unblocking defences
unblocking defences
Underlying fears
manifest in
defensive behaviour.
Address the fear
and your defences
disappear.
down
Crumbling
To make real change in life
you have to break down
your own defences, but
tearing down those carefully
constructed walls takes
planning, dedication and skill.
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76 | WellBeing Personal Development
By Amy Taylor-Kabbaz
ersonal development brings change — the two go hand in
hand. While change is what everyone seeks as they embark
on a journey of self-discovery and improvement, so many of
us seem to stumble along the way.
So why is it, when you’re actively seeking personal
development and change in your life, you find yourself defensive,
aggressive and falling back into old habits? And how do you go about
breaking down those defences to ensure your personal development
stays on track?
WellBeing Personal Development | 77
unblocking defences
Defences are past habits, patterns and excuses that you fall back on
when your life is going through massive change or upheaval. While you
might have all the good intentions in the world to make your life better,
quite often your journey is sabotaged or sidelined by defences. You get
angry at yourself or others, you find yourself falling back into unhealthy
habits or you close yourself off to help from others.
Ever found yourself dealing with old fights, old addictions or old
self-esteem issues just as you thought you’d moved on? Have you felt
frustrated that the same types of issues keep coming up in your life?
This is because as you try to move forward your defences will
continue to come up. If your pattern is to believe you’re not worthy of
love, you will keep seeing that manifest in your life. Just as you attempt
to free your life of these issues, you can find yourself dealing with them
more than ever.
While this may seem frustrating and make you wonder whether you
really can change, the truth is breaking down your defences is one of the
most powerful things you can do to ensure you really do have significant
personal development in your life. It’s the surest way for you to become
the person you really want to be.
Dr John Demartini, a world-renowned speaker, author and human
behaviour specialist, believes you tend to become defensive when you
have too high expectations of yourself and others. Defensive behaviour
manifests when you have unrealistic expectations of yourself to be
a certain way, which in turn will make you feel angry, frustrated
and defensive.
“Sometimes we have this fantasy about who we are meant to be:
only happy, never angry; only up, never down,” says Demartini. “The
truth is we are not one-sided individuals. So whenever we set up these
unrealistic expectations, we automatically find ourselves feeling anger
and aggression — even despair and depression towards ourselves.
“Not only do we do that, but other people do the same thing,” he
continues. “We live in a society where there are unrealistic expectations.
We expect people to be one way and, when they’re not, we’re not only
angry at them but at ourselves as well.”
When these feelings come up on your path to personal development,
make sure you don’t lose track of what you’re truly aiming for.
Remember that these defences are part of your evolution to a more
authentic person — not a step backwards.
Live authentically
The best way to unblock your defences and truly begin to live your
dreams is to make sure you are living authentically, which means
taking the time to truly figure out what are your values, priorities and
dreams in life. Knowing what your true values and core priorities are is
how you grow your power.
“Any time someone is not living to their higher values, or they are
not able to live authentically, they are going to get defensive, because
that’s what they are meant to be doing,” says Demartini.
“Anytime someone challenges your values or priorities, you’re
going to get defensive. By living truly authentically, you give yourself
permission to be great.
“And this is how you become less defensive, because you see
everyone and everything on your way, not in your way.”
There are a number of ways to work out what your core values
and priorities are in life. Talking with a life coach, working with yoga
and meditation, reading and studying about personal development
or following a step-by-step plan like the one found on Demartini’s
website all help you discover what is most important to you.
“Know yourself, and find out what your highest values are,” says
Demartini. “There’s a list to help you determine your highest priorities
on www.drdemartini.com which you can use to work out what your
values and goals are. Delegate the things that are of lower priority and
get on with being an inspired person. That’s how you wake up your
greatness and live without fear.”
The seven primary fears Learn, learn, learn
According to Demartini, there are seven primary fears that could be the
reason why your commitment to personal development is sabotaged by
defensive behaviour. He says while most of us are not afraid of success
and achieving our dreams, a fear of one of the seven primary fears may
be the real reason we’re not able to thrive.
Renee Mayne was a very defensive person. Now a successful author,
speaker and the entrepreneur behind the Bra Queen success, Mayne
was once the victim of years of physical and mental abuse. In fact, this
type of behaviour was so common to her that she came to believe that
abuse was a normal and expected part of life.
Eventually, Mayne not only attracted relationships in her life that
supported that belief but was very defensive about her behaviour.
