To the Adult Self,
We are coming to you as a committee of defenders with a plea to turn this ship around while there is any hope of a reasonable life. You are a naïve adult self. Maybe you have done too much reading from people who are more skilled at life than you. They have put too many ideas in your head about what might be possible. Maybe you have listened too much to the “higher self” who really doesn’t exist, but we will play along with that fairy tale for now. Maybe you have surrounded yourself with a few too many brave souls who seem to believe they can change their lives too. But we are here to tell you it cannot be done. The direction you are taking is too dangerous. It will only lead to heartache, loss and utter devastation. You must abandon these delusional steps before there is nothing left of us. There is an iceberg straight ahead and your foggy brain can’t see it yet. Stop this now.
As typical defenders led by an extremely well-organized controller, we have come to you with a list of the dire consequences of your actions. We are absolutely sure horrible things are inevitable if you do not cease and desist this crazy plan to have some kind of better life. You are imagining things. You will be deeply hurt in this process. And so will we.
We will lose everything. We will be starting over. And we can’t take anything with us. We will no longer have a connection to other human beings at all. Everything we have worked for in this life so far will be taken away. If we let go, we have to let it all go. We will lose our friends, we will have to say goodbye to those few relatives we have managed to stay connected with, and the biggest tragedy of all, we will have to give up the children. We cannot keep anything of the past. It is the rule. We must start anew with nothing of the past. Otherwise, we are being selfish in not honoring all that was done for us. This is a tragic nightmare. We cannot allow it.
We will not know the rules. We have lived by rules for all these years. These rules have been paramount to understanding life. We have been able to operate well within the constructs of these rules. If we leave these rules behind, we will be left with no direction. We won’t know what to do next. This intuition you talk about is not real. It is some kind of trick. It will not lead us to the right place. We will be lost in a maze of a world with no map, no navigational tools and no guidance systems. This will not be okay. We will drown in uncertainty.
We will be engulfed by our freedom. We don’t have the skills. We don’t have the bravery. We don’t have what it takes to be free. There are some people in the world who have the ability to be free. But they were born that way. They learned how to be free from the beginning. They developed the skills to live free in this world. They learned courage. They learned how to live with options. We never learned such things. You talk of some innate ability to live free. There is no such thing. It must be learned. And it is too late for us. We cannot have it now. In a different life with a different family, things might have been different. But you cannot open that cage after all this time. We are like those prisoners who were freed after 50 years and had no idea how to live. We cannot change.
We will drown in our emotions. This emotional life you want to live is the extremely dangerous. The body is dangerous. The body does not provide us with anything useful in navigating this world. Emotions are dangerous. They make us vulnerable to abuse. They endanger our societal acceptance. They keep us from a safe life where we fit in with the masses. We must fit in and we cannot do that by releasing these emotions willy-nilly just because they show up. They are best left in the dark crevices and shadows. Leave this well enough alone or we will be taken out by the tidal wave waiting just offshore.
This is not a playground. This is not a fairytale world where people get to explore without harm. Don’t be naïve. There are dangers in this place. And we have faced most of them. This is about survival. This is a game that must be played. Keep your game face strictly in place and avoid any significant connection with others. They will chew you up and spit you out. Keep the inner children tucked away in their special little spaces. They aren’t in that much pain. We can suppress it. Keep the freedom fighters in their prisons before they destroy everything we have worked so hard to create. Do your job as the adult self by keeping the system safe. Otherwise, you are irresponsible and you certainly do not need to be leading this effort. Hear us out before the time runs out. Lead us back to safety before all is lost.
The Inner Defenders
Wow…..amazing article, right from your soul. I used to tell my clients “you can’t stop bad things from happening any more than you can stop good things.” As time has passed, I realize how incredibly false that statement is. My “Defenders” were so intent on keeping me from being hurt again, that they were mostly keeping me from living… I would hide behind my anger and defensiveness, as though I were a wounded dog. My defenders, although well meaning, were far to active than they needed to be and were interpreting my present based upon a horrible past. They were “dragging my past into the present.” I’ve now been alive/living since 1994 and I’ve been on the planet since 1961. I have no intention of dying again.
Thank you so much Kris! This is powerful awareness of your defenders!
This totally stressed me out! Because it rings so true and puts words in my face for the conversations going on in my on head – conversations that it is so tempting to fuzz out and not really give words to. Thank you again for all you do. I appreciate you so much.
Our defenders definitely don’t want us to hear the truth about their approach. This will be hard for a lot of people to read. I’m glad you stayed with it. Thank you Rachel.
‘Emotions are dangerous’…this is something that I’ve been wrestling with for a while, but even more since the pandemic/teletherapy. I don’t feel able to manage them well right now.
Our defenders use fear of emotions to keep them suppressed and they do this more when we are feeling unsafe in the world around us.
Yes I’m same shut me down to state of not able to function
So powerful it was chilling and difficult to read. Like another person said, this put concrete words to whispers that flutter around in my head quite often. Is it a Defender, or the Karma Kid, who tends to say “There is no point; this is hopeless and you know it. You will live the life you were shaped to live, period. The ‘higher self’ you used to believe in so fervently in your younger years is a silly, bleeding heart fantasy. We’re doomed and you know it. We cannot be helped.” A lot of the time, I seem to believe it….
Thank you Sarah. To answer your question, yes. The karma kid is one of the defenders and they would absolutely say that.
Surreal and such confirmation.
I can almost hear the whisper of hope wanting to come out of hiding when I’m reading this. It’s peaking around the corner from behind the door. It wants to be seen. Yet there is karma kid and futility trying to keep my hope at bay. My hope that there is a better way for me to live my life. Reading this and recognizing that I’m not in this alone. That these defenders in my head exist and identifying them is like putting a face to a name. Not to be treated as my enemies but to embrace them.
To embrace my karma kid, carry and cradle her and let her know it’s ok. To embrace my mean kid and recognize that as a child in a very dysfunctional family dynamic, I was doing everything to survive that hell. I want to teach hold my mean kid that was hiding in the closet and sit with her and put my arm around her and just love. I want to let her know that her feelings are valid and she’s not inadequate or weird. I want to embrace my grounded adult self and let her know that it is ok to embrace joy and a good happy feeling and that I don’t have to feel guilty for having these good feelings when they visit me.
Reading this has brought all of this up in me.
Thanks Elizabeth.
That is beautiful Regina!
Why is the body dangerous?
To the defenders, the body is dangerous because it holds all the traumatic memories and emotions. They try to keep us away from the body for that reason.