see the ways in which their parents did love them. This can lead the former child to reinterpret their previous experiences. Also, a parent becoming more conscious by healing their defense structure can directly affect the child’s range of responses, leading to the child having a greater flexibility and range of expression. Finally, a parent who knows how to engage the child in their defensive framework, can actually re-stimulate new ways of connecting that leads to greater understanding and acceptance. These perceptions can affect our defensive identity because they have the effect of redefining our core defensive beliefs.
It is also true that every time we are in what we consider to be an unsuccessful relationship, we become more polarized in our defensive style. For example, a Distant/Dynamic woman who feels unsuccessful in her relationships, will tend to become increasingly more Dynamic with each relationship. Conversely, a Distant/Disarming man would tend to become increasingly Disarming with each successive relationship “failure.” We also have socio-economic factors that come into play. Women have learned in our society that when relationships are not stable, they need a career to provide financial security. Men, have learned that they need a relationship to maintain their sense of safety and social acceptance. These forces tend to accentuate that we need a clearly drawn defense to “protect” us.
The Distant/Dynamic and the Distant/Disarming mean that we have a desire to be either Dynamic or Disarming, but we tend to hold ourselves back, waiting for others to take action first. This forces the other person to create the parameters in which we are operating. It creates the safety and security of knowing that we are not “making a mistake.” One of the common themes of both of these defense styles is that we do not want to provide information to people for fear that they might possibly use it against us. We frequently find individuals with a Distant/Dynamic background are attracted to individuals with a Distant/Disarming background because they are both seeking to support the other by being what the other “expects” them to be. What they have in common is that they both want structures and some distance from each other in order to help them to determine their own truth.
The “Disnamic” category is a combination of Disarming and Dynamic. We Disnamic individuals define ourselves in response to others, in an effort to make things flow more easily. Paradoxically, this makes others want to support us as well as provide optimum flexibility to allow them to influence and modify our behavior and the behavior of others. We often take opposing points of view, polarizing against the Defensive framework of our partner, just to prove that we are strong enough to do so. We do this in order to ensure that others take us into account and do not underestimate our contribution. In rare situations where we feel safe and valued, we can take the same point of view as our partner, without feeling that we are losing ourselves in some way. The problem with operating from this position is that most of the time, we do not feel fully seen by our partner or by those around us. We tend to become resentful and disenfranchised in our creative expression when we always see ourselves as adapting to others. Others can also become confused and believe that our over-adaptive behavior is a sign of our weakness, rather than our strength. Being “Disnamic” can be effective in helping us to transcend our defensiveness in that we tend to understand both points of view in any given situation. We can see the lack of openness that occurs when others take on a single point of view. The downside of “Disnamic” is that we can easily fall into not trusting any option or answer, leading us to become jaded and indifferent.
The Pioneering/Dynamic and the Pioneering/Disarming individuals are in the process of integrating our masculine and feminine sides. We are no longer blind to the downsides of our defensive structures. We can see how our defense style sabotages our expression. We recognize that there is more than one point of view in any situation, and we are open to investigating what the best approach might be. If we are Dynamic and engaging the Pioneering process, we become softer, more inclusive, and more open to seeing other’s points of view. As Dynamic individuals, we become interested in including and valuing the creative uniqueness of each individual into the overall contribution. Dynamic individuals become more powerful by valuing the importance of the process, by being receptive to unexpected opportunities. If we are Disarming and engaging the Pioneering process, we become more clear and clean in how our personal creativity can contribute to others. As Disarming individuals, we become more comfortable making an impact and defining ourselves in terms of results. Disarming individuals become more powerful by defining our goals in more concrete ways and allowing us to be more accountable in our life expression.
Finally, the Pioneering affirmation style indicates that we have reached a place of simultaneously embodying our feminine and masculine sides. We know we have reached this point of self-realization when we no longer hold defensive beliefs that limit us in our expression. We no longer live out the assumptions and expectations of others, believing we need to define ourselves in other’s terms, in order to gain their acceptance. In short, we no longer compromise ourselves as a way of taking care of others. This is actually not selfish, but rather selfless, when we recognize our commitment to contribute to the world in a supportive way. Wherever we are locked into certain beliefs about where others are or how they will interact with us, it indicates that we are using a defense as a way to protect ourselves.
If a child does not receive adequate bonding with either parent, they initially learn to relate to others through the Distant Defense Style. When a baby boy does not bond with his father, but has a bond with his mother, it leads to a Disarming Defense Style. If a baby boy has little connection with his mother, but bonds primarily with his father, it will lead to a Dynamic Defense Style. Conversely, when a baby girl bonds primarily with her mother and not with her father, it leads to a Dynamic Defense Style. And finally, when a baby girl bonds with her father and not with her mother, she is likely to manifest a Disarming Defense Style. What can often be confusing is that these bonding issues typically lead us to later idealize the parent with whom we had the most difficulty. This occurs because we want to believe that our initial impressions about their availability (or lack thereof) were inaccurate. It is also important to remember that the defense structure is essentially formed by the age of 18 months.
While the above is true in approximately 70% of situations, it does not fully take into account changes in family dynamics or the personal growth of the parents throughout the child’s young life. For example, the death of one parent may lead to greater bonding with the remaining parent, especially if the loss is a shared one. Siblings, particularly those who serve as caretakers, also have an effect on the formation of our defensive structures. As the child becomes more mature and is able to see things from the parents’ point of view, they often come to see the ways in which their parents did love them. This can lead the former child to reinterpret their previous experiences. Also, a parent becoming more conscious by healing their defense structure can directly affect the child’s range of responses, leading to the child having a greater flexibility and range of expression. Finally, a parent who knows how to engage the child in their defensive framework, can actually re-stimulate new ways of connecting that leads to greater understanding and acceptance. These perceptions can affect our defensive identity because they have the effect of redefining our core defensive beliefs.
It is also true that every time we are in what we consider to be an unsuccessful relationship, we become more polarized in our defensive style. For example, a Distant/Dynamic woman who feels unsuccessful in her relationships, will tend to become increasingly more Dynamic with each relationship. Conversely, a Distant/Disarming man would tend to become increasingly Disarming with each successive relationship “failure.” We also have socio-economic factors that come into play. Women have learned in our society that when relationships are not stable, they need a career to provide financial security. Men, have learned that they need a relationship to maintain their sense of safety and social acceptance. These forces tend to accentuate that we need a clearly drawn defense to “protect” us.
The Distant/Dynamic and the Distant/Disarming mean that we have a desire to be either Dynamic or Disarming, but we tend to hold ourselves back, waiting for others to take action first. This forces the other person to create the parameters in which we are operating. It creates the safety and security of knowing that we are not “making a mistake.” One of the common themes of both of these defense styles is that we do not want to provide information to people for fear that they might possibly use it against us. We frequently find individuals with a Distant/Dynamic background are attracted to individuals with a Distant/Disarming background because they are both seeking to support the other by being what the other “expects” them to be. What they have in common is that they both want structures and some distance from each other in order to help them to determine their own truth.
The “Disnamic” category is a combination of Disarming and Dynamic. We Disnamic individuals define ourselves in response to others, in an effort to make things flow more easily. Paradoxically, this makes others want to support us as well as provide optimum flexibility to allow them to influence and modify our behavior and the behavior of others.
We often take opposing points of view, polarizing against the Defensive framework of our partner, just to prove that we are strong enough to do so. We do this in order to ensure that others take us into account and do not underestimate our contribution. In rare situations where we feel safe and valued, we can take the same point of view as our partner, without feeling that we are losing ourselves in some way. The problem with operating from this position is that most of the time, we do not feel fully seen by our partner or by those around us. We tend to become resentful and disenfranchised in our creative expression when we always see ourselves as adapting to others. Others can also become confused and believe that our over-adaptive behavior is a sign of our weakness, rather than our strength. Being “Disnamic” can be effective in helping us to transcend our defensiveness in that we tend to understand both points of view in any given situation. We can see the lack of openness that occurs when others take on a single point of view. The downside of “Disnamic” is that we can easily fall into not trusting any option or answer, leading us to become jaded and indifferent.
The Pioneering/Dynamic and the Pioneering/Disarming individuals are in the process of integrating our masculine and feminine sides. We are no longer blind to the downsides of our defensive structures. We can see how our defense style sabotages our expression. We recognize that there is more than one point of view in any situation, and we are open to investigating what the best approach might be. If we are Dynamic and engaging the Pioneering process, we become softer, more inclusive, and more open to seeing other’s points of view. As Dynamic individuals, we become interested in including and valuing the creative uniqueness of each individual into the overall contribution. Dynamic individuals become more powerful by valuing the importance of the process, by being receptive to unexpected opportunities. If we are Disarming and engaging the Pioneering process, we become more clear and clean in how our personal creativity can contribute to others. As Disarming individuals, we become more comfortable making an impact and defining ourselves in terms of results. Disarming individuals become more powerful by defining our goals in more concrete ways and allowing us to be more accountable in our life expression.
Finally, the Pioneering affirmation style indicates that we have reached a place of simultaneously embodying our feminine and masculine sides. We know we have reached this point of self-realization when we no longer hold defensive beliefs that limit us in our expression. We no longer live out the assumptions and expectations of others, believing we need to define ourselves in other’s terms, in order to gain their acceptance. In short, we no longer compromise ourselves as a way of taking care of others. This is actually not selfish, but rather selfless, when we recognize our commitment to contribute to the world in a supportive way. Wherever we are locked into certain beliefs about where others are or how they will interact with us, it indicates that we are using a defense as a way to protect ourselves.
Our conditioning and defensive beliefs attract certain lessons that appear to confirm our need for our defense. Some of us develop our defense style in a consistent manner, and over time, we have no major redirections or changes in our core defensive beliefs. If this is true for you, then this previous chart does not deepen the discussion for you. However, for those people who have undergone major shifts in core defensive beliefs, the previous chart will help you to explain your defensive experience as it has developed and evolved. It will also allow you to make sense of the conflicting beliefs that you have held at different points in your life.
For example, we may grow up with Distant parents who do not bond with us. Over time, however, a young girl may become closer to her father. This would indicate movement from a Distant Defense Style into a Distant/Disarming Defense Style. If her father were to die, the development of her Disarming defense might become compromised, and it’s likely that she would seek the safety and security of a “Disnamic” defense style. Being in this position may make it difficult for her to bond with potential partners. After a number of “failures,” she would tend to become more Dynamic. After engaging this work, she could come to understand how she has taken on different defensive perspectives. Ultimately, when we fully see and appreciate our own defensive structure, we become more compassionate and able to see what has led to the defensive structures of others.
Distant “self” Perception Framework
We Distant Defense Style individuals have our own particular mythology, based on the premise that seeing is believing. The key is that we want to reinforce our safety by keeping things “fixed” and unchanging around us. The more we can anchor ourselves into our reality structure, the more it naturally reinforces our existing role-playing patterns. Optimally, we distance ourselves from the unknown by fixating on how we are known. This occurs because we objectify our self, leading us to objectify others around us. Ironically, we give away our “objectification” by how we react when others label us. It is ironic that we hate being objectified by others but find ourselves objectifying them to keep things safe and “easy”. When we are taking the Distant view, it is as if we are seeing through rose-colored glasses. The world seems flat, but we know it is not. The sun appears to circle above us through the sky, yet we realize that it is we who are circling the sun. When we place a stick or rod in water, it appears to bend, and yet we know it does not. Our Distant Defense Style perceptions want to believe that what we see is our reality, even though intellectually, we may recognize the discontinuities that exist. Our tendency is to accept the superficial appearance of things as reality, not understanding that we seek to include the perceptions of others who agree with us, to validate our perceptions. In short, when we see that the world perceived by human consciousness is not identical to the world as perceived in the consciousness of God; our limited perception is Maya, which is a superficial appreciation of life.
As Distant Defense Style individuals, we also tend to over-identify with our Gender Identity, leading us to perceive others on the basis of their gendered behavior. This causes us to be fearful about the opposite sex, or in different versions of sexual identity (Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, etc). When we fall into the perception that people are what they do, we cannot fully appreciate their contributions or their larger purpose. Instead, we tend to fixate on their behavior as the manifestations of their Intention. We do not appreciate the motivating purpose behind their Intention, while paradoxically, we are assigning an Intention to their behavior. We are naturally skeptical of other people’s perceptions, because we believe that they are less reliable than our own. As a result, we believe things need to be proven to us before we even consider accepting their validity. This makes us prime candidates for franchise opportunities. Franchises sell us on the idea that copying a proven pattern will more likely lead us to success. What is not taken into account is that true Inner Success can only be generated by finding our own authentic way of doing things. The irony is that Dynamic or Disarming Defense Style individuals would see this as a personal trap, tending to rebel against the idea that imitating anything would lead to success. They would rather trust their own ability to create their own course of action.
As Distant individuals, we seek structures as a way of maintaining our safety and security. We tend to idealize the machine-like systems theory that suggests that everybody has an appropriate part to play in the larger whole. Distant Defense Style individuals tend to have attachments to proven ways of doing things. We naturally resist change. As a result of cutting ourselves off from our environment, we tend to be disconnected from all three levels of Life, Light, and Love energies. Our fear of the unknown keeps us from being playful, spontaneous, or adventurous. We want to keep our options open while appearing to others to be solid and steady. It is the disconnection from our Self that attracts us to religious frameworks that provide a sense of safety and security. The final strength that we believe we have is the belief that our parents did not raise a person who is foolish or impulsive. We look before we leap.
The blind spot of Distant Defense Style individuals is that we are constantly caught by the future consequences of our current actions. Unable to effectively predict outcomes, we feel at the effect of the choices we have made. This leads us to try to be more selective in the choices that we make. The more controlling and discriminating we become, the less we are able to be spontaneous, thereby undermining our Passion and Playfulness. Our need for perfection blindsides us to the fact that what is happening is already perfection. Attempting to anticipate everything also makes us either martyrs who are never seen or valued for where we are, or we fall into nagging behavior where our attempts to help others inevitably backfires. In either situation, our attempts to get closer actually distance us from others.
The need for certainty also causes us to miss what is right in front of us. We want to believe that having an Intention to accomplish something will result in its fulfillment. One of the main problems is that we don’t take into account all the variables, which usually extends the processes that we are working with. Our Desire to simplify minimizes our ability to complete the projects we set our minds to. Our Belief that we know what is occurring keeps us from questioning what is occurring. In this way, our own Attachments to “what is” are further confused by our misperceptions of what is occurring. Instead of fixating on believing that the past is an indication of the future, we need to let go of what we think we know to explore what is actually possible. This requires us to see the world in a richer, more complex manner. It also helps if we are willing to question what we see, rather than accept it blindly.
Distant Defense Style
When we have a Distant Defense Style, we ignore other people and establish ourselves on our own terms.We call this a “Distant” position because we try to maintain a consistent ‘neutral zone’ with others in order to keep from being compromised by them. When we are Distant, we maintain our boundaries by physical proximity; when others move forward, we move back, and vice versa. People are attracted to this situation and to each other when they have complementary roles that can be used to define interactions. This position can be identified when we try to be clear in our Intent with others to avoid causing misunderstandings that create confusion. Because we are very uncomfortable when there is confusion, we will seek the structure of intellectual certainty. We use righteous indignation, false humility and pride as a way to keep others at bay. While we tend to hate hierarchical positions of authority and power, paradoxically we feel comforted when these roles are fixed and known in advance. In this way, we sense that we can effectively perform as a doer because there is an existing framework for knowing the right thing to do.
One of our biggest fears is to be “put on the spot” where we do not know how to relate to people in a way that will be accepted. The fear of being rejected or made a scapegoat keeps us in line. Since we are also afraid of others demanding obedience in exchange for acceptance, it is hard for us to share our true motivations, interests or desires. If we are part of a group, and the group is threatened, we use common fears to “circle the wagons”. Generally, our fear is that we will be ostracized, isolated, and not wanted by others. We use role-playing as a way of meeting others expectations of us. We are afraid to be real, to embrace change and to show up without any predefined way of being successful. Many times we are driven to be perfectionists. We keep ourselves from passionately connecting to things, for then others could have the power to take them away from us. We believe others want to be like us, so we use guilt, when practical, to attain conformance to our ideals.
Usually, our operating in a Distant pattern reflects that our parents did not know how to implement their masculine or feminine energies effectively. We became traumatized by their lack of response to us as children, and we dealt with it by becoming indifferent to them. This keeps us from effectively expressing ourselves on a creative level because we were conditioned not to show any vulnerability or passion. We believe all this is normal and tend to believe our parents performed their roles admirably. Without creatively congruent parents, we did not learn to honor our own natural expression and instead tended to become defined by our unfulfilled fantasies that we could escape the problems and pretenses of our parents. Paradoxically, the more we resisted our parents, the more we were defined by their personality fears and desires. If we fully accepted them, we adopted their life lessons instead of our own. These obstacles increase our fears of making mistakes or being wrong in our choices. We expect the judgments of others and are reassured when they oblige us.
As a Distant defense style individual, we have two levels of protection. The outer level helps us not to reveal our motives and intentions to others so they will not be able to read us. The inner level is where we disconnect from our own self so we do not need to respond to our own need to grow. While others do not perceive that we have clear boundaries, we do possess an ability to detach from the perspective of others by closing down our sensitivity. Our response to others doing things in unpredictable ways is to take action to protect ourselves preemptively, becoming passively resistant and observing where they are, or imitating someone we believe would be successful in the situation. What we want is not to be hooked, become passively resistant and observe where they are, or to imitate someone who we believe would be successful in the situation.
With a Distant defense style, we typically avoid excitement because we feel powerless when we are passionate. When we open up to others, it makes us feel vulnerable to being manipulated by others. We are incredibly sensitive and constantly interpret the motives of others in ways that make us feel good. We do not understand when they operate in a way that does not take our view into account. Ironically, even though we think we are great at interpreting the motives of others, we cannot see and own our own motives. Our big fear is that others will believe we do not take responsibility for ourselves and our actions. Unfortunately, it is easy for others to believe, because of our natural unwillingness to grow in their way, that we are not interested in growing in any way. We will grow in the way we want when we want.
The more we operate in a distant manner, the more serious we become in meeting the expectations of others so they will feel compelled to meet our expectations. In order not to be judged, we project a false sense of certainty because interiorly we need time to assess the situation to make sure we are choosing the right path. Occasionally, we feel driven to check our options with others before we are comfortable making a choice. As our strengths are on intellectual and emotional levels, we vacillate between these frameworks to justify our choice in the moment and the direction we take. Overall, we pay attention primarily to those individuals who accept us and approve of us as we are. In this way we are drawn to people who seem to be more stable, consistent and traditional in their interactions.
