WHEN you are more less permanently defensive due to the erroneous belief that any hurt or frustration, any criticism, any rejection, is a danger you must guard against, your spiritual life is gravely impaired.
While defending yourself is superfluous and meaningless because no actual danger exists, because you nonetheless believe this danger is real, you release poisonous substances into your physical body. You limit your range of thought and feelings and also your creative processes. You do not see the manifold possibilities of life, of communication with people. You are isolated in your busy defense against an unrealistic danger.
Whenever you are on the defensive, your primary aim cannot be truth. When it comes to real dangers, the real danger is the truth of the moment. But when it comes to unreal dangers, the truth lies somewhere else. In this moment, it subtly becomes more important for you to prove that the other is wrong or unjustified, and that you are right, rather than to find the elements of truth in whatever comes to you. Therefore, in your defensiveness, you run away from truth, from yourself, and from life.. All this is due to a completely erroneous concept of perfectionism in which you believe your value and acceptability to be at stake because of your imperfection.
If people would probe within to find and eliminate this defensive wall, so much hardship could be avoided. Having a mask which must be defended creates the constant fear of being inadequate. The feeling or fear of inadequacy is itself so much more painful than the simple pain if someone says or does something hurtful to you, or challenges how you see things, or does not respond to your wishes.
Let go and receive whatever comes to you. Look at it quietly with the dominant aim not to ward it off, but instead to seek and see the truth.
_ Susan Thesenga
