Defensiveness, aggressiveness Vs personal strength

Our strength is the ability to stand in Infront and within different situations without needing to close our hearts off. It is a state where we can connect to our clarity, heart, and will without compromising ourselves or putting others down. It is a state in which we can perceive what we need and want without fearing the consequences.

Defensiveness and aggressiveness, on the other hand, is a relic of how we could not stand in our power when we were bound to the will of others.

It is how we had to, and continue still today, to close ourselves off, comprise our presence and wants, trying to prevent feeling rejection, judgment, or anything else that is uncomfortable. Almost as if we fear it will devastate us or crush us.

We may have all the justified arguments in our minds, but in our experience (body), we do not trust ourselves and our power.

We act out of a wounded state, using at times even hate, as a means to an end

You may be defensive when you start to justify what you think or want while putting the other person down. Aggressiveness may be when you try to threat the other person, punish them or make them feel bad.

Winning over others, comparing, and fearing the humiliation that may come with it, is how we have learned to navigate our social relationships.

These are deep wounds in our society that leak into our intimate relationships and the fabric of our larger society.

We need to start and celebrate the power of others while being able to celebrate and connect to our own. It will heal our bodies, hearts, and social wounds around us.

Power cannot be owned. Energy flows through us when we let it.

Owning, holding on to, and needing any other efforts around it is how we abuse it.

When each of us stands in our power, we will make sure that abuse, hatred, discrimination, illness, and unnecessary weaknesses will not have a place to destroy the beauty of who we are and what we can create.

When you dare to investigate and connect to your power truly, you will be able to have more compassion without letting hurt and abuse take place in your life.

When you let the power flow through you, it will touch all the hurt, protected, and shame-filled parts of yourself. Power /strength/presence/vitality always aims to heal and free.

It may shift how you view your life, work, goals, and standards.

You will be free from those never-ending arguments inside your mind, nor will you have to push yourself to prove yourself or pretend to be what you are not.

Let’s dive in:

Where in your body, and when do you disconnect your power?

When do you tend to become defensive- arguing, overly judgmental, blaming, and closing your heart?

Where and when do your unhealed wounds of rejection and humiliation tend to move you towards aggressiveness or defensiveness?

When do you think in competitive terms? Lose your confidence or need t glare at the weakness of others.

Where (when) do you not let yourself feel? When /how do you fear your feelings, needs, and strength?

Let’s focus on two main places: the chest and belly, to discover where we carry those old disconnects and wounds. We will use these two areas as centers of attention so that we can open up, let the power flow through us and the humane beauty of connection, love and

fierceness to be present.

Starting with the chest, bring your attention to this area.

Take a couple of moments to be aware and learn how you breathe in this area and what efforts you may be feeling. How much space do you have in your chest, and how do you feel and sense your chest area?

In your investigation, you can include the posture you tend to take and how you hold the jaw, throat and neck, shoulders, and upper back.

Imagine the chest has a story of who you are and what you have experienced. If you try to listen, you must shift the way you observe from the mind to feeling yourself and the life around you through the chest as if all of yourself is sitting there curled up inside.

Start to breathe deeper into that area, giving “yourself” more space to be.

Why did you have to create such a chest for yourself? Why did you have to hold those efforts around your heart? What happened?

How does this make you (not)feel yourself and life?

Now we are going to bring some movements and life into that area. When we do, it will enable your power to flow and deal with whatever hurt, sadness, and such to move and be released.

Create a fit with your left hand, and with the flat part of the folded fingers, tap on your chest all over while breathing.

Do that for 30 sec.

Then 30 sec with the right hand.

Then breathe deeply into the chest three times, and slide them to your belly with both hands from your chest. When reaching the belly, breathe deeply into it three times.

Repeat the sliding and breathing motion five times.

Now pay attention to the state you are in.

Keep your hands on your belly, and pay attention to what the stomach and lower belly have to “say.”

When you do, breathe to open the space to the story, which is all the stuck fears and emotions you had to suppress.

Then put one hand on the chest and one on the belly, breathing and choosing to connect to your power.

The need to hold, protect, defend, and fight might rise habitually.

Register it, and each time choose to breathe and connect to what you sense in your body without isolating it from the space around you.

Remind yourself that whatever happened is gone.

The choice to reconnect is yours, no matter who and what is around you.

Repeat this exercise daily for the next week, choosing to investigate your connection to power and registering throughout the day when you tend to get defensive, aggressive, blaming, accusing, numbing, or dissociating.

When are tend to close off and lose this connection?

And with that investigation, choose each time to connect to your power, even if it means to feel uncomfortable, to meet hurt, to meet love. To meet the expectations and anger of others without needing to close your heart or compromise yourself.

Look at your relationships and interactions and observe where you tend to give others power and when you try to be “on top.”

Try to catch yourself in that moment. Pay attention to the way you close yourself. Step away from the pull the arguments have over your mind and awareness. Instead of being defensive or aggressive, knowing better, take a moment to breathe and open up your chest and belly. Let the fear or the nervousness flow and dare to stay present.

It may be uncomfortable initially, but it transforms when you stay with it.

Your connection to your power and the honesty in which you stand, not escaping your wounds or fear, detangles all the difficulty and the clarity that can arise.

Following this training, at least for a week, can shift how you connect to your power, the compassion and clarity in your relationships, and the ability to follow your heart.

Yours

Anna

Photo by Lewis Darby at Unsplash