Since we are primarily externally focused in our assessment of what is going on around us, it is hard for us to identify and report our inner sensations, feelings, emotions and thoughts in an integrated way. As we use the material reality as our frame of reference, we discount anything that does not have a tangible provable existence. We become overly defined by the appearance of things without realizing that we have different perceptions internally. It is our internal fear of emptiness, which drives us to seek possessions as a way to reinforce our own internal Safety and Security. When we objectify everything around us, we end up being objectified by our environment, which makes it hard to see things in context.
When we are operating in a Distant defense style, we over-protect ourselves by finding ways to distance ourselves from any and all conflicts. The more we cut down on our interactions with others, paradoxically, the more we become conscious of how much we need others to be there for us. As we grow through the Distant defensive process, we move from the perspective of just toughening ourselves to these external issues, to interacting in a way that is mediated by a mutual interest in taking care of each other. Our real conflict arises when we realize that in order to get others to take care of us, we need to take care of them in some way. It is this fundamental compromise, which keeps us vacillating between trying to engage others and trying to protect ourselves. It also keeps us feeling a sense of scarcity because we do not know how we are going to create a solution for ourselves.
Usually, we are uncomfortable with both a simultaneous physical and emotional connection because it over-stimulates us. Because of the tension in our bodies, it is hard for us to unify our awareness within ourselves so we can address others external to ourselves. This means we can be uncomfortable with sustained physical contact. We tend to fall into the process of working on one thing at one level at a time in order to maintain a sense of focus. This makes it hard for us to keep up with others when things are changing. What we are learning is to own and speak our own truth so we can become more individuated. We need to feel that we are becoming successful in our contribution in life for us to fully embody this experience. Our way of dealing with the world is to attempt to maintain a state of tranquility within ourselves. As we begin to transcend the Distant defense style, this tranquility becomes more real.
When we realize how Distant our parents were, and how much we hated the arguments and conflict at home, we are moving out of the Distant defense style. It is easy to identify with the Distant patterns even if they are no longer fully descriptive. Some of us had parents operating at different levels, which meant that we had to behave situationally, based on which parent we were interacting with in the moment. Individuals in such environments have a Distant background, which enables them to do Disarming or Dynamic behavior, based on what is needed to protect themselves in any situation. If you are confused in reading the Dynamic and Disarming sections and realize you no longer fit the Distant pattern, it is likely you have combined various defensive structures to fit your in-the-moment needs. The upside of this process is that it you can move more easily into the Pioneering healing process. The downside is that it is more difficult for you to find balanced partners who reflect your true nature.
EXAMPLES
Gary Cooper -- actor
George Carlin – comedian
Tom Cruise – actor (is sometimes operating up to level three Distant)
Mia Farrow – actress
Sharon Stone – actress (is sometimes operating up to level three Distant)
Charlie Chaplin – actor
Pee Wee Herman – actor, children’s show host
Don Adams – actor
Andy Kaufman – actor/comedian
Mick Jagger – musician/singer
Woody Allen – actor/writer/director/producer
David Letterman – TV talk show host
Mike Tyson – prizefighter
Bill Gates – founder of Microsoft
Bing Crosby – actor/singer
Ralph Nader – consumer activist
Joan Baez – activist/folk singer
Robert Stack – actor
Sigmund Freud – psychiatrist
Sandra Bernhardt – actress/comedian
Dennis Hopper – actor
Henry Kissinger – former U.S. Secretary of State
Patrick Stewart – actor
George Foreman – former heavyweight champion boxer
George Hamilton – tanned actor
William F. Buckley, Sr. – author, news commentator
John Malkovich – actor
Bryant Gumbel – TV personality
Rex Reed – movie critic
Bruce Dern – actor
Dick Clark – TV personality
Richard M. Nixon – former U.S. President
Bob Hope – entertainer
Christopher Walken – actor
Art Garfunkle – singer
David Niven – actor
Distant Dynamic Defense Style
If you we are a Distant-Dynamic Defense style individual, you use content understanding and grasp the most tactical thing to do to keep others from influencing what you do. We need to be thinking ahead and anticipating what is needed so we can establish ourselves as the central decision-maker in any situation. We over identify with our fear that we might lose control which motivates us to quickly assert our perspective in a way others cannot preempt. We are not satisfied until we have figured out what others need to do to fulfill the opportunity in front of them. Others may consider our demands unrealistic, however, this only strengthens our resolve to continue to clarify how they should participate in our plans.
We seek personal clarity and expect others to do the same. Being in control and helping organize others is seen as one of our primary contributions. This emerges from our desire to deal with things immediately and push as far as we can, when we can. We see ourselves as task management oriented because we do not get much joy riding heard on others. The downside is that we have difficulty incorporating the ideas of others into our creative process especially if they have not demonstrated competence. We find it difficult to let things emerge in their own time and place because it seems unproductive and diminishes our sense of making an impact on the world. We enjoy personal projects where we can control the outcome,but question our motivation when we need to depend on others who may or may not have the same intentions. Where we acknowledge ourselves is in our ability to push forward and produce results particularly with proven suppliers or supporters because it minimizes the degree of chaos that we engage.
When stressed, we tend to engage others more forcefully believing our personal will can make the difference in making things happen. Unfortunately, our bluster and hard driving need to fix a situation frequently makes it difficult for others to connect with us on a personal level, so we get little positive feedback increasing our sense of isolation. While we enjoy pushing people to get results, we also secretly want a greater sense of intimacy which others would not expect. The desire to be seen as an effective and productive individual frequently hides our vulnerability, tenderness and capacity for intimacy. While we act as if we are not sensitive to what others think about us, the truth is we are extremely sensitive to what others think. Our identification with results sets us up to believe we are admired and adored when we are making things happen or reviled and hated when we don’t. What others do not see is that we judge ourselves completely by external goals and we punish ourselves when we are not satisfied.
While our main fear is not being wanted by others, the growing fear is that we will not be seen, appreciated or loved for the contribution we make. As a result, we continually set up situations where we establish expectations that we can precisely meet. We are highly motivated to hide our feelings or emotions believing they will undermine our credibility. One of the ways we prove our capabilities is to become a leader whom others can follow. As a Distant-Dynamic Defense style individual, we grow in our ability to make things happen, especially using task management skills. By focusing on time management, we become more realistic measuring and evaluating what does work to help us make better predictions. Unfortunately, similarities between ourselves and others scare us, as we like to have clarity and objectivity and not make decisions based on any form of enmeshment. We are uncomfortable when others presume that our friendship will enable them to get by with doing less driving us to maintain distance from them to prevent this from occurring.
Initially as a Distant-Dynamic Defense style individual, we are less concerned about our past and constantly analyzing our future to determine the potential impact of any action. This shows up as more unconscious, free-floating anxiety when the future becomes clouded or compromised by factors outside of our control. As we become more confident about the value we provide, we move from being worried about our security to being more concerned about our safety because we are beginning to engage our deeper fears about the lack of intimacy in our experience. We also feel quite vulnerable when others are emotionally reactive to us or actions we have taken. While we are happy to support others seeing their truth in the situation, we do not advocate caretaking or even mentoring others in an undefined manner. Chaos and change are inherently threatening and more easily dealt with externally than internally. As a result, we are very selective and discriminating particularly around people we do not know.
Usually, in this type of defense structure, we become clearer about how our thoughts guide our actions so we can see the patterns that work. While we still find it difficult to own or honor our feelings, we are open to becoming more embodied in our actions by seeing the consequences of not speaking up. In this way, we err on the side of saying more when things do not seem to be going well. Our focus on being consistent and solid in our motivations reflects a rather narrow approach as we only honor those emotions that produce results. One benefit is that as we amplify our ability to get things done, we build greater confidence than Distant Defense style individuals. We seek to prove our value so we can be distinguished from the mainstream. This allows us to believe that we deserve greater universal support than others.
The real issue for Distant-Dynamic individuals is that we want to avoid fixed beliefs about how to be with others. The less flexible or accepting a potential partner is, the more fearful we are that we won’t be able to meet his needs. Since it takes us a long time to become deeply involved and it is easy to say no to our partner, we can be callous and indifferent if our partners’ expectations seem too much. We test the limits of our newfound reputation by going beyond others’ expectations of what we will and will not do. This acknowledges that we need to be able to tell our partner when we are being emotionally overwhelmed so we can slow the process (and go deeper into it). Since the last thing we want to do is stir up dissent or disagreement, it is ironic that we distance ourselves by making critical or judgmental statements that others are likely to perceive as attacks. It is hard for us to see that by distancing ourselves, we evoke the very response we seek to avoid. The more we take a stand (and care for ourselves), the more we are an example of being vulnerable and open without losing our inner sense of strength. It is only by acting with intimacy that others are inspired to provide the adoration we crave.
Distant Disarming Defense Style
Distant-Disarming Defense style individuals, use intention to help and serve others and to protect ourselves from their judgments. We over identify with our desire for goodness and expect others to act civilly to us. Because of our conviction about how things should be, others rarely disagree with us. We are not satisfied until we know that we are doing all we can to encourage others to be all they can be. Others may view our behavior as being overly demanding or idealistic, however, we consistently feel we are not doing enough.
We seek a sense of relatedness and expect others to want the same. We attempt to see the best in others and to keep options open, which is the primary means by which we contribute to others. We see ourselves as people oriented because we do not get much joy from wrestling with ideas or taking pre-emptive action. The downside is that many things, which inspire us, never get beyond a conceptual stage. We find it difficult to complete thoughts or take action when we need to do it alone. While we believe we are capable of doing anything we want to do, we doubt our motivation when it is not in alignment with those around us. We give ourselves the benefit of the doubt in predicting the likely behavior of others because we trust our observations and believe we have sufficient insight to effectively predict their behavior.
When stressed, we tend to distance ourselves from others while we recuperate because of our inner belief that since we do not enjoy ourselves, why would anyone else. Unfortunately, this isolation frequently sends us into a tailspin, further reducing our ability to regenerate. The judgments we make about how others will negatively respond are reinforced when we are in a particular mood. The desire to be seen as a good person drives us to hide our true nature, so noone will learn the range or diversity of our experience. While we are sensitive to what others think about us, it is easy to get caught up in comparisons where we cannot win. As a result, we separate and isolate from others as a form of penance that also confuses those who love us. What they do not understand is we care most about them, so we try to protect them from our unruly parts where we act out our fears.
While our main fear is not being wanted by others, the growing fear is that we will be proven inadequate in our contributions. As a result, we continually set up situations where we under-promise and over-deliver. We are highly motivated to hide our fears of inadequacy and prove to the world just how capable we can be. One of the ways we prove our capabilities is by becoming a leader others can follow. As a Distant-Disarming Defense style individual, we are growing in our ability to appreciate people. Our capacity to provide effective feedback to others is increasing and we become more cognizant about the differences between people. Unfortunately, differences are scary if we cannot see how they can be worked out. When they seem bigger than our capacity to deal with them, we automatically avoid discussing them. Otherwise, we are on the front line helping people to accept their differences with others. This is one of the ways we provide value.
As we become more confident about the value we provide, Distant-Disarming Defense style individuals move from being worried about our safety to being more concerned about our security. This means we become less concerned about re-creating our past (where our safety was established) to worrying about the future because of the changes we see going on around us. While we are happy to support others in changing their circumstances, we do not always appreciate the changes happening in our own life. This is because change is threatening and is more easily dealt with internally rather than externally. As a result, we are very selective with how and where we decide to address changes.
Usually, we become clearer about our own feelings, which allows us to accept the feelings of othersmore easily. While we still find it difficult to own or honor our sensations, we are open to becoming more embodied in our actions by accepting their consequences. Ironically, this increased acceptance of our energetic wellbeing is not the result of how others treat us but rather how we come to accept and treat ourselves. One benefit is that we amplify our ability to love ourselves and accept support from the universe. This shows up as being less judgmental or being as stuck as Distant Defense style individuals. While the sense of scarcity becomes less pronounced, overall, we seek to understand and know the structure of others’ expectations so there will not be any unexpected demands.
The real issue is that we want to avoid fixed beliefs about how we should be with others. The less flexible or accepting a potential partner is, the more fearful we are that we won’t be able to meet his needs. Since we easily become involved and it is very hard to say no to our partner, we can get submerged in situations where others’ expectations become too much. In this situation, we test the limits of our newfound ability to share our truth with others in a way that minimizes their reactions. This reflects that we need to admit our limits and acknowledge appropriate boundaries with our partner. Since the last thing we want to do is to hurt our partner, we fear he will think we are callous and non-accepting if we limit our support in any way. It is hard for us to see that defining ourselves independently of the situation, actually increases our ability to address the problem. The more we take a stand (and care take ourselves), the more we are an example of what our partner needs to accomplish. It is only by being selfish enough to honor our own minimum requirements, that others are encouraged to do the same.
Distant Defense Style individuals can best heal by addressing the following:
- We need to stimulate our inner energetic connection with our Self so we are free to fully be our Self with others. The first step is to minimize our negative, critical self-dialogue. Instead, we need to build a positive inner framework for affirming and re-interpreting (from the glass is half empty to it is half full) our creative process. We also need to eliminate whatever beliefs limit our creative re-birth. This means in situations where we feel driven to make things perfect, we need to let go of this image and find ways to see the perfection in what actually is in front of us. This will increase and build a sense of connection that will lead us to discover how much we are wanted.
- We need to stop personally engaging guilt as a Creative Self-denial process. The more we need to justify our existence by caretaking and providing support to others, the more we will be caught in activities that do not honor or support us. When we use guilt to get our Self to do things we do not want to, it is easy to use guilt to get others to do what we want. If we do this, we will be more likely to take on their guilt when they want something in return. In short, using guilt opens us up to being guilty about others.
- We need to stir up our lives and increase our willingness to engage change so we do not fall into pre-established expectations that limit our spontaneity. In other words, we need to use the fire of Transmutation to burn through our entranced, conditioned behavioral patterns. Inertia is the primary obstacle to shifting out of defensive interactions. Recognizing and healing our unconscious reaction patterns demonstrates that we are not these patterns and can change and evolve. This will allow us to playfully engage new opportunities without getting caught up in performing.
- It would be useful to investigate our thoughts and emotions on a deeper level in a way that allows us to see how they do not always need to calibrate to one another. As Distant defense style individuals one of our core protection patterns is to constantly shift between thoughts and emotional perspectives, to create a less reactive interpretation of what is occurring. When we see how our thoughts and emotions are just two out of five frameworks (physical, feeling, emotional, intellectual, and intuitive) it reduces our need to explain everything in terms of these two. The result is we are less reactive. This allows us to be more open and responsive to others in the moment. Currently, we may be scared by divergent emotions and seemingly contradictory thoughts and end up disappearing in the confusion.
- It is time to question and challenge our perceived Safety Fears and Security Desires that were instilled in us as children and may no longer serve us. While many of these old patterns were useful to us as a child, as adults they keep us from being present with our Self and our outer circumstances. We can start by challenging our fears in areas where there is little to no consequence, moving on to larger issues, such as our fear of death. We want to release the energy trapped in these patterns (which is causing use to become rigid) so we can regain our fluidity and be spontaneous.
- We can investigate how we create a superficial sense of harmony between us as people by avoiding conflicts and reactions. By addressing our internal conflicts and reactions, we discover that we have nothing to fear about them. We also can at the same time, release our frustrated desires about how others should love us. The more we can see that our Personality Fears and Desires are past conclusions we do not need to act out in the present, the less relationship baggage we need to bear. We also need to examine whether our roles are actually keeping us from building a creative flow and expression with others. If possible, we should try changing our roles, experimenting with how creative and flexible we can become.
- With the help of a partner we trust, we can explore how we can simultaneously feel emotionally connected and physically affectionate. The key is to “unthaw” the frozen energy caught up in past patterns. We can also try to slow down the process in order to notice how we ebb and flow between these our emotions and sensations. We may need to share our reactions and patterns as they arise for some period until we can be completely present with our Self. This will be a great healing process as long as we do not judge our self (or own up to it as it is occurring) or our partner. This should allow us to learn how to relax and be present with our partner as well as our Self.
Dynamic “self” Perception Framework
We Dynamic Defense Style individuals have a particular scientific orientation that is based on the premise that we need to validate our hypotheses. An hypothesis is a statement that we are willing to examine and verify based upon reason, logic, and deductive understanding. In this way, we are always trying to distill our higher ideas down to the most grounded and focused assumptions. This occurs because we “subjectify” our personality self, leading us to objectify and subjectify the thoughts of those around us. When we are Subjectified or subjectify others, at the base of this distortion is the belief in a certain truth. When we are unsure, we tend to take on the Beliefs of others without examining them in terms of our own Knowing. This eventually leads us to want to be seen for our Truth so that others will respond to us. What we want them to do is to agree with us without question. By this we mean that we define our “self” in terms of some ongoing process that has a larger purpose that others will defer to.
Unfortunately, we are not completely in control of this larger force. We can validate this by how polarized we become when someone else attempts to shift us to serve their purpose. We tend to over-identify with our Individuation Identity, and therefore perceive others only on the basis of their thoughts match our own. While it may be our ideas and research that distinguish us from others, we believe it is our clarity and focus that makes us powerful in the world. While we are selective about moving forward, when we want something, we are the first ones to “go for it.” Others would say that it is our attention to detail and our time orientation that allows us to push things forward, even when others are resistant. Another view of this is that we are determined not to be overlooked.
We as Dynamic Defense Style individuals believe we are optimistic because of our willingness to move into action, but we are often viewed by others as pessimistic because we are so self-focused, practical, and hard-headed. We can often appear unwilling to see things from another’s perspective. While many attribute this stubbornness to a strong intellectual focus, it is actually the result of a strong physical will and the belief that others should not interfere in ways that might compromise the success of the mission. This is why we have the reputation of being tough, self-directed, and unwilling to accede to a possibility that appears beneath our dignity.
The blind spot of our Dynamic Defense Style arises when we are co-opted into a process without our full consent. Others’ assumptions about how we should participate do not typically allow us to determine our own way of participating. Our driving force is to take control of any situation and adopt it to maximize personal benefits and returns. We are not interested in having our Intention subverted to benefit others. What makes us uncomfortable is when other Defense Style individuals seem to want reinforcement that we are aligned with them, without actually expressing the need directly. We only respect directness and up-front negotiation. Anything else is self-delusion, confusion, and whining. We are naturally suspicious of others with high ideals who have not organized themselves to accomplish their objectives in a productive manner. We focus on the accomplishment of the tasks, oftentimes at the expense of the interpersonal relationship dynamics with others. As we Dynamic Defense Style individuals evolve, our scientific foundation can migrate to become that of a Western style mystic. In both situations, there is a centeredness of purpose that progressively becomes more transparent the more we follow our bliss.