“I never believed in love because I was from a broken home,” she
says. “Then my mum got into a new relationship where he abused
both of us. So, when I eventually left home, I too got into an abusive
relationship. This is all I knew — until one day my partner nearly killed
me and I finally realised that things must change.”
As most of us who have tried to change a negative situation in
our lives will know, however, making significant change in your life
is not easy. Although we know deep down change must occur — as
Mayne did when her boyfriend strangled her at the age of 21 — taking
that realisation and turning it into reality is the real challenge. And
breaking down those defences and past patterns is the key.
Mayne had a major break through: “The first thing I did the night
of the attack was I sat down and wrote the words, ‘I have to break the
The seven primary fears
1. A fear of not being intelligent enough, smart
enough, or creative enough
2. A fear of failing
3. A fear of breaking the morals or ethics of a spiritual
authority or religion
4. A fear of not having enough money or losing money
5. A fear of not being loved or respected by loved ones
6. A fear of rejection
7. A fear of not having the body, the energy, the vitality
or the looks to be successful
78 | WellBeing Personal Development
The best way to
unblock your
defences and truly
begin to live your
dreams is to make
sure you are living
authentically.
Perhaps you have a fear that your family won’t accept your change
in direction. Perhaps you fear a loss of money, or perhaps you fear the
consequences of getting a lot of money. Perhaps you fear you don’t
have the energy or health to be who you really want to be. Often, these
underlying fears manifest in defensive behaviour. Address the fear and
your defences disappear.
As Demartini says, “Many people fear the repercussions of living
their dreams or achieving their greatness and that fear can usually be
pinpointed to one of these seven primary fears.”
If you find the same issues keep coming up for you in your pursuit of
personal development, try sitting down with this list of seven primary
fears and asking yourself whether one of these is at the core of your
defensive behaviour.
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Why do we have defences?
unblocking defences
cycle and stop the war because I’ve had enough.’” For Mayne, this was
the start of unblocking her defences: “Once I acknowledged my pattern,
I knew I just needed ‘me’ time. I needed to find out who I really wanted
to be and how to achieve it. So I just started studying and reading. I read
a book a week.”
In an echo of Demartini’s advice to sit down and work out your core
values and priorities, Mayne discovered that, by taking the time to really
work out who she was and who she aspired to be, she saw her defences
begin to crumble. She truly did begin to break the cycle.
“For me, I didn’t see a counsellor or anyone; it was just me and my
books,” she recalls. “The first book I read was Louise Hay’s You Can Heal
Your Life and that was the start of it for me.
“I started meditating and truly working on myself. I learned that I was
worthy of a better life and I deserved love. And then I started to build up
the confidence to move forward in my life — and the defences fell away.”
If your negative patterns and defences keep rearing their ugly heads,
despite all your best intentions, take the time to study and learn who
you really want to be and what you truly value. Embrace all the books,
mentors and help you can find and make the time to learn about
yourself. As Mayne found, this is the truest way for you to break down
those barriers and create a grateful and empowered life.
“I now have four very successful businesses and my own website
where I try and help empower other women, a partner of 13 years and
two beautiful children,” says Mayne. “I could only do this by breaking
the cycle of defensiveness and abuse and learning to love myself.
“Often, everything we need to know is already inside us; we just need
to stop our minds from making so much noise long enough to listen.
Don’t fall down when you stumble and let those old defences rear their
ugly head again but stop, be present in every moment and then you can
really move forward.”
Accept all parts of yourself
Nothing brings more joy — and is more challenging — than learning to
love yourself. Without unconditional love of yourself — and this means
all parts of yourself — then your defences will continue to block your
journey to true personal enlightenment and freedom.
WellBeing Personal Development | 79
unblocking defences
unblocking defences
But the path to true self-love is often a confronting one, as it involves
learning to love all sides of your personality: the good and the bad.
“We must own every part of ourselves to truly live authentically,”
explains Demartini. Just as he believes most of us have too high or
unrealistic expectations of ourselves and others around us, he also
argues that most of us do not accept that we’re made up of light and
shade, or yin and yang.
“I tried an experiment once,” Dr Demartini recalls. “I did a survey
of all the human traits in the Oxford Dictionary and I counted 4628
different traits. And then I went through each of them honestly and
asked myself if I’d displayed that trait at some stage in my life.
“And once I was truly honest with myself, I realised I had every one of
them. I’ve been nice, I’ve been mean. I’ve been kind, I’ve been cruel. I’ve
given, I’ve taken and I’ve been open and I’ve been closed. I’ve had every
single one.”
