Usually our protection mechanisms hold us from absolutely understanding ourselves and from coping with tough conditions in methods which can be wholesome and actually therapeutic. And as Muñoz factors out, the disconnect between what we’re acknowledging and what we’re truly experiencing can create emotions of pressure, each emotionally and bodily, which will trigger even extra discomfort than if we truly faces these emotions head on.
As a substitute, Muñoz recommends taking the time to know your protection mechanisms and the way they’re or aren’t serving you. “It may be useful to work with knowledgeable who can assist us enhance our consciousness of our defenses,” Muñoz suggests. “The extra conscious you turn into of your defenses, the extra you’ve gotten a option to do one thing else relatively than unconsciously utilizing them.”
She presents some examples: “When you’re a girl who cries as an alternative of connecting together with her anger, for instance, you may start to follow experiencing your anger immediately and studying to be extra assertive. When you’re a person who realizes that you simply are inclined to blanket your grief and different feelings with anger, you may study to make room for a variety of emotions and be weak to this expertise. In each of those examples, lowering your reflexive use of a protection can assist you perceive your self higher and forge safer, extra trusting, intimate relationships.”
There are a lot of methods to develop higher self-awareness. Then, from that place of consciousness, you may transfer into studying new, more healthy methods of coping with stress relatively than counting on unproductive protection mechanisms.