Dynamic Defense Style
Individuals who have adopted a Dynamic Defense Style need to prove outer strength and resilience. We call this a “perimeter” defense because it is designed to keep those whom we believe are unsafe from getting too close. We associate with whatever position gives us a feeling of greater strength and outer power, believing this will allow us to protect our inner sensitive nature. We try to control our destiny by quickly moving into action and pursuing our goals. Order and mastery of external tools are the way we make others feel secure around us. We rely on our intellectual perceptions to clarify our truth and distinguish our beliefs from what we perceive to be the misguided beliefs of others. Taking this position allows us to use the structure and content of what is going on to demonstrate our superior understanding of the situation. When others threaten us, we either intimidate them into silence or destroy their confidence by pointing out the flaws in their plans. We call this position a “Dynamic” one because of how we assert that we are in charge.
Dynamic Defense Style people attempt to use their skills in task management to convince others to obey them. By relying on our cleverness, we get ourselves into situations where our hands become increasingly tied because of the agreements we have made. Our agreements make us feel more secure at the outset, but they become a huge source of insecurity when we cannot find ways to bring them into alignment with each other. As we are driven to prove ourselves capable in order to earn the love of others, we frequently get caught up in activities that keep us from feeling loved. In these situations, we can easily believe others love us for what we do and not for who we are. For instance, a Dynamic defense style woman may work very hard to prove her outer strength and capability, which makes her seem unapproachable, when in fact she would appreciate being hugged, particularly if it is not connected to any predefined romantic intention.
We can recognize if we are a Dynamic defense style individual by the degree to which we attempt to assert ourselves in any situation. Our intellectual and physical presence can put off other defensive styles who typically have not defined themselves in terms of taking action. As we Dynamic defense style individuals develop our inner ability to manage time and activities around us, we naturally become more masterful. Early in our life we typically resented the intrusions of our mother in our life, so we are more sensitive to being shamed or made wrong in front of others. We feel obligated to present our perspective in the situation. As a result, we discount our fears and use our anger to push them away. We will confront any confusion because we are not comfortable around ambiguity. The advantage of this defense style is that we are automatically focused on defining our life work and finding ways to make it be more valued and effective. The down side of the Dynamic defense style is that we do not feel comfortable in undefined situations where emotions and intuitions are being used to make decisions. We do not realize that our fear of Intimacy keeps us from owning our relationship skills.
No matter what our Gender Identity, intellectually we adopted the “masculine” framework for proving our value in the world. The more we used this framework to represent ourselves, the more vulnerable we became to the blind spots of taking a purely masculine expression. As a result, we became affected by chaos, emotional turbulence and the intuitive beliefs of others. While our masculine focus helped us bring order and effective action to the task we were engaging, it kept us from wanting to interact freely and in undefined ways with others because then our objectives would no longer be assured. We started to believe our own propaganda that working with others would only needlessly waste our energy and reduce the certainty we had in manifesting our results. Until we find a way to simultaneously operate in both our masculine and feminine energies, we will not be able to understand and appreciate fully the Disarming defense style population.
As Dynamic defense style individuals, we use our Aliveness and physical agility to create quick responses to others and their situations. We use our intellectual strength and physical confidence to organize and manage our sense of direction. Typically, we use excitement to hook others into our desires. We can lose ourselves in intensity falsely believing that clear, more definitive arguments will lead to resolution. Since we believe we need to be on top of what’s occurring in the moment, we over-direct and over-plan our growth. This allows us to build a false sense of security because we become proficient at managing and organizing our use of time. In the first stage of this defense we seek to be Admired. As we begin to see the limits of our defensiveness, we seek to be Adored. We develop a sense of self by holding and expressing clear and physical and intellectual boundaries. This makes us appear self-centered and self-focused to others.
As a Dynamic defense style individual, it is easier to distance ourselves from those who possess striking differences from us. We use a physical connection to minimize the need for emotional connection. It is not until we consciously understand our defensive pattern that we begin to be more inclusive and open to others. What we fear is to be compromised by the thoughts of another, which drives us to be in charge of the direction of a creative interaction. We are most susceptible to falling into the trap of becoming over-identified with our thoughts. As a result, we are most sensitive to the distracting effects of the illusions of others. This sensitivity pushes us to be hyper-critical when others are not seeing the deeper truths of a circumstance or situation. We could end up falling into the perspective that we are the only ones who can see beyond the current situation. We tend to avoid engaging our emotions and feelings where possible because such experiences tend to promote fuzzy thinking. As a result, we are perceived by others as having limited intimacy skills.
Whenever there is a problem, we seek to resolve it immediately. We tend to dislike procrastination because we think it is a way others avoid the truth. If there is bad news to be discovered, we want to get it over right away, because we are afraid of being intellectually/emotionally blindsided. Typically, it is hard for us to receive support, particularly on the emotional level. This is because we are afraid to be indebted to others, particularly emotionally. It is our defensive perspective that others could take advantage of us, so we want to avoid up-font unconditional giving to others until they have a track record with us. Our Dynamic defense style always pushes us to be an outward performer and we end up fearing people who do not have the same commitment in life. This commitment to living life needs to be externalized and obvious to others, for us to be comfortable.
Dynamic Defense style individuals seem aloof, in charge and self-directed, wanting everything clear so we can be personally powerful. We create security through structured learning, planning and physically making things happen. We assert ourselves on intellectual and physical levels, as a way to earn the admiration and love of others. We use what we do to build self-esteem, wanting others to acknowledge that we produce unquestionable results in a methodical manner.
EXAMPLES
Clint Eastwood – actor, director
Winston Churchill – former Prime Minister of Britain
John Wayne – actor
Barbara Bush – wife of former U.S. President
Bette Davis – actor
Joan Rivers – TV personality
Cher – singer, actress
Robert Dole – politician
Elizabeth Dole – former Director of American Red Cross
Vanna White – TV game show personality
Humphrey Bogart – actor
Tina Turner – singer/musician/dancer
Janine Turner – actress
Robert Mitchum – actor
Ernest Hemingway – author
Howard Cosell – sportscaster
Mohammar Kadafy – leader of Libya
Max von Sydow – film actor
Rod Sterling –host of the Twilight Zone
Adlai Stevenson –UN- U.S. Representative during Cuban missile crisis.
Diane Feinstein – Senator from CA
Barbra Streisand – singer, actress
Lucille Ball – comedian
Diane Sawyer – TV news broadcaster
Mario Cuomo – former Governor of NY
Candice Bergen – actress
John Glenn – former astronaut and politician
Bill Walsh – former football coach
Hillary Clinton – U.S. Senator and wife of former U.S. President
Carrie Fisher – actress, author
Susan Sarandon – actress
John F. Kennedy – former U.S. President
Linda Carter – actress
Madonna – singer
Roseann Barr – comedian
Mae West – actress, entertainer
Barbara Stanwyck – actress
Fidel Castro – revolutionary and leader of Cuba
Paloma Picasso – designer, daughter of Pablo Picasso,
General George C. Patton – tough WWII U.S. Army General
Marshall MacLuhan – media critic (the Global Village guy)
Elizabeth Taylor – actress
Gloria Steinem – author, feminist, former magazine editor
J. Edgar Hoover – former Director of the F.B.I.
Spiro Agnew – disgraced former U.S. Vice-President
Billy Graham – TV evangelist
Melvin Belli – lawyer
Bette Midler – singer, actress
Arthur Miller – playwright
Orson Welles – author, screenwriter, director, actor
Bella Abzug – NY politician/gadfly with big hats
Angela Lansbury – actress
Kirk Douglas – actor
Yul Brynner – actor
Sylvester Stallone – actor
Arnold Schwarzenegger – actor, former Mr. Universe
Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. – former Congressman, civil rights leader, preacher
Dionne Warwick – singer
Ella Fitzgerald – incredible jazz singer
Yvonne Goolagong – multi-time Australian tennis champ
Martina Navratilova – multi-Wimbledon tennis champ
Jane Fonda – actress
Jamie Lee Curtis – actress
Barbara Bain – actress
Marsha Clark – prosecutor in the OJ Simpson case
Sophia Loren – actress
Angie Dickinson – actress
Barbara Walters – TV newscaster and talk show host
Helen Gurley Brown – magazine editor
Ann Bancroft – actress
Diana Rigg – actress
Lena Horne – singer, actress
Kirsti Alley – actress
Dynamic Pioneering Defense Style
Dynamic-Pioneering Defense style individuals, understand a defensive reaction within ourselves when it occurs. This empowers us to honor that the defense does not necessarily reflect the truth of the circumstances we are in and that there are larger more inclusive ways of engaging the process. In this case, while our defensive tendency is to try to come up with a plan and establish a timeline for solving the problem, we know that it might be better to give some time to the experience. This means feeling what is going on and lettingourselves explore being out of control. Instead of avoiding the fear that we need to respond immediately, we embrace it and recognize that it can shift into a greater acceptance of possibilities. Rather than falling into a Dynamic Defense of attempting to minimize problems by breaking them into more manageable chunks, we can examine the possibility that there may be patterns within the problem that need to be explored before taking action. It is also important to recognize that our feelings and emotions need to be included in the exploration in order to develop an intuitive sense of how things can be engaged differently. Instead of responding to the problem by trying to figure it out, we can be with it intellectually, physically and intuitively and open to unexpected insights that could change our perspective at any moment.
While it is easy to use tools to categorize and analyze the situation, instead, what if we turned the problem over to our creative self and giveourselves time to contemplate the situation (both waking and sleeping). This allows our sub-conscious a chance to come up with new possibilities and perhaps even suggest a solution. This would support and help us to accept that we have many different types of resources that could emerge if we would allow it. Opening up possibilities in this way, encourages us to get out of our fears of being shamed and/or not loved because we are not doing what others’ want us to do. The more we break out of a time validated, content focus perspective, where details are most important, the more likely we will come up with solutions that will work with everyone and be mutually supportive. Our defense will emphasize our need for order and because it is security driven, it will use anxiety and finally anger to precipitate action if nothing seems to be getting done. We, of course, will need to listen to all the concerns that our defense has about why action needs to be taken immediately. In doing so, we honor the defensive reality that time is criticalsimultaneously deploying all our resources for a certain period. This eliminates wasting resources on partial solutions. The degree that we can be with our desire for a solution and not be driven by the fear that we will run out of time, is the same degree to which we have learned to trust ourselves.
Our confidence grows as we see that there are always solutions that arise as long as we support their emergence. This sense of spacious presence supports us in becoming more pioneering and being less attached and driven to take immediate action particularly when doing so would be counter-productive. This indicates we have learned that counter-reactions commonly reinforce the problems and therefore prevent the solutions from emerging. Instead of reacting, be with the process and allow time to find a new way of looking at it that is not as attached or compromised as our natural reaction would be. Some individuals visualize this by going against the grain and thinking in a different direction to break up preconceptions about the problem. Connecting our feelings and emotions, particularly so we do not amplify our existing reactions to the problem can also facilitate the process of building a larger context. As feelings are a reflection of our physical sensations, they help us explore ourbody wisdom. When we speak about these feelings, it helps to check in with our body awareness. Connecting our feelings to our emotions is facilitated when we acknowledge that out emotions are reflections of the congruence we experience in our thoughts and therefore, reflect changes in our mental/emotional state through time. We have the right to experience the differences between our feelings and emotions, even though it may be uncomfortable. This discomfort shows the degree to which we want to embrace the dissonance around us and our inability to accept it.
Paradox and ambiguity become resources as we learn to relax into our fears. Instead of thinking we can identify the problem and address it quickly, we learn to enjoy deepening into the situation without attempting to categorize or oversimplify different elements. We practice exploring the Mystery by searching for hidden connections, dependencies and consequences. We need to assume that there is always more to learn. If we pay attention to our subtle reactions and the reactions of others we can identify potential problems before they become major obstacles to growth and development. By allowing ourselves to create open-ended statements of intention that provoke new thinking we can investigate our own experiences and stop asking others for their opinions. Consider that any reaction within can be an indication of a disconnection when we begin to express our ideas. Assert the possibility that time spent on considering our problems is useful despite the lack of any apparent immediate effect. It is our consciousness that attracts problems to us. If we shift our awareness we can shift the type, nature and degree of problems that show up.
Dynamic Defense Style individuals can best heal by addressing the following issues:
- We need to stimulate our inner feminine connection to our Self, realizing we want to relate to our Self in a more fulfilling way. This will empower us to see the many different spatial dimensions energetically arising between people. Through this we learn to maintain an inner space that cannot be invaded, compromised, or taken away by others.
- We need to stop shaming our Creative Self as a way of making us appear unworthy of love. Otherwise, we continually have to prove our lovability. When we recognize that we focus on our personality self to keep from being distracted by others, we start to understand that our fear of being with others is self-generated. If we are able to stop shaming ourselves, we will not need to shame or blame others in order to protect our inner space.
- We need to soften and slow down our interactions with others so we are able to better appreciate the perfection of how things turn out. This means taking time to nurture our Self and lessen our need to use time to manage our activities and our interactions with others. This will greatly assist us in our intimacy challenges. Taking our Self off a fixed production schedule teaches us to enjoy the Mystery of what will occur rather than trying to force it to be what we want it to be.
- It would be useful to investigate our emotions and feelings to determine how they could communicate with one another more effectively. Remember, feelings reflect changes in our body experience while emotions reflect changes in our intellectual thought patterns. When we can integrate these two reflective intelligences, it greatly deepens our ability to relate intuitively. This will allow us to be more receptive to others on personal, social, and intellectual levels, because we will be more balanced within our Self.
- It is time to question and challenge how we never have things completely handled in terms of our long-term security. Imagine that we are secure within our identity to our Creative Self. Who would we be? The answer is we would be a person without defenses who now finds intimate ways to express our Self without self-sabotage. It is ironic our defenses actually create our perceptions that we are not secure. Let us recognize our true security comes from recognizing how the universe has always supported us to this point, no matter how much we have denied it. Consider how we could enjoy interacting with others even when there is nothing in common. We could discover we do not need a purpose in order to connect with others.
- We can investigate how we do not believe relationships are real when they are not dealing with the logistics and/or perceived tensions in the situation. We tend to want to confront these issues, believing doing so will reduce their effect. Unfortunately, when we are with Disarming defense style individuals the opposite, actually occurs. The true challenge is to create a sense of intimacy which naturally occurs when we are vulnerable and can admit when we do not know what to do. It is important that we do not over-direct others, but rather create a safe space with them so they will not feel criticized or judged. For a while, practice going overboard in the commitment to be intimate as a way to neutralize past imbalances.
- With the help of a partner with whom we feel a sense of Unity, Trust, and Love, we can explore how to listen deeply to our feminine side by demonstrating that we can listen to their feminine side. When we establish this common connection it dramatically reduces our ability to maintain separate positions without falling into any unconscious merging or Co-Dependent behavior. Valuing our inner feminine naturally enables us to be compassionate with others. When we no longer feel impatient or driven to manage the process we will know a shift has occurred within us around our feminine nature. Over time we will gradually become stronger and more balanced between our feminine and masculine expressions.
Disarming “self” Perception Framework
We Disarming Defense Style individuals have a particular metaphysical framework that is based upon the belief that we should work with and adapt to whoever and whatever shows up. Usually, this means that we are unreasonably optimistic about seeing the good in everything. Usually this feedback comes in terms of feelings and emotions that let us know how things are working out. Our spatial relationship orientation means that we rely on others to provide feedback in a way that reinforces our reality. This occurs because we tend to deny our personal self, leading us to “idealize” those around us. We can validate this by how lost and/or repulsed we are when others objectify us or are unwilling to confront their personality biases. It seems an insult to hold them in high regard (seeing their higher purpose) while they seem unable or unwilling to do the same for us. We also tend to project our problems on others, making them responsible for taking care of us. This, of course, polarizes us from Dynamic Defense Style individuals, even though we seek them out. We tend to over-identify our Connection Skills Identity, and therefore we perceive others only on the basis of their self-defined connection to us. This no object/no subject orientation can be viewed as transcendental or even escapist.
It is frequently viewed as impractical and idealistic from the perspective of a Dynamic Defense Style individual. Why these individuals need Disarming Defense Style individuals is because they don’t usually know how to take care of their Feelings and Emotions and validate their own spatial understanding in terms of others. The real problem is that our defense denies our in-completions regarding Individuation and Gender Identity skills. This means that we are incomplete in our understanding of where we came from and have difficulty in grounding ourselves as we are. While we do have a similar perspective to Eastern mystics, this is mostly superficial, as we commonly believe in an inner guidance that is not reflected in Eastern spiritual practices. What seems apparent to others is that we seem more motivated to avoid things, rather than to take responsibility for where we are going.
We Disarming Defense Style individuals, when evolved, can be great innovators who often become loners because there is not anyone to consciously “get” or reflect us. Usually, our gifts are in our ability to see the future, but somehow, we are unable to apply this to ourselves. At our worst, we get caught up in spiritual materialism and end up glorifying our own limitations. This is because we are comfortable with distorted ways of loving (quid pro quo and Protective Love). We are challenged to come to grips with loving as a creative experience of Self. The power we Disarming Defense Style individuals experience is that we see many of the connections beyond the outer form. The challenge is to effectively use this information in the outer world. It is this lack of ability to apply this information externally that can be so self-sabotaging. It is ironic how comfortable we are in maintaining the relationships that others want of us, while at the same time, we have difficulty loving our own relationship with our Self. We heal by accepting our Self and seeing this Self in others. We also heal by taking responsibility for our Self in the outside world, owning our needs, our skills, and our desires.
The blind spot we have as Disarming Defense Style individuals is that because of our relationship focus, we can easily be blindsided around task management issues. Because we Disarming individuals tend to define ourselves in relation to others, we tend to allow Dynamic individuals to define the terms of engagement. This means that we do not tend to organize ourselves in terms of Time, events, and outcomes. We can fear the Dynamic ‘dissentionist’ attitude that everything has to be quantified in terms of what is. This reflects our lack of confidence in our ability to manage task skills directly. We also may not be confident that our big ideas can be translated into simple, concrete steps, or, if we were to do so, we fear it would lose our spirit and passion in the translation. We Disarming Defense Style individuals evolve from being more mystical to engaging practical details, allowing for a more pragmatic and more effective engagement with others on intellectual and physical levels.
