THE ULTIMATE FORM (AND SUBTLE ART) OF SELF-PROTECTION
CONTEXT
A recent Mirror Session participant voiced a question that I’ve heard a lot in recent months. It’s a question that, to me, seems universal: it is one that I have noted as recurring. Because of this, I’d like to share a transcript of intuitive response with all of you. But first, the question:
How best can I protect my energy?
Now, before providing the transcript, I must share a perfect quote that introduced itself to me this very morning as I sat with my own thoughts on this same theme. Its timing was impeccable: I just knew that I’d include it in this post. I hope you love it:
We spend so much of our time on earth running after or running from. In our want of love, we chase after someone or set ourselves up as bait. In our dreams of success, we hunt after goals and hide from what we or others perceive as failure. And none of it - none of the strategizing to land a job or the hiding in order to prevent being hurt - can reward us with peace or protect us from life… Our greatest chance to change our life is to close our habits of mind and to open our ever-virgin hearts.
- Mark Nepo (The Book of Awakening, pg. 314)
TRANSCRIPT
Your job is not-to-protect. Ever. Think back to all that we’ve discussed today. You can see that what we’re dealing with is trust. Consider the difference in position here between this trust + our ideas of protection. Protection is tight. It builds walls around you. It’s tense. It’s terrified! Right? Think about it: you’re protecting yourself from something that you fear. Protection has its roots sunk deep in fear.
And yet, the promise of what we have discussed today is that your true being is impenetrable. There’s nothing for you to fear if you can flow - if you know how to trust the wisdom of your being, if you can trust this deeper promise of your life. If you can only learn to flow, you can’t be touched.
This is like advanced-level martial arts. It’s not about getting strong + defending; it’s about surrender + relationship + flow.
CONTINUED…
But keep in mind: practically no one knows how to live this way. If you leave this conversation feeling inspired, only to then you wake up tomorrow feeling like, “Wow, I don’t know how to do this” - don’t feel bad! No one knows how to do this perfectly, especially not at first.
Following the flow of our own lives will take real time, it will take practice; and it will take a true refinement of awareness. Feeling into that momentum… Listening in for those signals… It’s not the sort of thing that we’ve been taught.
Instead, we must remember how to do this; and that remembering can take quite a lot of practice, patience, gentleness - and time. So the first thing for you to know is that:
Protection is a myth with roots in fear - it doesn’t work. What we need most is softness, not a shell - we need to trust.
CONTINUED…
BUT! (And here’s the big but…) But: if we are to consider this use of your energy, we must remember that it is energy of a very special sort - it is specialized + totally unique to only-you. (Keep in mind that ‘specialized’ is not the same as ‘limited.’) You have a very personal + specialized sort of energy.
So if you wish to “protect” your precious energy, simply learn to spend it well in those directions that align with who-you-are. Do your best to let this admonition sink in deep: you are best protected by discretion - by your choice to stay-aligned. Simply do not give yourself away to any compromise.
Can you see what I’m getting at here? You need not defend against the world; you need only to discern. Discern + choose to move in those directions that are yours; and choose to not-move in directions that don’t serve you.
CONTINUED…
Can you sense the difference now? This is a process of selection. YOU are in control of the selection. Protection as we’ve often come to know it disempowers. And yet, this puts you at-choice: you are empowered. Since you’re the one selecting where your energy will flow, you are empowered.
And so your responsibility is to feel into directions that align with where your energy is moving. Your ‘job’ is to sense the way that life is moving through you + to trust it: to surrender + to let your story move on its own steam - on this momentum.
Personally, I have chosen to remove the word ‘protection’ altogether from my speech + inner world. I believe that its position is too weak - it’s disempowered. I’ve simply decided that I don’t want any part of it.
You may wish to consider doing the same.
CONTINUED…
In the end, you must learn to stand in your own power + to move in those directions that are yours. You need not be pushed around by life or hide yourself away from any part of your existence. Instead, consider meeting your experience in fresh, empowered ways. Explore how you might choose instead of run (or fight or hide).
Most of all, see what you can do to practice feeling life’s Great Movement through your soul. See what you can do to let its current sweep you deeper into life: Your Epic Story.
BONUS
The key to ‘protection’ is quite the opposite of what we have supposed. True protection (and true power) comes through opening, not through closing-down. It comes through receptivity, not through guardedness, defense, or any kind of staving-off-the-world. So counter-intuitively, we protect + preserve the soft foundation of our hearts by learning how to open + expose them to the world we have assumed would do them harm.
In doing so, we (in time) discover Life’s Great Secret: that to open is to finally receive; that our softness is in fact our greatest strength; that exposure of our deep authentic heart improves resilience, gives the grace we need to dance with all those forces we once feared.