When you stop defending yourself in conflict, something unexpected happens: you can finally see your own inherent goodness. As long as you’re defending, you’re implicitly agreeing that there’s something to defend against—that you might be bad.
“The more that you learn not to defend yourself, the more you can start to notice your inherent goodness. You start to become immune to shame.”
“Nobody walks away from a fight feeling like oh wow I feel great about myself. But if a fight starts and you go, oh I’ve done nothing wrong, and you can see yourself clearly and listen to the other person, you actually walk away feeling great being in a fight.”
The person who doesn’t need to defend can see clearly: “Here I am, and I actually love this person, and I’m not trying to hurt anybody.” That clarity is only available when you’re not spending all your energy on defense.
Related Concepts
- Shame stagnates behavior
- Self-judgment defends against emotions
- Resisting parts of yourself creates more of that behavior
- Your defense feels like an attack to the other person
- Defensiveness is a breadcrumb back to shame
- Wonder eliminates defensiveness
- When love shows up, unloved parts surface to be loved