It is our intention to show how the defense styles develop into more clearly defined prisons where their Beliefs inhibit them. The more defensive we are, the more likely we are to attract complementary (opposite) Defense Style individuals which reduces our ability to grow together. Defenses then become a struggle rather than an opportunity; the way we interact with others becomes a burden, rather than a joy. Some individuals over-identify with these defensive limitations and become depressed and disillusioned with life. Still, many of us hold on to our Defenses, as if our Defenses are us. It is time to recognize that what we are holding on to is an anchor that will ultimately drown us. Only on the personality level do defenses demonstrate a sense of value or manifest as our complete reality. Most of these manifestations reflect how we can artificially, through fear, convince others to do what we want them to do. This occurs because they realize and manipulate our defensive weaknesses. Defenses provide us the justifications we need to take personally the behaviors of opposite Defense Style individuals. Although they allow us to differentiate ourselves through our ideas, it is mostly reactive. It is through the pain and torment of not being seen by others that we realize our ideas are only outer expressions of us as personality level thinkers.
Disarming Defense Style
Disarming Defense Stylepeople need to prove innocence and flexibility. We call this a “guerrilla warfare” approach because it is all about diverting and distracting others from our true intentions. In this situation, we become extremely familiar with the weaknesses of others and know how to make suggestions that will keep them busy (distracted) so they cannot become a threat to us. We embrace chaos and mystery as a way to emphasize our intuitive and emotional nature. In this position, we like to use secrecy so we can attain the element of surprise when we do take action. We love to exploit circumstances to facilitate the occurrence of things that are not part of any plan so we can maximize our influence over others. We have discovered that our ability to predict the behaviors of others can be a strategic tool that distinguishes us from others. We call this position a “Disarming” one because of how friendly and easy-going we appear.
As Disarming defense style individuals we use relationships to build consensus about what should occur to make independent individuals unsure about their power. The collective bargaining (union) movement is an example of Disarming individuals being frustrated about the demands and structure of a Dynamic management style. Instead of head-on confrontations, Disarming individuals frequently change the framework or terminology of the discussion to gain an advantage. In this situation, we can more easily rename what we are doing in a way that helps create new results. Usually, when we are in a Disarming defense style we do not want to declare in advance what our goals are, so we will not look bad if we do not achieve them. Our power comes from our ability to convince others to join our group or activity, because typically we distrust self-centered ego power. As Disarming individuals, we usually fixate on a vision until it becomes too large to tackle or we become unable to affect the results.
We can recognize if we are a Disarming defense style individual by the degree we attempt to connect with others to get along. Our emotional and intuitive presence can put off other defensive styles who have typically not defined themselves in terms of their Primary Creative Expression. As we Disarming defense style individuals develop our inner ability to manage space and the interconnections with people, we naturally become more mysterious. Since early in our life we typically lost ourselves trying to please our parents, we are more sensitive to being blamed or criticized even though we easily accept it. As a result we hide and discount our own anger and use the fears of others to push them away. The advantage of this defense style is that we are comfortable in redefining ourselves in terms of others, particularly in romantic relationships. The down side of the Disarming defense style is that we do not feel comfortable in confronting our life work and we tend to procrastinate and doubt ourselves when it comes to making contributions to others. We do not realize that our fear of Autonomy keeps us from owning our life expression.
Regardless of our Gender Identity, intellectually we adopted the “feminine” framework for proving our value in the world. The more we used this framework to represent us, the more we became vulnerable to the blind spots of taking a purely feminine expression. As a result, we became affected by order, intellectual turbulence and the intimidation that comes from others taking unilateral action without consulting us. We use our feminine side to connect before we develop the safety to connect physically. While our feminine focus helped us bring creative opportunities to the relationships we were engaging, it kept us from wanting to take charge and implement our ideas because then we would be completely responsible for whatever occurred. We started to believe our own propaganda that independent action would only create more work for others in the group. We ended up believing that work that was not coordinated with others would naturally undermine group efforts. Until we find a way to simultaneously operate in both our masculine and feminine energies, we will not be able to understand and appreciate the Dynamic defense style population.
As a Disarming defense style individual, we tend to lose ourselves in excitement because fantasy seems preferable to the harsh reality of the world. Others would say we look at the world through idealistic, rose-colored glasses. Our excitement tends to focus us on a hedonistic pleasure seeking approach to life that other defense styles automatically distrust. This does not mean that as a Disarming defense style we abandon all sense of propriety or appropriateness, for we do not. However, we do tend to use pleasure as an ultimate objective as part of our process, which others believe gets in the way of being productive. As a Disarming defense style individual, we also tend to use Intensity to create more space for our Self by provoking conflict in a way that cannot be directed toward us. In this way, others subtly get the message that if they want to keep us around, they should take care of “our needs” and us. We also use chaos, particularly with Dynamic individuals, because we know they are at a loss when confronting situations that they cannot effectively organize.
Our undirected growth approach means that we can be spontaneous and use the circumstances in ways that are unpredictable. Usually, we use this approach because we do not want to re-invoke the patterns of our past. This is also the reason we tend to avoid in-depth planning. Because of our strength in our feelings and intuition, we trust that we can create what we want without a pre-existing structure which would make us accountable to others in a way we do not wish to be. It is safer for us to do things our own way and to create in the moment. Due to our strength in feelings and intuition, we trust that we can create what we want without a pre-existing structure which we choose to avoid because it would make us accountable to others in a way we do not wish to be responsible. Initially, as we are getting comfortable with our defense style, we seek Adoration from others. As the defense style becomes more mature, we switch to seeking the Admiration of others.
We are typically seen as other-centered because we protect ourselves by making sure others are okay around us. This means we initially develop stronger skills in being with others than in being with ourselves. In fact, we typically fall into the trap of proving to others how selfless we are by sacrificing our personal growth for them. We use our emotional and intuitive boundaries to protect our own sense of self. While we do develop a relationship with our self over time, we do not believe others will accept us as we are so we end up hiding it. As we individualize, we become more capable or interacting transpersonally, through our pre-established interest in understanding others. It takes time and practice to develop and bring out who we are equally with others. To do it, we need to establish strong intellectual and physical boundaries.
As a Disarming defense style individual, one of our biggest challenges is to love ourselves enough to engage similarities with others. Our basic issue is we fear losing ourselves, particularly in individuals who are like us. Superficially, we operate in an over-sentimental and intimate way, to cover up our core fear of not being able to establish clearly our own path. This core fear keeps us attempting to reassure our partners and take care of them on a personal level, so we do not have to be responsible for the expression of our own power. When we are overwhelmed, we tend to withdraw from others to let them stew in their own fears that we will not take care of them. We are frustrated when we cannot intuitively understand the needs of our partners. It is even more difficult when we intuitively experience our partner asking for things that we do not perceive they need because we are extremely sensitive to their being congruent between their internal and external process and expression.
As a Disarming defense style individual, our safety is environmentally defined. We like to be around people we have a pre-existing relationship with or operate in places where we have had a past experience in order to have a degree of physical confidence in our physical surroundings. It is easy for us to become resentful and envious of those who do not seem to care as much as we do about others. Our interpersonal connection with others encourages us to develop our Wisdom. This Wisdom, which focuses on what others need, permits us to create a sense of flow in groups and with others that can be misunderstood as transpersonal. We are not operating transpersonally until we accept and honor our personal self and relate to it in an autonomous way. Our creativity therefore has a tendency to be group-oriented, and we need to learn to accept and honor our personal inner creativity to balance ourselves in the world.
Disarming Defense style individuals seem innocent, easygoing, friendly, emotionally emphatic and available. We create safety by taking care of others emotionally, believing in the potential of ourselves and others and relating with a sense of spiritual possibilities. We use intimacy and interpersonal skills to cover up our fears that we are personally inadequate. We use what we imagine to build self-respect, wanting others to accept our vision of a harmonious world where we can get along without conflict.
EXAMPLES
Michael J. Fox – actor
Pierce Brosnan – actor
John Belushi – actor, comedian
Dudley Moore – actor
Johnny Mathis – singer
Raul Julia – actor
Billy Crystal – actor
Liza Minnelli – singer, actress
Sammy Davis, Jr. – singer, dancer, entertainer
Richard Pryor – comedian, actor
Jim Baker – evangelist convicted of fraud
Sean Penn – actor
Chevy Chase – actor, comedian
Robert Downey Jr. – actor
Michael Keaton – actor
Lisa Kudrow – actress
Timothy Dalton – actor
David McCallum -- actor
Sandra Bullock – actress
Andy Griffith -- actor
Bill Clinton – former U.S. President
Kevin Costner – actor
George Lucas – movie director, producer
Bo Derek – actress
Gene Kelly – actor, singer, dancer
Hubert Humphrey – politician
Meg Ryan – actress
Jerry Lewis – comedian, actor
Kim Bassinger – actress
Arsenio Hall – entertainer, comedian
George Bush – current U.S. president
River Phoenix – actor
Molly Ringwald – actress
Michael Jackson – singer, dancer
Flip Wilson – comedian
Liberace – piano-playing entertainer
Jeff Bridges – actor
Nicolas Cage – actor
Jesse Jackson – preacher, activist, politician
Dan Akroyd – actor
Drew Barrymore – actress
Willie Brown – Mayor of San Francisco
Don Johnson – actor
Corason Aquino – former President of the Philippines
James Taylor – singer, songwriter, musician
Elvis Presley – singer, actor
William Shatner – actor
Nick Nolte – actor
Paul Hogan – wrestler
Alan Alda – actor
Tim Allen – actor
John Cleese – actor, comedian, business education entrepreneur
Jay Leno – TV talk show host
Harry Morgan – actor
Phil Donahue – TV talk show host
Ted Kennedy – politician, Senator from MA
Ceasar Chavez – activist for migrant workers
Tom Hanks – actor
Martin Luther King, Jr. – civil rights activist, preacher
Goldie Hawn – actress
Marilyn Monroe – actress
Elton John – singer, composer, musician
Steven Spielberg – movie director and producer
Disarming Pioneering Defense Style
If we are a Disarming-Pioneering Defense style individual, we understand a defensive reaction within when it occurs. This empowers us to honor our defense which may not necessarily reflect the truth of the circumstances and that there may be larger more inclusive ways of engaging the process. In this case, while our defensive tendency is to wait and consider what the problem is, it may be appropriate to take immediate action by operating from our gut-knowing. Instead of avoiding the anger that makes us passive, we can embrace it and explore a course of action that makes us feel most alive. Rather than falling into a Disarming Defense of attempting to maximize the engagement of problems by sitting with them until they are fully expressed, we can examine the possibility of breaking them into manageable chunks that we can immediately address. It is also important to recognize that we are defensively resistant to taking immediate action because we do not want to make matters worse or more confused. Immediate action can minimize others’ defensive response if we are quick enough. Instead of responding to the problem by trying to wait it out, we can be with it physically, intellectually and intuitively to see if there are immediate opportunities to address it.
While it is easy for us to read the reactions of others and collect perspectives from them about what we can do, what if we turned the problem over to our active self and just did the best thing that came up in the moment. Our Aliveness can itself be the primary resource to rely on which means we can try something out and quickly shift to another possibility if it is not working. This would help us to accept our Body Wisdom and how it can respond to many problems effectively without the requirement to analyze the situation completely. Opening up opportunities in this way, encourages us to get out of our fears of being blamed and/or not considered adequate when we do not match up to others’ expectations. The more we break out of a spatially defined, context focus where relationships are everything, the more likely we will come up with solutions that immediately change our results. Our defense emphasizesour need for chaos and being safety driven, we use excitement and finally fear to procrastinate if no clear solution arises. Of course, we need to listen to all the concerns that our defense has about why we need more time to consider options. In doing so, we honor the defensive reality that relationships are critical and we would rather not preemptively or unilaterally change circumstances until we knew the reactions and/or responses of others. This enables us to avoid getting caught up in considerations that may not provide an answer. The degree to whichwe can be with our desire for a solution and not be driven by the fear that we will make a mistake, is the degree to which we have learned to be unified with our creative selves.
Our confidence grows as we see that there are always ways to address problems in the moment if we are fully engaged and committed to the process. It is our lack of commitment to being Alive and responding in the moment, which minimizes our ability to do what is best. This sense of pregnant duration where we shift our ability to create a solution in the moment helps us shake up the situation enough to allow a new possibility to emerge. This indicates we have learned to create the time necessary to focus on our actions so others experience our intent. Ironically, since others want us to be aligned and speak our Truth clearly, they are likely more than willing to support our actions and give us the benefit of the doubt about the possible consequences. This opening allows us to adjust for unanticipated reactions and apply appropriate contingencies. Some individuals visualize this as having enough space to refine the choices as we do them. Connecting our sensations and feelings, particularly so we do not amplify our excitement can also facilitate the process of deepening our intent. As sensations are a reflection of various stimuli, they help us deepen into our Body Wisdom. When we act from the Life energy of making a choice, it helps build a connection to our Inner Knowing. Connecting our feelings to our sensations is facilitated when we acknowledge that our feelings are reflections of the inner congruence we experience in our actions. We have the right to experience the differences between our sensations and feelings, particularly when they indicate it is not a time to take action. Honoring our Body Wisdom by acting in alignment with it is ultimately what we need to neutralize our defenses.
Playfulness and direct truth telling become our best resources as we learn to neutralize our personality desires. Usually the problem with desires is that we are holding onto things we wanted in the past that were not fulfilled. How we establish balance is to prioritize and focus on what is needed in the moment, rather than be overwhelmed by the vast number of options. Instead of trying to wait so we know we have covered all the bases, we need to trust what is appropriate in the moment and take action so we do not lose our future to procrastination. Practice exploring the Mastery by prioritizing actions sowe are always in motion. Assume that each action we take will naturally inform the next action and this will build confidence in our ability to respond to what is needed. Pay attention to the resistance and/or internal dissonance we feel engaging certain subjects. This provides an ongoing guide to clearing out obstructions to movement that limit our capacity to show up with others. Let yourself create clear, unambiguous statements of intention that bring out your best. See how much fun it is to not ask for the opinions of others before we have directly investigated our own experience. Consider that any reaction we experience can be an indication of a disconnection when we begin to express our ideas. Assert the possibility that our body’s immediate impulse can be an effective guide, particularly because in the past we have discounted immediate action. Since it is our consciousness that attracts problems we need to pay attention to what we are attracting and do something about it.
Disarming Defense Style individuals can best heal by addressing the following issues:
- We need to stimulate our inner masculine connection to our Self, realizing we want to relate to our Self in a clearer, interactive but determined way. This will empower us to see the many different time orientations we have been ignoring. We will learn to ground and express our thoughts and actions more succinctly. Through this we learn to master our ability to organize ourselves to be self-sufficient and self-generating. We then create a sense of mastery that cannot be denied, compromised, or affected by others.
- We need to stop blaming our Creative Self as a way of making us appear intellectually and physically unworthy to be with others. This creates a situation where we lose our Self while trying to take care of others in order to keep them from attacking us. Our focus on others, at the cost of our own well-being, is a protection mechanism that actually attracts attack because we make ourself appear weak. If we are able to stop blaming our Self, we will not need to shame or blame others in order to protect our limited, apparent choices.
- We need to listen to our creative source and move more decisively into action so we are able to better appreciate how capable we are at manifesting our life expression. By assuming a passive position about our “self” and Creative Self expression, we unconsciously communicate we are okay with our current situation. Since we do not take action, others, particularly Dynamic defense style individuals, accept what we are currently doing is our limit. As we are not clearly expressing our inner discontent, for fear of appearing demanding or inappropriate, others discount our creativity because we are discounting it.
- It would be useful to investigate our intellectual doubt and physical passivity to determine how they are related to our creative Self-denial. Healing this breach requires more passion and commitment to go beyond our personality fears. This means creating the inner space necessary to create an effective, productive environment. This way we will not be dependent upon others for our own productive expression. We need to learn to enjoy making commitments we will meet no matter what. Imagine how we can build our Self-Esteem by keeping our word – doing what we say we will do. Consider how a more active outer presentation might increase others’ ability to relate to us and to listen to what we have to contribute.
- It is time to question and challenge how we never have things completely handled in terms of our short-term safety. Imagine that we are able to manifest our safety within our Self. Who would we be? The answer is we would be a person without defenses who now finds productive ways to express our Self without self-sabotage. Our defenses actually create our perceptions that we are not safe. Let us recognize our true safety comes from recognizing how the universe has always supported us to this point, no matter how much we have denied it. Consider setting out on adventures by ourselves where we have nothing to rely on but our own resourcefulness. Who are we? We could discover we do not need someone else to reflect us and make us real.
- We can investigate how we do not believe relationships are real when they ???are not discussing our aspirations, our feeling/desires, and how we would like to get there. We tend to want to ignore the practical side of circumstances, hoping for the best. This is partly because we do not want to interfere with someone else’s way of engaging a process. Unfortunately, when we are with Dynamic defense style individuals, the opposite actually occurs. The true challenge is to create a sense of autonomy and mutual, harmless truth telling. We cannot accomplish this by trying to protect others, but rather by creating a secure structure with others where both of us will not be criticized or judged. For a while, practice going overboard in our commitment to be outrageously direct, as a way to neutralize past withholding.
With the help of a partner with whom we feel a sense of Unity, Trust, and Love, we can explore how to act in alignment with our masculine side by taking action with others in creative projects where we work together. In this situation, we experience Co-Creativity as a team, and we all feel a greater sense of Aliveness. This indicates that we are embodying our masculine side. When we no longer feel limited in our ability to successfully engage projects out of our own perseverance and will, it reflects our masculine is becoming more capable of working with our feminine, producing a sense of balance, wholeness, and grace.
Disnamic Defense Style
Dis-namic Defense Style individuals try to create a sense of safety and security by identifying and being who others want us to be. This means we have created a series of flexible perspectives and operate within a range of choices based on how others engage us. Since we fear the judgments of others and need to find a way to keep ourselves separate while keeping others happy, some of the justifications we create change quickly when we engage new people. The challenge, is to deal with others’ lack of understanding about how we change perspectives based on circumstance. Dealing with the confusion others have because they cannot predict our response or reaction, makes us seem to be a larger enigma. It is also difficult to not get into set patterns with certain individuals in our life based on how much we trust them. As a result, we tend to build upon what works, which reflects the limitations of how others see and accept us.
