
This requires a willingness to becomes more defenseless, and a desire to experience the peace within yourself.
Defensiveness is most often a sign that you believe you are separate from others. Or better than others. It is a means to avoid intimacy as by unconsciously creating that separation.
Belief in separation usually incites belief in the need to defend.
You become defensive when you have not made up your mind about who you are and what you want. The ego functions in split goals and the result is conflict.
With two opposing thoughts, even when one a potentially positive, the mind is caught in a type of double-bind.
I may be certain, for example that a positive goal is to develop relationships with people who are supportive of me and see my potential.
Yet, if I also secretly hold the belief that I am under-serving because of things I have done in the past, I will not be happy when I receive their support.
Remember, only your mind can produce an upset, and only your mind can resolve it.
One way your mind creates an upset is by having a potentially positive goal, and then making it impossible to achieve because of a conflicting goal or belief.
The sabotaging thoughts of old fear based thinking can be remedied by accepting the unifying goal of love based thinking.
That is also applied to the self, love based thinking about the self.
Think over some unifying goals that promote love based thinking:
My goal is to accept rather than judge others.
My goal is to release myself from the bondage of the past.
My goal is to focus on healing rather than hurting.
My goal is to forgive myself and others.
My goal is to know all that love offers and to do this by offering love.
My goal in finding consistent peace is to find out who I am and what I want.
Walking Through Walls ~ Jampolsky