To break down our defences, and also accept life’s
knocks and other people’s failings, this is an
important lesson to learn. We are all made up
of good bits and bad bits — but the bad bits
don’t have to define you. Embarking on a
journey of personal development means
you acknowledge there’s a better you
out there. However, it’s not possible to
evolve into that better person until
you’ve accepted the not-so-good
times, too.
“Sometimes we defend the traits
we are disowning,” Demartini
continues. “The one thing we wish we
could change we find ourselves getting
aggressive about.
“And every trait we disown, we will keep
running into people who push our buttons
and bring out this trait and make us defensive,
because we are defending ourselves and trying to
avoid that trait. But just know if you try and get rid of
half of yourself, you’ll never love yourself. You’ve got to own all your
traits. You are both sided.”
is what we defend. Whiteley was no different. “I hated the way I looked,
my brain had taken a holiday and I had dreadful hot flushes. My bottom
started to reach my knees and it terrified the life out of me! I’d totally
lost who I once was and all my defences and fears about ageing were
coming true.”
Through changing her expectations of what her body and her mind
should be like at her age and accepting the good and the bad of herself,
Whiteley began to break down those long-held defences about getting
old and started to “age disgracefully”.
“I became very involved in crystal work and studied to become a
Master in Neurolinguistic Programming. I accepted that I can’t turn
back the clock but I can re-evaluate my priorities and make this
work for me. The only thing you can do to really move forward is to
acknowledge, accept, keep yourself healthy and start figuring out what
your passion really is.”
Through her website and book, Whiteley now helps
other women “of a certain age” break down
their defences about ageing: “I see so many
women who have totally lost themselves.
They look in the mirror and wonder
where they have gone. They fear what
is happening to them and retreat
back into their homes and put their
defences up.
“But it doesn’t have to be
this way. There are two crucial
steps you must take for true
personal development: you have to
acknowledge that things will and
need to change; and you must be
authentic. That’s how you wake up
your greatness and live without fear.”
Often, everything
we need to know is
already inside us;
we just need to stop
our minds from
making so much
noise long enough
to listen.
Once you’ve become clear on what your true values are and have
accepted both sides of yourself and others, the next step is to make sure
you have realistic expectations. Remember, defensive behaviour arises
when you’re not living authentically and when you have unrealistic
expectations of yourself and others.
“If you set realistic expectations for yourself and own all of your traits
and embrace that life has two sides, your defences will break down,”
says Demartini. “When you finally appreciate that both sides of life
support and challenge you, your defences dissolve away.”
Accepting all parts of herself — including the old bits — and
changing her expectations was very confronting for author and
Ambassador for Ageing Disgracefully Penelope Whiteley. Once a young,
beautiful and successful actress and music producer, Whiteley admits
that unblocking her defences about getting older was the hardest thing
she’s ever had to do.
“Getting old terrified me,” Whiteley says. “I’d watched my mum suffer
with dementia and I lived in fear that I would end up the same way.
So when I woke up one day and looked in the mirror and saw someone
who was old, it scared the hell out of me!
“But what really scared me was that I realised I’d lost myself.”
Like so many of us with old defensive patterns, what we fear most
80 | WellBeing Personal Development
Amy Taylor-Kabbaz is a broadcaster and freelance writer with a passion for
social issues. She currently writes a weekly blog The Mummy Monologues,
on the trials and triumphs of motherhood, for the ABC website in Adelaide.
www.abc.net.au/adelaide
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Change your expectations
Unblocking your defences
Once you’ve discovered what your defences are
and how they are holding you back from true personal
development, Demartini says the best thing you can do to keep
them at bay is to start each and every day the right way.
“The wisest thing for you to do is to sit down and identify your
agenda for the day, because if you don’t identify your highest priorities,
then you’ll fill your day with low-priority things,” he says.
“If you don’t fill your day with things that inspire you and things that
are most important to you, it will fill up with the opposite. If you don’t
plant a flower in a garden, it will fill up with weeds. It’s the same thing
with your day: if you don’t start your day with an agenda, with a priority
list of things that are really important to you, then it’s going to fill up
with everything else — and everybody else.
“What’s going to happen? You’ll get defensive, because you’re too
busy doing everything everyone else wants you to do, and you will
lose yourself.”
The key to breaking your defences is learning who you really are and
how to love all of yourself: “Everyone must know that no matter what
you’ve done or not done, you are all ultimately worthy of love. Once you
accept this, you will know who you are and what your values are. Then
you can set your priorities and stick to them, delegate lower-priority
things if possible and be free to be an inspired person.”
WellBeing Personal Development | 81