We seek a sense of openness in how we engage the world. Having different responses with different individuals creates a sense of freedom and a variety in our day to day existence. While we may seek to be consistent with each individual, there will always be times when new responses are introduced because of changes they make. If others assume we are fixed in our perceptions, then they are usually surprised and/or dismayed when these shifts occur. What we are doing is attempting to maintain a balance between being connected and preserving our own space. Naturally, if the behavior of others shifts, it creates a need for us to respond or react differently. If others change their expectations without informing us, it creates more tension and fear. The opposite is also true because our ability to change quickly can cause mistrust and fear in others, particularly Distant individuals. This is why a Dis-namic individual tries to be more incrementally fluid and take small steps, checking with others before proceeding. We can validate this by how much we observe others around us and watch for any signs of reaction. As soon as we notice a reaction, we are the first to talk about it and quickly change our course of action if we can see a way to neutralize it. How close we feel to someone is a direct reflection of how physically close we want to be with him or her. In other words, we get physically close when we trust someone, but create distance when we perceive unresolved conflicts. Every conflict consumes energy, resources and time, so we are constantly adjusting ourselves to minimize the expenditure of these resources while maximizing the results we seek.
When stressed, we distance ourselves leading to problematic relationships if it happens too often. The cost of continually attempting to read circumstances and adjust ourselves to the needs of others creates an overhead making it difficult for us to be social. Frequently we find ourselves getting overwhelmed when we are in groups for any length of time, because we cannot meet the needs of anyone when we are in this circumstance. This is why we prefer interactions with only one or two people because we can learn about ourselves and others, and engage in deeper ways. The key issue is that being Dis-namic allows us to be more fluid in our self-perceptions but causes greater opportunities to be misunderstood and not accepted by others. The desire for acceptance and the fear we will not ever be seen for who we are keeps us from relaxing. This hyper vigilance prevents us from growing and fully learning that how others see us is not as important as honoring our own nature. The problem is that we end up making others’ perceptions more important than our own.
Over time, we become better at reading whether individuals want us to be consistent physically and intellectually or more in terms feelings and emotions. This allows us to develop a feeling or intellectual response to any situation. Since our experience has taught us not to mix these responses, others may consider us somewhat stilted in our expression. Many times, our behavior is read as being socially undeveloped or inept. Actually, separating these two frameworks is how we maintain a connection with others, even if it is not the way they would like or expect. We also use their misperceptions and allow them to underestimate us, so we can gather a better understanding of who they are and what they want. This is why we frequently surprise others with our insightfulness, the more they come to know us.
We may also find it hard to relax because we are simultaneously concerned with both our safety and long-term security. We can easily become overwhelmed when friends are fighting and we are unable to facilitate a resolution. As we can see both perspectives, it is easy to become entangled in their views about how we should be helping them. It is hard for us to maintain intellectual and emotional boundaries when people are arguing. We develop a sixth sense that tells us to leave a situation when fights are likely to occur. The difficulty we experience comes from absorbing the tension that leads to feeling more anxious, even when we are not directly involved. When conflicts occur and we cannot escape the immediate vicinity, we freeze, going into shutdown mode, hoping to make ourselves less involved. If there is no way to avoid the argument, we try to establish ground rules so neither party canhold our actions (as an independent third party) over us later. Unfortunately, everyone has a tipping point; when under severe stress, we may react in waysothers later regret. After calming down, we may find it challenging to know what to do or how to operate differently. Our desire for the approval of others and our fear of being misunderstood and unappreciated becomes a dilemma where no matter what we do, the future is problematic. The way out of this dilemma is to begin to see how all points of view are acceptable and we do not need to take sides in any way.
We prefer those who are less judgmental and/or more flexible in the perceptions of their truth. We enjoy others who do not need to hold any fixed way and do not seek us out because we will make them feel more stable and secure. This means we are able to build a sense of momentum when others are willing to be more adventurous and playful, which naturally expands our perceptions about possibilities. When we do not need to use our energy to contain reactions, we are more likely to express ourselves. The more we do not need to fix, support or be there for others, the more we can explore who we want to be. This begins the process of questioning authority, admiring strength and adoring openness. Instead of adapting to others, we begin to formulate a course of action that allows us to go deeper within ourselves. We will either seek Mastery, Mystery or both in our interactions. In this way, we become more conscious of our growth process and what works for us. This requires that we balance our need to prove how selfless we are by honoring that we need to be selfish to fully manifest who we are. Without a degree of selfishness, we cannot develop our contribution and be of service to others in any sustainable way.
Occasionally, we get carried away and over commit ourselves, which makes it awkward to reestablish what works in a way that does not cause us to lose face. The challenge is to see that we are stronger than the misperceptions of others. The less we feel compelled to explain ourselves or attempt to put a different face on the situation, the more autonomy we experience. It is key to see that others’ perceptions are inherently their own business and that it is up to them to come to their own conclusions. Any friend or acquaintance who would indiscriminately accept a superficial reinterpretation of what had occurred would not likely be the best friend or supporter. Their lack of personal autonomy would eventually make us question their ability to reflect and honor our experience. Since what we wish to avoid most is abandonment and the risk of rejection, it may be fortuitous that we experience these so that we can see the upside of getting over our fears of being different. It is effective to recognize those individuals with whom we can deepen and release those individuals who cannot engage us in real ways. Fears of rejection and abandonment primarily keep us from growing and honoring the Truth of our creative nature. The paradox of this process is that we need to be able to abandon and/or reject the parts where we have compromised, in order to guarantee our survival.
Unfortunately, we frequently feel (after the fact) that we have not always taken advantage of the opportunities presented. It is time to forgive ourselves for all the second-guessing we have done and focus on fully responding to the moment. While this may keep us from following through on preset plans, it will develop an ability to go deeper and support us in trusting our experience. Learning how to respond and complete a process before moving forward requires that we do not sabotage ourselves by fearing what we want. We need to take our “in-the-moment” experience and allow ourselves to embody it by breathing deeply into it. On each exhale; reflect upon its Beauty, Truth and Goodness. On each inhale; feel it growing within. When we feel complete, take action that is in alignment with our intention. Initially, pick those items where we have the greatest congruence so we will experience our power to manifest. Eventually, seek out more complex or convoluted issues and see if we can own their natural wholeness before taking action to fulfill them. In this way, we learn to embody our intent and align our motivations so things come to fruition.
Our tendency is to respect those with a clear sense of direction and purpose. We wish we were more this way, but instead we are outwardly satisfied that exploring each option piece by piece is necessary to get where we want to go. Ultimately, we realize we prefer to take things slowly and examine the positives and negatives of each choice because we want to find a course of action that is independently and uniquely our own and not defined by others. Instead of constraining ourselves to what is known, we now begin to see the value of engaging the unknown. In these situations, we need to be prepared to think outside the previous framework and embrace more of the chaos inherent in unexpected results. Our capacity to be outwardly flexible to please others can now be turned inwardly to create more possibilities in how we define ourselves. For example, which ways of being generate a natural sense of power and congruence. What interests or life questions naturally uplift and call forth a commitment to deepen in some way? Which individuals actually bring out greater harmony, focus or an ability to manifest who we authentically are? It is time to examine how we want to create a new direction or focus onour development that supports the evolution of our capacity to contribute.
The result is that we come to incorporate more options and begin to operate with a sense of greater choice. This expansion is frequently experienced as being arrogant, self-obsessive and even delusional, particularly if it calls on us to step into our power. We are being invited to take a stand for contributing in a way that may not initially be comfortable. This fear is a natural result of stepping outside our defensive safety and security frameworks. We frequently find ourselves taking actions that are unimaginable. Not only are we breaking down our defensive frameworks, but we are embracing the possibility that our creativity will triumph. Coming to enjoy this process means we have either become more aware of our body sensations and are using them to get into action or we are becoming more cognizant that we are able to think without judgment so our thoughts become powerful, creative tools with others. In either situation, we are more willing to take risks to explore our Beauty and Truth, rather than fantasizing about it. Another way of describing this is the increased sensitivity we have to either our sensations and feelings or emotions and thoughts. The important thing to recognize is that we will no longer be tolerant of others physically Objectifying or intellectually Subjectifyingus so that we are at the effect of them. Instead we will hold forth and honor our own experience even if others do not agree with us.
Pioneering Affirmation Style
We transcend our defenses and become Pioneers when we can simultaneously embody both our masculine and feminine sides. Releasing ourselves from our defenses means we can get into a creative flow and respond to the moment in the best possible manner. In this way, we can use chaos and order, mystery and mastery, and recognize that we are both being and becoming who we are. As Pioneers, we manage our own space, time and energy with others, without taking on their projections or issues. This means we have created clear boundaries on physical, emotional, mental and intuitive levels so we know what works and does not work within us. We are extremely flexible because we know who we are from the inside out, as Creative Beings. We are no longer caught up in the games of self-image, because we do not actually care about protecting our image. Instead, we would rather live for today and do all that is necessary to express ourselves.
As Pioneers we use the skills of Playfulness, Paradox and Mutual Learning to manifest our Aliveness and connection in the moment. We do not take ourselves seriously, which enables us to be whatever is required to fulfill our intentions. Since we trust our in-the-moment experience, we operate as we are inspired, based on fully meeting the circumstances as they arise. We enjoy whatever happens in each situation, which reflects our ability to interpret our reality in ways that serve and support our development. In identifying ourselves as Pioneers, we completely accept ourselves as we are. This Self-acceptance is manifested primarily in our physical self-presence, reflecting a deep congruence in our being. We speak in an embodied way, simultaneously conveying sensations, feelings/emotions, thoughts and insights. This experience is enriching to others who can feel an energetic or spiritual transmission when they are simply being near us.
As Pioneers, we take the time to do things completely and simply. We realize that everything will unfold at its own rate. We do not get anxious or fearful about the future, and thus we do not occupy too much of our time with plans. Pioneers have a deep capacity to be with others wherever they are. Our flexibility arises because we do not see our Self as any particular quality, and therefore we can explore our truth with the truth of others in each moment. Pioneers are healthy, vibrant and perhaps even a little mischievous as we encourage others to find their own natural expression and creative flow. Some Pioneers are extremely passionate and dedicated to certain life expressions, while others are focused more on just being themselves. Whatever our expression, we attract individuals who are interested in transcending their defenses and being more present and whole within themselves.
What makes Pioneers powerful is our ability to hold our own space and identity internally while simultaneously manifesting ourselves externally. Being self-reflective and introspective allows us to manifest a sense of perspective about what is going on within us. Being of service to others by making our authentic contribution makes us effective in coordinating our activities with other people. As Pioneers we are able to develop our inner process through Meditation, Contemplation, and other Body-Mind Integration techniques. We are developing our outer manifestation skills by learning how to serve and evoke the most fulfilling possibilities for those around us. Being of Service awakens our creative energies, helping us realize our natural contributions, and supporting us in deepening our ability to contribute to others. Meditation, on the other hand, helps us to release our attachments to our behavior, our emotions, and our thoughts. It allows us to experience the reality that we are the Knower behind the experience, rather than the experience itself.
As Pioneers we develop a strong capacity to learn from our inner and outer experiences, integrating the two. This foundation allows us to transcend reactions and Defenses because we no longer have to prove anything to others. The paradox is while we own our core Creative Being, the process of life helps us experience our ongoing Becoming. We are typically unconcerned with where we are going, because we know we will get there when we arrive. This allows us to simultaneously become solid, clear, and open to change by using Chaos and Order interactively, based on what is needed in the situation to best facilitate growth. For example, we might decide to create a plan (which reflects a desire for Order), while realizing that we can take advantage of certain opportunities that come up (which reflects Chaos), without worrying about how the plan or lack thereof will affect us.
Pioneers transmute Excitement into Aliveness. As Pioneers, we seek to embody ourselves as fully creative individuals able to meet others where they are. Our curiosity and desire to understand how the world works makes us patient and guides us in aligning our interactions with others. We do not force things nor do we run away from them. We allow them to occur, recognizing that they will do so at the right pace if our personality fears and desires stay out of the way. Because we love ourselves, we can relax into our bodies, our feelings, and our thoughts without being attached to how others respond and react to them. When we recognize that others need to take responsibility for their own growth process, we are able to avoid falling into caretaking behavior.
When others approach us using intensity, we transform it into wisdom by recognizing the intent of what they’re saying and how it can contribute to our common lessons. While we have the capacity to deal with opposition, we neither encourage nor revel in it as a way to create false boundaries. Instead, we seek to bring things back to a common foundation where we can be seen in ways that honor one another. Because we are conscious in our growth process, we are able to share with our partners both our inner perspective and our outer focus, with a minimum of difficulty. When our partners are able to do the same, it creates infinitely greater possibility for alignment allowing us to trust our in the moment experience so we read the situation and see the balance between what is needed on both a masculine and a feminine level. This encourages our response to fit the circumstances so whatever we seek to accomplish can be done with greater ease.
As Pioneers, we are adventurous risk takers who want to learn as much as possible about our environment and the people in it. We do not fear making mistakes, abandonment or rejection. Rather, we use every interaction to further understand and appreciate the perfection of how things turn out. Instead of viewing a relationship breakup as a setback, we see the silver lining that is all the lessons we learned informing us in choosing a more compatible partner. As Pioneers, we have consciously learned the lessons of our past so we do not need to repeat them. What makes us so open and spontaneous is that we neither define ourselves in terms of our past nor fear re-creating it. Our natural passion, playfulness, and inspiration keeps us focused on what is working for us in our growth process. Our ability to tell our truth in harmless ways allows others to reveal themselves without fear of judgment.
As Pioneers, we own and freely express our core values. We do not need others to validate or agree with them to know who we are. We recognize that each relationship brings forth different aspects. We further recognize that we need not express all aspects of ourselves in all of our relationships. This allows us to operate in a more decentralized way. Where we meet one another then becomes the basis from which we determine how to co-create. This requires that we accept our creative nature enough to both see and honor the differences and similarities we share with each of the people in our lives. When we do this, we further reinforce our own inner knowing in a way that not only serves our partners but our own growth process as well. Others feel a sense of grace when they are around us. This is a reflection of our ability to be intimate, even in adverse situations. The most noticeable characteristics others see in us are:
- Closeness and Availability— We respond to the needs of the situation and the lessons and awareness of the individuals while determining how best to serve the circumstances. Over time, Pioneers develop the ability to recognize our own glamour and illusions and then apply this knowledge to threading the eye of the needle when it comes to our personal romantic relationships.
- Interdependent— We know where the appropriate boundaries are on all levels. Pioneers operate from a clear inner compass that others may not understand. We are able to balance and re-distribute energy within a group to allow it to serve its purpose. We support others in balancing their masculine and feminine by accentuating the issues and showing how they can find their own inner balance.
- Comfortable with Differences and Similarities— Pioneers are at ease around all types of individuals. We are able to honor and support, with completely intuitive precision, the issues going on with any person or group.
The best illustration that we have become Pioneers is our flexibility in bringing out the best in others around us. People around us naturally feel that they are seen, valued, and accepted as who they are, where they are. While this may appear from the outside to be a form of adaptation to others, in truth, if we are grounded in our being then it allows us to deepen our own Self-appreciation while reflecting others. From this we can begin to appreciate how every relationship that shows up teaches us more about ourselves, reinforcing our common humanity. Finally, as Pioneers, we end up completing and transcending many of our personal fears and desires, allowing us to focus our energies on our interactions with others. We become a unifying energy that increasingly holds the transpersonal view so others can see their deeper truths. Sometimes, this process does not seem to be serving us as much as it is serving others. The key is to recognize that we always attract more conscious partners as we own and embody our full creative nature.
The benefits of Pioneering individuals choosing other Pioneers is that neither looks to the other to fulfill their fantasies. Instead, our flexibility and joy for learning together leads to pursuing new and mutual directions that neither of us can anticipate. Pioneering couples leave the past behind to find their creative power in the present. Whatever we need to do to climb the next mountain we do together, realizing that mistakes along the way make learning more interesting. We see the perfection in everything we do, and believe there is a valuable lesson in every situation. Usually Pioneers have considerable experience in unequal relationships and have seen the light about the distortions and bias caused by defenses. Pioneers therefore are committed to choosing partners and friends consciously based on an appreciation of compatibility factors and defensive styles. This means that Pioneers do not let instinctive attractions or the lure of Maya, Glamour or Illusion get in the way of seeing the inner truth about the situation.
Pioneers are “conscious insiders,” who have typically made many mistakes, but have learned from them. We recognize unconscious and instinctive fears and desires and have learned how to neutralize them. Pioneers typically have experience with all defensive styles and can predict their natural unconscious behavior. We seek out relationships that do not play defensive/reactive games, increasing the intensity of interactions, and instead know how to find quiet, intimate, easy-going partners who love themselves.
Pioneering Affirmation style individuals are fluid, strong (by honoring weakness), paradoxical, non-reactive and available on all levels. We use both chaos and order simultaneously to meet others where ever they are. We are creative, flexible and self-defined and do not seek others forour comfort. In short, we look for relationships that are fun, playful and joyous. Since we know that individuals living outside of defensive relationships are living life fully, we search uniquely creative individuals that have defined themselves on their own terms, and are totally unpredictable. Pioneers, like their friends, do not feel the need to prove themselves or make others wrong for their defensive behavior patterns or perceptions. We can also be identified by our ability to see underlying intuitive patterns in everything. These patterns both amuse and inform us about the tide of human endeavor and allow us to quietly place ourselves where we will do the most good.
EXAMPLES
Oprah Winfrey – actress, TV talk show host
Dolly Parton – singer
Mary Tyler Moore – actress
Teri Cole Whitaker – New Age preacher
Marianne Williamson – author
Denzel Washington – actor
Confucius – Chinese philosopher
Aristotle – Greek philosopher, logician & scientist
Lech Walenza – Solidarity Union leader
George Fox – Founder of Quakerism
Sir Francis Bacon – English philosopher, scientist, statesman
Abraham Lincoln – 16th President of the United States
Woodrow Wilson – Founder of the League of Nations, predecessor to the United Nations
Ken Wilbur – Author, lecturer on transpersonal issues
Mark Twain – American writer
Mohandas Gandhi – Indian political revolutionary
Annie Besant – founder & president of Theosophical Society, past President of India’s congress
Plato –Greek philosopher
Nelson Mandela – President of South Africa
Dalai Lama
Patanjali – Indian sage creator of Raja yoga
Socrates - Greek philosopher & teacher of Plato
Mother Teresa – Founded Mothers of Charity
Defensive Facades
If one of our parents was repulsed by our Defense Style, and we needed to present ourselves in a different way to be seen by them, we developed a defensive Façade on top of our defense. We can have any combination of Defense and Façade. Society’s expectations also play a role in facades, so we describe them separately for men and women.
