Usually our protection mechanisms maintain us from absolutely understanding ourselves and from coping with tough conditions in methods which are wholesome and really therapeutic. And as Muñoz factors out, the disconnect between what we’re acknowledging and what we’re truly experiencing can create emotions of stress, each emotionally and bodily, that will trigger even extra discomfort than if we truly faces these emotions head on.
As a substitute, Muñoz recommends taking the time to know your protection mechanisms and the way they’re or aren’t serving you. “It may be useful to work with an expert who may also help us enhance our consciousness of our defenses,” Muñoz suggests. “The extra conscious you turn into of your defenses, the extra you’ve gotten a option to do one thing else relatively than unconsciously utilizing them.”
She gives some examples: “If you happen to’re a girl who cries as a substitute of connecting together with her anger, for instance, you may start to follow experiencing your anger immediately and studying to be extra assertive. If you happen to’re a person who realizes that you just are likely to blanket your grief and different feelings with anger, you may study to make room for a spread of emotions and be weak to this expertise. In each of those examples, decreasing your reflexive use of a protection may also help you perceive your self higher and forge safer, extra trusting, intimate relationships.”
There are various methods to develop higher self-awareness. Then, from that place of consciousness, you may transfer into studying new, more healthy methods of coping with stress relatively than counting on unproductive protection mechanisms.