If You Have A Distant Façade (Male)
A Distant Façade is a form of Pretense where you create another defensive layer so you can pretend to be someone who others will accept more easily. You have learned to automatically distance yourself from others when you feel pressured or others place unfair demands upon you. You pretend to be independent and above the fray so others do not know how much you are affected by their attacks. A Distant Façade Defense style creates another layer of disengagement so you will have more time to respond to that which you wish and can more easily distance yourself from that which you do not wish to create. While you appreciate that you need to know what to do before you do it, you see your own hesitancy in taking action as weakness. Therefore you are sensitive about the judgments of others particularly regarding how quickly you respond to potential problems. Your natural desire is to be disconnected and unable to be hurt by the projections of others so you invest a lot of time convincing others that no matter what they do, you will persevere.
The problem with the Distant Façade is that it reinforces the perception that you do not want to be involved. This inadvertently sends the message that you are indifferent to whether or not others want you around. As a result, many individuals could preclude you from social events, which hurt your feelings. The challenge is letting people know that you want to be involved without appearing to be needy, demanding or difficult. Balancing the need to be close with the need to be distant is what makes the Distant Façade a tough juggling act. Commonly, you get caught up in contradictory impulses where one moment you believe you should call people and let them know you are available and the next moment you find yourself back pedaling and unwilling to discuss what you would like.
A Distant Façade is a great tool to use when your parents are less conscious than you. It allows you to hide your precocious perceptions and appear to accept their Truth and your own. It works particularly well, the more individuals are caught up in gender-based role-playing and need greater reassurance that you will not judge them or make them wrong. The usefulness of a Distant Façade is so your role-playing will blend with the role-playing of others. In this way, there is an unspoken agreement not to bring up anything that could be threatening to the stability of what others believe. The more authentic and conscious you behave, the more it naturally threatens others who are less conscious or aware. Role adaptation is also a natural response when you collapse energetically, have a life threatening illness or are threatened in a way that you cannot effectively defend yourself. In this way, a Distant Façade is an acquiescence approach that allows others to acknowledge their supposed superior status. You do this because there does not seem to be an easy or useful way to change the terms of the relationship. You go along to get along.
Over time, you develop inertia about who you are and how you act. It is your self-denial of who you are creatively, which creates an anchor that effectively makes it more difficult to deal with new possibilities of change. This sense of profound isolation can be further accentuated by the degree you had parents who ignored you or were unwilling to actively support you. This creates a disconnect as you believe there must be something wrong with you because you are unwanted. Instead of confronting this defensive belief, you seek to distance yourself by either being constantly busy or becoming seriously depressed and unwilling to do much of anything. While a Distant Façade does provide another layer that keeps you from feeling your pain, eventually, you find yourself disheartened by your circumstances and unwilling to go along with them anymore.
If You Have A Distant Façade (Female)
A Distant Façade is a form of Pretense where you create another defensive layer so you can pretend to be someone who others will accept more easily. You have learned to acquiesce to others and define yourself in terms of them in order to be accepted. It is easy for you to pretend to be dependent and unable to respond in a different way. Initially, this allows you to avoid making any major choices. The real reason you procrastinate in your decision making is to give you time to assess your options and make sure you will be able to get what you want with the changes that are occurring. A Distant Façade Defense style creates another layer of disengagement so you will have more time to respond to that which you wish and can more easily distance yourself from that which you do not wish to create. While you appreciate that you need to know what to do before you do it, you see your own hesitancy in taking action as weakness. Therefore you are sensitive about the judgments of others particularly regarding how quickly you respond to potential problems. Your natural desire is to be disconnected and unable to be hurt by the projections of others so you invest a lot of time convincing others that no matter what they do, you will persevere.
The problem with the Distant Façade is that it reinforces the perception that you do not want to be involved. This inadvertently sends the message that you are indifferent to whether or not others want you around. As a result, many individuals could preclude you from social events which hurts your feelings. Underneath everything, you desperately want to be seen as a human being. The challenge is letting people know that you want to be involved without appearing to be needy, demanding or difficult. Balancing the need to be close with the need to be distant is what makes the Distant Façade a tough juggling act. Commonly, you get caught up in contradictory impulses where one moment you believe you should call people and let them know you are available and the next moment you find yourself back pedaling and unwilling to discuss what you would like.
A Distant Façade is a great tool to use when your parents are less conscious than you. It allows you to hide your precocious perceptions and appear to accept their Truth along with your own. It works particularly well the more individuals are caught up in gender-based role-playing and need greater reassurance that you will not judge them or make them wrong. The usefulness of a Distant Façade is that your role-playing will blend with the role-playing of others. In this way, there is an unspoken agreement not to bring up anything that could be threatening to the stability of what others believe. The more you show up as authentic and conscious, the more it naturally threatens others who are less conscious or aware. Role adaptation is also a natural response when you collapse energetically, have a life threatening illness or are threatened in a way that you cannot effectively defend yourself. In this way, Distant Façade is an acquiescence approach that allows others to acknowledge their supposed superior status. You do this because there does not seem to be an easy of useful way to change the terms of the relationship. You go along to get along.
Over time, you develop inertia about who you are and how you act. It is your self-denial of who you creatively are, which creates an anchor that effectively makes it more difficult to deal with new possibilities of change. This sense of profound isolation can be further accentuated by the degree you had parents who ignored you or were unwilling to actively support you. This creates a disconnect as you believe there must be something wrong with you because you are unwanted. Instead of confronting this defensive belief, you seek to distance yourself by either being constantly busy or becoming seriously depressed and unwilling to do much of anything. While a Distant Façade does provide another layer that keeps you from feeling your pain, eventually, you find yourself disheartened by your circumstances and unwilling to go along with them anymore.
If You Have A Dynamic Façade (Male)
When you have a Dynamic Façade, it indicates that you do not have a Dynamic Defense Style but that you cover up it by acting overtly masculine. This usually means that you were wounded by your father or both your mother and father and believe the only safe way to get attention is to achieve an alpha male status. This also means you received a message that appearing weak could lead to disaster. Therefore you tend to over emphasize your commitment to activities and under emphasize your sensitivity to getting along with others. The more you seem demanding and determined to get what you need, the more you fit into a Dynamic Façade. It is important to distinguish this façade by the constant effort needed to dominate others around you, which is different from a Dynamic Defense Style where you merely need to succeed. With the Dynamic Façade, the emphasis is on appearing to be in charge and making sure everyone else knows they are a failure relative to you.
The inherent contradiction is that underneath you want to be a “good guy”. You may not even be comfortable with getting attention or believe yourself able to accomplish the goals you set for yourself. One of the ironies is that you may have to act more coarse and unconscious in order to convince others that you mean what you say. This inner conflict between authentic and inauthentic power creates tremendous Intensity. You falsely believe that you need to demonstrate a commitment to living your Truth, even if it is not internally congruent with where you want to go. The more you operate from a Dynamic Façade, the easier it is for you to go through the motions of making others accept your hyper-vigilant masculinity, even if the way you are invoking it is not authentic. Commonly, you express yourself in more determined, forceful, or preset ways that push the envelope in a way that reveals differences with others. You have found that provoking the concerns of others keeps them from examining your Truth or the lack of it.
Putting pressure on others accomplishes your primary goal of demonstrating your assertiveness. The more you can follow up in a structured manner and the timelines that you feel are important to manifest, the easier it is for others to believe the masculine projection of who you are. Acting in control is also a necessary ingredient in selling a Dynamic Façade to others.
It is important to remember that a Dynamic Façade places another layer on top of your defenses where you are protecting yourself against others judging you as inadequate. In order to avoid being seen as inadequate, you constantly stir the pot and act as though you are indifferent to others so you are not seen as being feminine. It is ironic that you falsely believe that you have to act masculine to get accepted when you could actually be masculine and not care what others think. It is a testament to your internal fragmentation that you have conflicted goals and aspirations that end up compromising what you wish to express rather than fulfilling them. Healing your Dynamic Façade means confronting the fear that someone else’s judgment of you will be more compelling than your own self-knowing.
If You Have A Dynamic Façade (Female)
When you have a Dynamic Façade, it indicates that you do not have a Dynamic Defense Style but that you cover up it by overtly acting masculine. The source of a Dynamic Façade is primarily the drive to take care of yourself and not be taken advantage of by others. This usually means that you were wounded by your mother or both your father and mother and believe the only safe way to get attention is to prove you can do everything on your own. Therefore you tend to over emphasize your planning, control, and fixation on making sure that things go as intended. While you may not appreciate the abrasiveness necessary to convince others to respond to you in a pre-eminent way, you cannot fault the necessity for it. Usually you doubt your clarity, focus and/or direction but cannot admit it to others without their suffering a loss of confidence in you. This encourages you to come up with plans that cannot be questioned where you are able to predominantly establish your commitment to a course of action. Otherwise, you will get caught up in trying to convince others about your ideas, which will dramatically minimize the results. The more you seem demanding and determined to get what you need, the more you fit into a Dynamic Façade. It is important to distinguish this façade by the constant effort needed to dominate others around you, which is different from a Dynamic Defense Style where you merely need to succeed.
The inherent contradiction is that underneath you want to be a “nice person”. You may not even be comfortable with getting attention or believe yourself able to accomplish the goals you set for yourself. One of the ironies is that you may have to act more belligerent and overly assertive in order to convince others that you mean what you say. This inner conflict between authentic and inauthentic power creates tremendous Intensity. You falsely believe that you need to demonstrate a commitment to living your Truth, even if it is not internally congruent with where you want to go. You have found that provoking the concerns of others keeps them from examining your Truth or the lack of it. Putting pressure on others accomplishes your primary goal of demonstrating your assertiveness. The more you can follow up in a structured manner, the timelines that you feel are important to manifest, the easier it is for others to believe the masculine projection of who you are. Acting in control is also a necessary ingredient in selling a Dynamic Façade to others.
It is important to remember that a Dynamic Façade places another layer on top of your defenses where you are protecting yourself against others judging you as inconsequential. One of your greatest fears is that you will never be appreciated or seen for the power you possess. In order to be seen, you constantly stir the pot just to keep a certain tension occurring so that you can prove you do not acquiesce to others. It is ironic that you falsely believe that you have to act masculine because the inner strength of your feminine could be a more supportive and transformative path. It is a testament to your internal fragmentation that you have conflicted goals and aspirations that end up compromising what you wish to express rather than fulfilling them. Healing your Dynamic Façade means confronting the fear that someone else’s judgment of you will be more compelling than your own self-knowing.
If You Have A Disarming Façade (Male)
When you have a Disarming Façade, it indicates that you think you need to be softer and more personable to get what you need from others. Usually it is a result of being rejected as being ,,too uncouth, animalistic, impolite or belligerent. This indicates that you were wounded by your father or both your mother and father and believe the only safe way to get attention is to learn to meet others in a way that builds quality relationships. A part of this process is learning how to listen and adapt to others rather than act assertively in a way that upsets the sensibilities of others around you. Being overtly powerful could lead to disaster because people could refuse to cooperate with you. Therefore you tend to over emphasize your desire to meet others and under emphasize your task management desire to get something done. The more you seem easygoing, adaptive, and responsive to others, the more likely you are operating with a Disarming Façade. It is important to distinguish this façade by the constant effort needed to prove “you are the guy who can bring together people and make things happen interpersonally”. With the Disarming Façade, the emphasis is on finding a way to bring harmony into a situation so that you can be a great interpersonal facilitator.
The inherent contradiction is that underneath you want to point out all others’ inconsistencies in their Truth and demand that they be accountable. You may not even have great skill in listening to or being present with others, yet this façade forces you to pay attention to what is going on with others around you. One of the ironies is that you may have to act more available, refined, and open to prove you are actually a caring person. This inner conflict between authentic and inauthentic love of others creates Resistance. You come to recognize that you cannot force yourself to behave in a “good way’ without tremendous resentment. This internal Resistance shows up as a fundamental compromise in your Autonomy where the more you try to be there for others, the more you naturally sabotage your self-interest. This pattern is amplified, when you have had parents who tried to convince you to be more like them. Even if you were more like them, you learn the value of following your own path. You falsely believe that you need to demonstrate a commitment to living your Truth, even if it is not internally congruent with where you want to go.
The more you operate from a Disarming Façade, the easier it is for you to go through the motions of being genteel and nice, even if you feel anger underneath. Commonly, you express yourself by being forgiving, easygoing, and accepting. Learning to slow things down and examine what must be true for others places a self-discipline on any situation which keeps you from falling into unconscious patterns. Not putting pressure on others demonstrates your compassion and ability to be forgiving in all situations. The more you can create space for yourself and other people, the more you come to appreciate how differences do not have to compromise the relationship. Acting in a way that honors your space and the space of others simultaneously, brings about a more inclusive perspective about what it takes to be in more conscious relationships. Otherwise, you find yourself trapped in unsatisfying interactions that never seem to get anywhere. A Disarming Façade gradually builds up a reservoir of frustration, which eventually explodes into emotional dumping through the sharing of grief or the projection of anger.
It is important to remember that a Disarming Façade places another layer on top of your defenses where you are protecting yourself against others judging you as difficult, demanding, or unlovable. In order to avoid being seen as a challenging acquired taste, you constantly second guess yourself and attempt to reassure others that your intentions are theirs. It is ironic that you falsely believe that you have to act feminine to get accepted when you could actually be integrated and responsive without any type of false humility. It is a testament to your internal fragmentation that you have conflicted goals and aspirations that end up compromising what you wish to express rather than fulfilling them. Healing your Disarming Façade means confronting the fear that others will reject or abandon you if you reveal your natural Aliveness. The opportunity is to step into a harmless way of communicating your experience without losing the natural masculinity and assertiveness that makes you who you are.
If You Have A Disarming Façade (Female)
When you have a Disarming Façade, it indicates that you think you need to be softer and more personable to get what you need from others. Usually it is a result of being rejected as too unrefined in your social skills. This indicates that you were wounded by your mother or both your father and mother and believe the only safe way to get attention is to learn to meet others in a way that builds quality connections. A part of this process is learning how to listen and adapt to others rather than act assertively in a way that upsets the sensibilities of others around you. Being overtly powerful could lead to disaster because people could refuse to cooperate with you. Therefore you tend to over emphasize your desire to meet others and under emphasize your task management desire to get something done. The more you seem easygoing, adaptive and responsive to others, the more likely you are operating with a Disarming Façade. It is important to distinguish this façade by the constant effort needed to prove “you are the person who can bring together people and make things happen”. With the Disarming Façade, the emphasis is on finding a way to bring harmony into a situation so that you can be a great interpersonal facilitator.
The inherent contradiction is that underneath you want to point out all others’ inconsistencies in their Truth and demand that they be accountable. You may not even have great skill in listening to or being present with others, yet this façade forces you to pay attention to what is going on with others around you. One of the ironies is that you may have to act more available, connected, and open to prove you are actually a caring person. This inner conflict between authentic and inauthentic love of others creates Resistance. You come to recognize that you cannot force yourself to behave in a “good way’ without tremendous resentment. This internal Resistance shows up as a fundamental compromise in your autonomy where the more you try to be there for others, the more you naturally sabotage your self-interest. This pattern is amplified, when you have had parents who tried to convince you to be more like them. Even if you were more like them, you learn the value of following your own path. You falsely believe that you need to demonstrate a commitment to living your Truth, even if it is not internally congruent with where you want to go.
The more you operate from a Disarming Façade, the easier it is for you to go through the motions of being genteel and nice, even if you feel anger underneath. Commonly, you express yourself by being forgiving, easygoing, and accepting. Learning to slow things down and examine what must be True for others places a self-discipline on any situation which keeps you from falling into unconscious patterns. Not putting pressure on others demonstrates your compassion and ability to be forgiving in all situations. The more you can create space for yourself and other people, the more you come to appreciate how differences do not have to compromise the relationship. Acting in a way that honors your space and the space of others simultaneously, brings about a more inclusive perspective about what it takes to be in more conscious relationships. Otherwise, you find yourself trapped in unsatisfying interactions that never seem to get anywhere. A Disarming Façade gradually builds up a reservoir of frustration, which eventually explodes into emotional dumping through the sharing of grief or the projection of anger.
It is important to remember that a Disarming Façade places another layer on top of your defenses where you are protecting yourself against others judging you as difficult, demanding or unlovable. In order to avoid being seen as a challenging acquired taste, you constantly second guess yourself and attempt to reassure others that your intentions are theirs. It is ironic that you falsely believe that you have to act feminine to get accepted when you could actually be integrated and responsive without any type of false humility. It is a testament to your internal fragmentation that you have conflicted goals and aspirations that end up compromising what you wish to express rather than fulfilling them. Healing your Disarming Façade means confronting the fear that others will reject or abandon you if you reveal your natural Aliveness. The opportunity is to step into a harmless way of communicating your experience without losing the natural balance between masculine and feminine energy.
If You Have A Disnamic Façade
When you have a Disnamic facade, you learned at a very early age from the example of our parents that we needed to hide ourselves and establish our strength relative to others by opposing them. The only strength that you saw emphasized was being different as a way to distinguish yourself from others. Usually in this situation, one of your parents was more Dynamic and the other was more Disarming. They taught you, by example, that the only way to survive is to make sure that their partner did not take advantage of them or become complacent in accepting them was to oppose them. The way to prevent these issues from occurring was to create a superficial structure that made sure that others had to engage them by exploring differences and working out a negotiated settlement for how to work together. Ironically, underneath the Disnamic facade, you are either naturally Dynamic or Disarming, which, if you showed our parents either one of them, would cause them to think you were weak. This facade indicates that you were sensitive to getting the approval of both parents (usually because there was greater turbulence and/or uncertainty in the family dynamic).
As you begin to heal your Disnamic facade, you are able to appreciate that you do not have to be different to gain others’ respect. Instead of amping up your differences (with others), you learn to settle into your natural defensive way of being and own your defense style as it really is. While this is another layer to heal, it is worthwhile to engage this process because it reduces internal confusion and fear (that if you are not opposing others then they will not value you). As you ground yourself in your natural defensive style, other people may be initially surprised but will come to accept you more. This happens because, from their perspective, you are not switching back and forth to meet others in an automatically opposing way any more. While you may think that you are consistent because you have opposed everyone equally, this creates uncertainty in people who are not Disnamic and do not have a Disnamic facade. Other defense styles cannot predict which way you will jump in any situation. Many individuals locked into defensive structures and personality perspectives are challenged when they cannot predict your response in advance. What you need to do to fully heal yourself of this facade is to ask the question, “How do I really want to engage this person?” You need to equally consider whether agreeing with them (and moving in the same direction as they are) is as valuable a response as the opposing them. When this healing occurs, not only will you be more congruent with your internal truth, but other people will naturally trust you more.
Validating Our Defense Style
Which of the following are we the most sensitive to?: Guilt (where someone tries to manipulate us to do what they want –Distant Defense), Blame (where we are made wrong so that we feel inadequate –Disarming Defense), or Shame (where someone interrupts us to make us look bad in front of others –Dynamic Defense)?
- How do we approach creativity: Conditionally (based on how the other person engages and how receptive they are to what is suggested —Distant Defense), Interactively (by focusing on the other person to create new possibilities based on our interaction –Disarming Defense), or Self-Generating (by focusing on our own experience and relying on our internal sense of organization to bring clarity to others –Dynamic Defense)?
- When we are attracted or interested in someone, how do we let them know? Are we: Indecisive (making them indicate some interest before we respond to them –Distant Defense), Assertive (do we make some kind of gesture that’s obvious to them – Dynamic Defense), or Passive (do we let them figure it out, making our interest very subtle and easy to be misinterpreted in case they are offended—Disarming Defense)?
- When we are upset, how do we demonstrate our anger? Do we Ignore or Deny our feelings (not letting others get the best of us—Distant Defense), or do we become Combative or Confrontational (letting others clearly know weare offended—Dynamic Defense), or do we put a temporary Space Between our self and others (trying to figure out what we could have done differently—Disarming Defense)?
- What do others most notice about us? Do we keep our agreements and are reliable and consistent (Distant Defense), are we direct, masterful, active, alive and a risk-taker (Dynamic Defense), are we open, easy-going, mysterious, wise and able to attract what we want (Disarming Defense style)?
- In our communications, are we: Perfectionist (wanting to make sure we say things with just the right emotional tone and caring—Distant Defense), Precise (up-front and clear, with strong intellectual focus—Dynamic Defense), or Self-deprecating (fluid, wanting to make sure others know their importance—Disarming Defense)? Or fluid and accepting (Pioneering).
- When meeting others for the first time, do we find more often than not, that we are: Emotionally Distant (Dynamic Defense), Physically Distant (Disarming Defense), or both Emotionally and Physically Distant (Distant Defense)?
- Do we feel more capable on: Mental and Emotional Levels (Distant defense), Physical and Mental levels (Dynamic Defense), or Emotional and Intuitive levels (Disarming Defense)? Are we open both physically and emotionally, revealing a balance of Aliveness and Wisdom (Pioneering)
- When others observe our energy: are we denying both physical and emotional styles seeming constrained, rigid, with a sense of Inertia? (Distant); are we emotionally available, soft, easy-going but not fully grounded? (Disarming); are we physically available, clear, precise, grounded, but without a sense of higher connectedness? (Dynamic); are we both physically and emotionally available, demonstrating a balance between being grounded and the capacity for higher unrestricted expression? (Pioneering)
- When asked to make a commitment, what is our natural response: We try to delay a decision until we’ve had time to consider all the options? (Distant); we say yes conditionally, hoping that it will all work out? (Disarming); we attempt to pin down and define every contingency in advance? If we can’t, do we refuse to commit to the task? (Dynamic); we seek to clarify the different expectations of people and to provide a group framework for appropriate action? (Pioneering)
HOW TO BE PIONEERING
When we are Creative Pioneers we accept both the masculine and feminine nature within us, fully seeing that either way can be effective in many of our endeavors. Optimally, it is best to use both our masculine and feminine energies in order to produce a synergistic effect, which supports us in being more present and aware. Pioneers operate from the following basic premises:
1. Pioneers do not accept that they need to be compromised in any way. They know that there is always a Creative solution to every problem. They also realize that Intensity and personal Desire repulses wisdom minimizing Creativity.
2. Pioneers do not fear that anyone can compromise them in any way. They understand that Fear and Excitement attracts compromises, decreasing Aliveness, and Creativity.
3. Pioneers use mutual respect and esteem to neutralize imbalances caused by our partner’s Attachment to their false identity. This arises from completely accepting themselves as they are, recognizing their own self-esteem and self-respect.
4. Pioneers choose to operate with less defensive people as much as possible because it effectively supports their larger Creative Expression. One of the largest benefits is that they don’t need to explain themselves as much to people who are less defensive. In other words, the more defensive people are, the more caught up others are in the Pioneer’s lack of defenses.
5. Pioneers expand their Autonomy skills by allowing themselves to heal and let go of the compromises of their past. They create a new level of Being which is present and not attached to the past.
6. Pioneers increase their Intimacy skills because it supports them in being connected in a way that is spiritually and socially uplifting. They realize that sharing and cooperating are ways of being that produce synergy.
7. Pioneers, by accepting their true inner nature (not looking to others to provide that for them), allows them, paradoxically, the ability to let the Universe indicate to them what to do next. Ironically, this allows Pioneers to go full cycle of letting go of outer appearances and Attachments, to honor their Internal Knowing so that they can be open to seeing the spirit move in the world and thus facilitate their alignment.
Finally, you will see the results of defensive healing when you realize that you have been in a Creative Flow where you trusted the process and allowed your Creativity to come out. In other words, the complaints, concerns, and fears of your personality were quieted, allowing you to fully experience your Creativity. This awe-inspiring event can be a daily occurrence if you were only to adjust yourself to not being defensive.
One way this occurs is by letting go of your Belief system. Instead of using Beliefs to keep you from examining your Truth in the moment, you can begin to realize that you now have the consciousness to create and know your Truth in each moment by your ability to be in the moment.
You could seek out clear, non-defensive individuals to help you see the effects of your growth. Unfortunately, it is easier to project your stuff onto non-defensive individuals and actually believe it is their stuff. This is because truly non-defensive individuals don’t care what you think. The ironic thing is that the more you believe a person who is not being defensive is defensive, the more you are projecting your issues and judgments on them.
It has also been my experience that many people who do not buy into the possibility of a non-defensive reality do not understand how you could not be a part of their process. Instead, they believe and insist that you are reacting to the situation, when in fact you experience no reaction at all. They experience your "illusiveness" as defensiveness, or at best, being smarter than they are. Of course, this is all their Projection. We know this process as “not taking a Position”.
What this means is that you could more effectively grow if you were to assume that your defensive issues are entirely your own. To do so indicates great confidence in your ability to own the entire process so that defensive Projections can be resolved and are a thing of the past. Owning the entire process means that you know how people operate defensively; you know, most likely, what their projections will be; you sometimes say things that could appear to be defensive as a way to minimize the time they are in their defensive identity; but you always keep the opportunity open that they are going to operate non-defensively, and pray for this.
The burden of the people without defensive identities is that everyone with a defensive identity has to make them wrong and different in order to maintain their own sense of safety and security. I recommend that you don’t take these attacks seriously or personally and accept that they are attacking you because they don’t know better. Instead I suggest that, while we do operate in the world fully, we also see ourselves living beyond it on a spiritual level. It is our spiritual anchor that keeps us stable and growing despite the sabotage of others who do not understand us.
It is time now to accept that you know all that you need to in order to do your defensive healing and in fact, many of you have been practicing being Pioneers for some time and can now be encouraged by the perspective you have about Defenses. What has been revealed is not only how to operate non-defensively but how to accept and understand others when they are defensive. Underlying our defensive identity are our Autonomy and Intimacy needs, which were not being met. When we take responsibility for creating Autonomy and Intimacy in our lives, our defensiveness will be a thing of the past and the outcome will likely be that we will be happy with ourselves and where we are going.
For it is only our Defenses that were locking us into ways of operating that kept us from being happy. Now that we know that our happiness is in our own hands, then the incentive to try to prove ourselves at the cost of others is lost allowing ourselves to grow and be with others in ways that are Creative and uplifting. It is time now to be Pioneers and by doing so be examples in a world that needs new ways to operate.
HEALING OUR DEFENSES
Distant Defense Style individuals can best heal by addressing the following:
- We need to stimulate our inner energetic connection with our Self so we are free to fully be our Self with others. The first step is to minimize our negative, critical self-dialogue. Instead, we need to build a positive inner framework for affirming and re-interpreting (from the glass is half empty to it is half full) our creative process. We also need to eliminate whatever beliefs limit our creative re-birth. This means in situations where we feel driven to make things perfect, we need to let go of this image and find ways to see the perfection in what actually is in front of us. This will increase and build a sense of connection that will lead us to discover how much we are wanted.
- We need to stop personally engaging guilt as a Creative Self-denial process. The more we need to justify our existence by caretaking and providing support to others, the more we will be caught in activities that do not honor or support us. When we use guilt to get our Self to do things we do not want to, it is easy to use guilt to get others to do what we want. If we do this, we will be more likely to take on their guilt when they want something in return. In short, using guilt opens us up to being guilty about others.
- We need to stir up our lives and increase our willingness to engage change so we do not fall into pre-established expectations that limit our spontaneity. In other words, we need to use the fire of Transmutation to burn through our entranced, conditioned behavioral patterns. Inertia is the primary obstacle to shifting out of defensive interactions. Recognizing and healing our unconscious reaction patterns demonstrates that we are not these patterns and can change and evolve. This will allow us to playfully engage new opportunities without getting caught up in performing.
- It would be useful to investigate our thoughts and emotions on a deeper level in a way that allows us to see how they do not always need to calibrate to one another. As Distant defense style individuals one of our core protection patterns is to constantly shift between thoughts and emotional perspectives, to create a less reactive interpretation of what is occurring. When we see how our thoughts and emotions are just two out of five frameworks (physical, feeling, emotional, intellectual, and intuitive) it reduces our need to explain everything in terms of these two. The result is we are less reactive. This allows us to be more open and responsive to others in the moment. Currently, we may be scared by divergent emotions and seemingly contradictory thoughts and end up disappearing in the confusion.
- It is time to question and challenge our perceived Safety Fears and Security Desires that were instilled in us as children and may no longer serve us. While many of these old patterns were useful to us as a child, as adults they keep us from being present with our Self and our outer circumstances. We can start by challenging our fears in areas where there is little to no consequence, moving on to larger issues, such as our fear of death. We want to release the energy trapped in these patterns (which is causing use to become rigid) so we can regain our fluidity and be spontaneous.
- We can investigate how we create a superficial sense of harmony between us as people by avoiding conflicts and reactions. By addressing our internal conflicts and reactions, we discover that we have nothing to fear about them. We also can at the same time, release our frustrated desires about how others should love us. The more we can see that our Personality Fears and Desires are past conclusions we do not need to act out in the present, the less relationship baggage we need to bear. We also need to examine whether our roles are actually keeping us from building a creative flow and expression with others. If possible, we should try changing our roles, experimenting with how creative and flexible we can become.
- With the help of a partner we trust, we can explore how we can simultaneously feel emotionally connected and physically affectionate. The key is to “unthaw” the frozen energy caught up in past patterns. We can also try to slow down the process in order to notice how we ebb and flow between these our emotions and sensations. We may need to share our reactions and patterns as they arise for some period until we can be completely present with our Self. This will be a great healing process as long as we do not judge our self (or own up to it as it is occurring) or our partner. This should allow us to learn how to relax and be present with our partner as well as our Self.
Dynamic Defense Style individuals can best heal by addressing the following issues:
- We need to stimulate our inner feminine connection to our Self, realizing we want to relate to our Self in a more fulfilling way. This will empower us to see the many different spatial dimensions energetically arising between people. Through this we learn to maintain an inner space that cannot be invaded, compromised, or taken away by others.
- We need to stop shaming our Creative Self as a way of making us appear unworthy of love. Otherwise, we continually have to prove our lovability. When we recognize that we focus on our personality self to keep from being distracted by others, we start to understand that our fear of being with others is self-generated. If we are able to stop shaming ourselves, we will not need to shame or blame others in order to protect our inner space.
- We need to soften and slow down our interactions with others so we are able to better appreciate the perfection of how things turn out. This means taking time to nurture our Self and lessen our need to use time to manage our activities and our interactions with others. This will greatly assist us in our intimacy challenges. Taking our Self off a fixed production schedule teaches us to enjoy the Mystery of what will occur rather than trying to force it to be what we want it to be.
- It would be useful to investigate our emotions and feelings to determine how they could communicate with one another more effectively. Remember, feelings reflect changes in our body experience while emotions reflect changes in our intellectual thought patterns. When we can integrate these two reflective intelligences, it greatly deepens our ability to relate intuitively. This will allow us to be more receptive to others on personal, social, and intellectual levels, because we will be more balanced within our Self.
- It is time to question and challenge how we never have things completely handled in terms of our long-term security. Imagine that we are secure within our identity to our Creative Self. Who would we be? The answer is we would be a person without defenses who now finds intimate ways to express our Self without self-sabotage. It is ironic our defenses actually create our perceptions that we are not secure. Let us recognize our true security comes from recognizing how the universe has always supported us to this point, no matter how much we have denied it. Consider how we could enjoy interacting with others even when there is nothing in common. We could discover we do not need a purpose in order to connect with others.
- We can investigate how we do not believe relationships are real when they are not dealing with the logistics and/or perceived tensions in the situation. We tend to want to confront these issues, believing doing so will reduce their effect. Unfortunately, when we are with Disarming defense style individuals the opposite, actually occurs. The true challenge is to create a sense of intimacy which naturally occurs when we are vulnerable and can admit when we do not know what to do. It is important that we do not over-direct others, but rather create a safe space with them so they will not feel criticized or judged. For a while, practice going overboard in the commitment to be intimate as a way to neutralize past imbalances.
- With the help of a partner with whom we feel a sense of Unity, Trust, and Love, we can explore how to listen deeply to our feminine side by demonstrating that we can listen to their feminine side. When we establish this common connection it dramatically reduces our ability to maintain separate positions without falling into any unconscious merging or Co-Dependent behavior. Valuing our inner feminine naturally enables us to be compassionate with others. When we no longer feel impatient or driven to manage the process we will know a shift has occurred within us around our feminine nature. Over time we will gradually become stronger and more balanced between our feminine and masculine expressions.
Disarming Defense Style individuals can best heal by addressing the following issues:
- We need to stimulate our inner masculine connection to our Self, realizing we want to relate to our Self in a clearer, interactive but determined way. This will empower us to see the many different time orientations we have been ignoring. We will learn to ground and express our thoughts and actions more succinctly. Through this we learn to master our ability to organize ourselves to be self-sufficient and self-generating. We then create a sense of mastery that cannot be denied, compromised, or affected by others.
- We need to stop blaming our Creative Self as a way of making us appear intellectually and physically unworthy to be with others. This creates a situation where we lose our Self while trying to take care of others in order to keep them from attacking us. Our focus on others, at the cost of our own well-being, is a protection mechanism that actually attracts attack because we make ourself appear weak. If we are able to stop blaming our Self, we will not need to shame or blame others in order to protect our limited, apparent choices.
- We need to listen to our creative source and move more decisively into action so we are able to better appreciate how capable we are at manifesting our life expression. By assuming a passive position about our “self” and Creative Self expression, we unconsciously communicate we are okay with our current situation. Since we do not take action, others, particularly Dynamic defense style individuals, accept what we are currently doing is our limit. As we are not clearly expressing our inner discontent, for fear of appearing demanding or inappropriate, others discount our creativity because we are discounting it.
- It would be useful to investigate our intellectual doubt and physical passivity to determine how they are related to our creative Self-denial. Healing this breach requires more passion and commitment to go beyond our personality fears. This means creating the inner space necessary to create an effective, productive environment. This way we will not be dependent upon others for our own productive expression. We need to learn to enjoy making commitments we will meet no matter what. Imagine how we can build our Self-Esteem by keeping our word – doing what we say we will do. Consider how a more active outer presentation might increase others’ ability to relate to us and to listen to what we have to contribute.
- It is time to question and challenge how we never have things completely handled in terms of our short-term safety. Imagine that we are able to manifest our safety within our Self. Who would we be? The answer is we would be a person without defenses who now finds productive ways to express our Self without self-sabotage. Our defenses actually create our perceptions that we are not safe. Let us recognize our true safety comes from recognizing how the universe has always supported us to this point, no matter how much we have denied it. Consider setting out on adventures by ourselves where we have nothing to rely on but our own resourcefulness. Who are we? We could discover we do not need someone else to reflect us and make us real.
- We can investigate how we do not believe relationships are real when they ???are not discussing our aspirations, our feeling/desires, and how we would like to get there. We tend to want to ignore the practical side of circumstances, hoping for the best. This is partly because we do not want to interfere with someone else’s way of engaging a process. Unfortunately, when we are with Dynamic defense style individuals, the opposite actually occurs. The true challenge is to create a sense of autonomy and mutual, harmless truth telling. We cannot accomplish this by trying to protect others, but rather by creating a secure structure with others where both of us will not be criticized or judged. For a while, practice going overboard in our commitment to be outrageously direct, as a way to neutralize past withholding.
With the help of a partner with whom we feel a sense of Unity, Trust, and Love, we can explore how to act in alignment with our masculine side by taking action with others in creative projects where we work together. In this situation, we experience Co-Creativity as a team, and we all feel a greater sense of Aliveness. This indicates that we are embodying our masculine side. When we no longer feel limited in our ability to successfully engage projects out of our own perseverance and will, it reflects our masculine is becoming more capable of working with our feminine, producing a sense of balance, wholeness, and grace.
DEALING WITH SIMILAR DEFENSE STYLES
In this process, we naturally avoid potential partners with the same defense style. This is because anyone that could deeply see us would be able to see and call us on our defensive behavior. At the core of this issue is our ability to see ourselves as we are. As long as we are denying our Authentic Nature, we will continue to attract opposite Defense Style individuals into our life because they help us to regain our wholeness. As long as we have imbalances in our perception, we will continue to hold onto what we fear and what we desire at the cost of our own creative wholeness. Recognizing defenses are an important step in regaining our wholeness. Eventually we come to realize these defensive distortions are not real. We made them up as a way to make our Fears and Desires seem more attainable. The more we can balance our perceptions of each level (Sensations, Feelings, Emotions, Thoughts) the less defensive we will be.
It is our under-doing and over-doing or ignoring a particular level that is the source of our defense pattern. When we begin to accept our Creative Nature (and love our Creative Self) it shifts our ability to attract and be with individuals like us. The basic sequence of energies we deal with are Life, Light, and Love. Each defense compromises a particular energy. Distant Defense Style individuals compromise life by over-fixating on intentions. Dynamic Defense Style individuals compromise Light by over-fixating on thinking. Disarming Defense Style individuals compromise Love by over-fixating on their emotional reality. It is ironic and paradoxical that what we most want and seek is what we compromise by being defensive. We engage Life by confronting fears; we balance desires to find our inner Light, and our Authentic Creativity leads to Self Love. This shows up on both the levels of development and the type of defense.
If we are Distant Defense Style individuals, it is good to be able to see our Life energy and inherent Beauty by being with people who are also Distant. This is not new to us because Distant Defense Style individuals with a nurturer focus, even if they do not love themselves, will be attracted to those with a provider focus, and vice versa. This means that to really shift our energy, we need to not only be with Distant Defense Style individuals, but be with those Distant Defense Style individuals that are the same role (either nurturer or provider.) The core benefit is to accept the natural capabilities we have within us. The more we step into this possibility, the less we are concerned whether others want us. We become a source of our own wellbeing because we are not longer seeking others out to care for us. Instead, it becomes an opportunity to choose partners based on expanding our sense of self. We would suggest that this shifts because we want to be with ourselves. This Life energy shifting occurs because we have come to love ourselves. Being with nurturers means we come to accept our inherent goodness and the desire to connect with others. Being with a provider, means we have come to accept that we are able to transcend our fear by contributing in a way that transcends the need to take care of another. If we are making a transition out of a Distant Defense Style, it is important that we find partners that are making the same transition. What we don’t usually recognize is that this creates greater synergy and automatically helps to balance both of us in the larger picture.
If we are a Dynamic Defense Style individual, it is good to be with another Dynamic Defense Style individual so that the defense style cannot get in the way of our Creativity. Since both of us have clear perspectives about where we are, and we are similarly motivated to create our security through planning, it is good to engage this energy together with someone else. Instead of seeking out a co-dependent partner where we become unable to grow, being with someone similar to us actually requires us to question our assumptions about what is productive because we need to take care of the relationship side of this issue as well. What happens is that we begin to shift out of the need for security because we are seen and accepted the way we are and where we are. When two Dynamic Defense Style individuals get together, they mutually create better relationship dynamics, which helps to introduce more feminine energy. In effect, over time, they become Pioneers. This of course is the path to greater harmony and natural responsiveness to the needs of others. This last statement reflects just how great a shift in perspective there can be.
When we are Disarming and engage other Disarming Defense Style individuals, our immediate safety is continually reinforced and deepened. This permits us to experience our natural power and recognize how much we have been holding back by not engaging the possibilities in front of us. As we become clearer about our power together, we start to see how physical and intellectual alignment can actually complement our natural passion. This focuses us and clarifies how we can become more productive with each other. As a result we shift into a more balanced way of being with each other where productivity becomes a given. By moving into the masculine side more powerfully, we counter-balance our feminine perspective so we become more Pioneering. Our natural trust is supported by a greater sense of mutual Aliveness. This also enhances our ability to deal with Content together and embrace details previously unimagined.
In conclusion, what we are seeking to do is to balance ourselves and be present to our Sensations, Feelings, Emotions and Thoughts. When we are able to respond on these levels, it allows us to bring more Passion, Pleasure and Power to any relationship. In effect, each of these levels helps us to show up in a way that allows us to respond either in a masculine or feminine way simultaneously. This is the Pioneering perspective where our true experience can be shared without fear of retribution. The more we know who we are on this level, the less impressionable we are around others who are unbalanced. It is also easier to see what is going on with others so we have a clearer way to navigate without triggering their defenses. Learning to be harmless means understanding the distortions of each defense structure and not believing that these perceptions need to be proved or disproved. When we accept our Truth, it becomes possible to seek Truth with others by neutralizing our defensiveness.
The primary problem with defenses is that whenever we react to how others see us, we in fact unconsciously deny and discount who we naturally are. The more others question us because of our apparent differences with them the more we begin to doubt that we have anything to contribute. Our gifts naturally get lost and/or denied the more a parent or caretaker cannot honor our own natural way of being. In their attempt to make us conform to what they believe would make us safe and secure they inadvertently reinforce a reactive way of being that covers up our Authentic Creativity.
It is important now to look at how our parents questioned us to the point where we started believing their perspective about us rather than our own. In the following document for each Creative Expression or Intelligence, we will identify natural gifts that are developed with this Expression. We invite you to consider if these gifts were acknowledged, denied, and/or discounted. To the degree that you have any reaction or any confusion, it represents that in some way this gift or capacity was questioned. In extreme situations you may also experience the desire to ignore or distance yourself from whatever is being said. This reflects how you learned form others to avoid engaging in this way because you perceived your safety and security would be threatened.
Each section has been further refined into three levels: Primary Intelligence or Creative Expression, Secondary Intelligence or Creative Expression and Mental Body Intelligence or Creative Expression. We develop the Mental Body Expression first, which is usually our way of surviving our parents. Then, we develop our Secondary Expression, which reflects our ability to assert our contribution in the world and be successful. Finally, we develop our Primary Expression, which reflects the capacity to be present with ourselves and be fulfilled by our natural ability to serve others. While these differences may not be great for some individuals, they will be important to some readers, particularly when a parent expresses that energy on a Primary level and the child may operate the Intelligence on a Secondary or Mental Body Level. Remember, your parents primarily set the standard for what Expression was or was not acceptable. The more you were repressed by them or naturally suppressed yourself to please them, the greater confusion you will have about expressing yourself. At the end of this document we will discuss how we can go about forgiving ourselves for taking on these false perspectives.
It is important for us to examine each statement to determine if we can be present to it without any reaction. When we have eliminated our Imprinting we will be free to be ourselves. Then, our Creativity will flow naturally through us. The more fearful and/or judgmental we are about any qualities we do or don’t have, the more carefully we need to examine these issues because it indicates that we were judged a lot by our caretakers. It is important to realize that any desire to be a certain way can also reflect how we were trained to be by our parents. This requires us to deconstruct this desire to see if it is really a natural expression for us and determine how our parents played a role in creating our current reaction to it. The things we are searching for are Attachments, Positions, and Projections that may not be authentic for us. Some readers would do well to read through the list first identifying reactions, and then later coming back to those statements that they feel a natural heart affinity for. The challenge is to see how each discovery can liberate you from a defensive past where limited options prevailed. It is important to remember that our defense requires us to accept the creative compromises of our history to continue to exist.
QUESTIONS TO VALIDATE OUR DEFENSE STYLE
1) Which of the following are you the most sensitive to: Guilt (where someone tries to manipulate you to do what they want –Distant defense), Blame (where you are made wrong so that you feel inadequate –Disarming defense), Shame (where someone interrupts you to make you look bad in front of others –Dynamic defense) or a combination of these which reflects a Disnamic Defense.?
2) How do you approach creativity: Conditionally (based on how the other person engages me and how receptive they are to what I suggest —Distant defense), Interactively (by focusing on the other person to create new possibilities based on our interaction –Disarming defense), a combination of personal and interpersonal experiences reflecting Disnamic, or Self-Generating (by focusing on our own experience and relying on my internal sense of organization to bring clarity to others –Dynamic defense)?
3) When you are attracted or interested in someone, how do you let them know? Are you: Indecisive (making them indicate some interest before you respond to them –Distant defense), Assertive (do you make some kind of gesture that’s obvious to them – Dynamic defense), Passive (do you let them figure it out, making your interest very subtle and easy to be misinterpreted in case they are offended—Disarming defense) or selectivity engaging as a way to get others to respond to you—Disnamic?
4) When you are upset, how do you demonstrate your anger? Do you Ignore or Deny your feelings (not letting them get the best of you—Distant defense), or do you become Combative or Confrontational (letting them clearly know you were offended—Dynamic defense), do you put a temporary Space Between yourself and others (trying to figure out what you could have done differently—Disarming defense) or do you try to underplay the interaction and wait to see what develops—Disnamic defense)?
5) What do others most notice about you? Do you: keep your agreements and are reliable and consistent (Distant defense), that you are direct, masterful, active, alive and a risk-taker (Dynamic defense), that you are open, easy-going, mysterious, wise and able to attract what you want (Disarming defense style) or that you understand their needs (Disnamic Defense Style)?
6) In our communications, are you: Perfectionistic (wanting to make sure we say things with just the right emotional tone and caring—Distant defense), Precise (up-front and clear, with strong intellectual focus—Dynamic defense), Self-deprecating (fluid, wanting to make sure others know their importance—Disarming defense) or complementary (always showing the other of the situation—DIsnamic Defense Style)?
7) When meeting others for the first time, do you find more often than not, that you are: Emotionally Distant (Dynamic defense), Physically distant (Disarming defense), Intellectually Distant (Disnamic defense) or both Emotionally and Physically Distant (Distant defense)?
8) Do you feel more capable on: Mental and Emotional Levels (Distant defense), Physical and Mental levels (Dynamic defense), Physical and Intellectual levels (Disnamic defense or Emotional and Intuitive levels (Disarming defense)?
NOTICING THE DIFFERENT PERCEPTIONS OF A DEFENSE STYLE
It could be clear by now that Defenses are merely reactions to differences in perceptions. Our incompleteness drives us to make our perceptions right over the incomplete perceptions of others. There are countless opportunities to shoot ourselves in the foot regarding our Defenses. The ironic aspect of this is that until we can see and accept the full range of possibilities, we are all inaccurate and misguided, at best. We also tend to get caught up in our opinions and attempt to prove them as facts in the world when it doesn’t really do us any good. What we come to see, as we grow beyond our defenses, is that everyone’s Truth is the best they know and understand of themselves at a point in time. Since everybody has an opinion, what good is it to try to change an opinion, especially when it only leads to further defensive reactions? The solution, of course, is to not get attached to our Sensations, Feelings, Emotions and Thoughts as a reflection of who we are, but rather see them as ongoing expressions that are constantly evolving and changing. This also leads us to be more accepting of the differences in others because there are obviously multiple ways of seeing and expressing our Truth. Another way to get to the same point is to recognize how defensive differences do not need to be taken seriously. While it is good to honor people’s perceptions of their experience, is it really something we have to react to? As we become more Pioneering, we realize that following defensive perceptions has less importance than the larger creative opportunities in the world.
Distant Defense Style individuals tend to see themselves and others as objects, which automatically creates repulsions in Dynamic and Disarming Defense Style individuals. They frequently believe the Truth is absolute because they believe since they see their own Truth clearly, other people should be able to agree with them. This is why establishing common expectations is such an important part of their lives. In effect, Distant Defense Style individuals create fixed patterns of interacting where nothing changes. When it comes to connecting with Dynamic or Disarming Defense Style individuals, they have more sympathy for the Dynamic Defense Style individual because they are a little more aligned with them. What Distant Defense Style individuals do not appreciate (probably because it mirrors some of their own Feelings about being victimized) is the Disarming perspective, which they view as being an overemotional whiner. It is important to recognize the foundation of these distinctions is actually in our judgments about each of these levels (Sensations, Feelings, Emotions, Thoughts). The more they fixate on outer appearances, the more this reinforces superficial role playing and inauthentic behavior. Until they can break this logjam and stop getting caught up in Pretenses, they have a hard time being present to others in a neutral way.
Dynamic Defense Style individuals see clearly on the Sensation level and overdo their thinking which makes them want to direct and tell the Distant (and other) Defense Style individuals what to do. This attempt to fix Distant Defense Style individuals is not usually accepted without resistance and resentment. While they may outwardly respond, internally, they are conflicted and angry that the Dynamic Defense Style individuals do not consider them equal partners. On the other hand, Dynamic Defense Style individuals do initially love engaging Disarming Defense Style individuals as partners even though they are opposite-based attractions. This is because Dynamic Defense Style individuals have not internalized their capacity to accept their value as relationship partners. They are struggling to create Intimacy within themselves, which can then be linked to others. They see themselves as contributors in making task management contributions, which then sets up a co-dependent relationship with their partners who nurture them. This co-dependent relationship can increase the amount the Dynamic Defense Style individual leans on the Disarming Defense Style individuals and vice versa, or, in its highest expression, it can support each individual to become more balanced within themselves.
The other aspect of the co-dependent relationship is that the more the Disarming Defense Style individuals accept the leadership of the Dynamic Defense Style individuals, means they do not build their own masculine side out to create an internal balance. It is important to note that Dynamic Defense Style individuals are trying to overtly be in control while Disarming Defense Style individuals always feel covertly in control. This is because Dynamic Defense Style individuals see their influence in terms of Thoughts and Actions while Disarming Defense Style individuals recognize the Dynamic Defense Style individuals have no effective management of Passion (because they are not balancing their Feelings and Emotions) which means that they can be led around without even realizing it. They key issue for Dynamic Defense Style individuals is to learn how to balance their own Thoughts and Emotions to see multiple points of view. This means they have to let go of Attachment to their own Truth as the pre-eminent unifier to begin to actually work with others in a meaningful way. When unbalanced and positional, they get caught up in their own sense of power and end up believing that others must be pushed to make things occur so they become the dictator they hate themselves being.
Disarming Defense Style individuals are easily swayed by their own idealization of potentials and people. This means they are attracted to those who define themselves separately in unique ways and are trying to live into those possibilities. Ironically, when others do not live up to these expectations, they can then feel superior and needed. This suggests that they have more acceptance of Distant Defense Style individuals than the Distant Defense Style individuals have of them. It also means that while certain Dynamic Defense Style individuals have their respect, they are fundamentally afraid of the Dynamic Defense Style individuals becoming belligerent or angry at unexpected times. Disarming Defense Style individuals really work to maintain their inner spaciousness by not taking on the time frames of the Dynamic Defense Style individuals or the scarcity of energy perspective of the Distant Defense Style individuals. To accomplish this, they need to become more selective as to what is the best allocation of their energy and time. Their major difficulty is recognizing to what degree they should support certain endeavors. Careful allocation of the amount of energy they make available to a project in a certain time frame is necessary. Not defining themselves in terms of others and instead, strengthening their own Autonomy would be in their best interests. The core issue is they feel alone and unseen in their Passion by Distant and Dynamic Defense Style individuals, which makes things seem lonelier than they need to be.
Disnamic Defense Style individuals specialize in having much smaller disagreements with everyone because they want to reinforce a certain status quo. They are in the middle and are constantly making small adjustments for the benefit of others because they tend to believe or see themselves as not as strong. Ironically, their increased sensitivity can lead to more blow-ups when others are not calibrating and are oblivious to them. This means that many times they make greater demands that their partner be available to them. It is interesting to note that having less defensive ballast as only the Disnamic Defense style individuals have can actually lead to quicker self-acceptance and growth. The core problem they have with Distant Defense Style individuals is that Distant Defense Style individuals think of them as unreliable and inconsistent. Dynamic Defense Style individuals do not know how much to trust them and Disarming Defense Style individuals tend to feel compassionate for them because of their common capacity to become overly adaptive to others. Their biggest growth opportunity comes with people who are Pioneering because they learn to be more present with themselves and follow their own heart.
The important things to know about the Disnamic Defense Style is that they irritate everyone a little, but refuse to get caught up in fixed, long term perspectives about who they are. What this means is that Disnamic Defense Style individuals have a more versatile view of themselves and see themselves as always changing. Unlike Distant Defense Style individuals, they see their own inconsistencies and do accept them when they are pointed out. This is because they see change as natural and taking different points of view at different times as supportive. Distant Defense Style individuals do not accept that they have changed and completely ignore any inconsistencies through time.
Pioneers have the ability to meet every type of Defense Style and yet they have to shift their focus to match the assumptions of the Defense Style they are speaking to in order to have maximum alignment. For example, with a Disarming individual, a Pioneer would match the spaciousness and inner self-respect about their capacity to engage others. In this way, a Disarming Defense Style individual would relax and respond so that eventually, with greater support, they could expand into more masculine expressions. With a Dynamic Defense Style individual, a Pioneer would honor the self-esteem and internal capacity to organize structure and time. By being accepted in this way, the Dynamic Defense Style individual would relax, which would, over time, support the Pioneer in bringing in more relationship possibilities. The important point to notice is that the Pioneer always accepts and builds on the strengths of those people they are around. In this way they neutralize the conflicts, and overcome what is discounted and denied in others that is reinforcing Defense Style perceptions. With Distant Defense Style individuals, it is more difficult to find a strength that is being manifested. Sometimes the best thing to grab onto is the person’s perception that they are making the best contribution they can. The more a Pioneer reinforces their Desires, the more likely a Distant Defense Style individual can continue to engage.
Defense Style Compatibility Considerations
Defenses are initially created in relationship to our parents. This drives us to seek parental substitutes in both our personal and professional lives. Each individual seeks to be affirmed in ways we did not get affirmed by our parents. This sets us up to try to find parental substitutes who, unlike our parents, accept and honor us for our true creative nature. The difficulty is that the defense itself in many ways sabotages our being able to create this rare occurrence. Even if others are able see through our defenses and acknowledge our authentic creativity, the defense operates as a buffer with the belief that this state of connection cannot prevail because the defense, in its attempt to protect us, cannot have us be successful or its usefulness would end. When we break out of defensive ways of operating, it throws off others who need us to be a particular way to validate their own defensive interactions. This is because when we choose others with an opposite defense style, it paradoxically keeps alive the hope we have denied in ourselves. For example, Dynamic Defense Style individuals act strong and certain as a way of hiding their true sense of vulnerability. They choose to be around Disarming Defense Style individuals who represent the innocence they have denied within themselves. The Disarming individual is naturally sensitive and flexible and appears responsive to others to hide their internal strength. This reveals that defenses inherently assert the opposite of what people internally fear they are.
This is also true with a Distant Defense Style individual and our attraction/repulsion to a Pioneering individual. If we have a Distant Defense Style we get caught up in proving how valuable or important we are as a way to offset how empty or disconnected we feel with others. We choose to be around those who can be completely accepting and nonjudgmental or who at least appear to be this way. If we are Pioneering, we simultaneously accept both our masculine and feminine natures, and discover opportunities to apply our conflict resolution skills by making clear that others have choices in any situation. If we are Distant, there is an attraction/repulsion to a Pioneering person because we want to be seen, yet fear being seen because we may have to deal with the conflicts that have internally perplexed us. Unpacking past experiences can seem scary because we associate negative feelings/emotions with being closed down or denied by others. Engaging these experiences establishes a new level of consciousness, which allows us to release the charge that has kept us contracted, stuck and self-sabotaging.
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