A question about navigating openness and self-protection, and how childhood experiences can create confusion around guarding the heart versus guarding the body.
A question about navigating openness and self-protection, and how childhood experiences can create confusion around guarding the heart versus guarding the body.
What you say about nothing needing to be guarded, nothing needing to be protected, is a good reminder in this new arena that is appearing.
I didn't say nothing needs to be protected. What I said is that which the energetic closeness is trying to protect does not need to be protected. But the body does need to be protected.
Yes. That's a good clarification. It's very nuanced.
The heart does not need to be protected. The body does.
Distinguishing heart from body
In that situation, if men are approaching you and you have a strong sense that your body is not at risk, that they're not coming with danger at that level, but you're afraid of the intimacy: you're expressing something that might be inviting them, but that energetic closeness is not necessary. You can respond to whatever level of engagement or intimacy you're wanting, but without the need to be guarded energetically. And even if there is an approach that doesn't feel safe at the body level, you can respond more energetically with a "no" there, with whatever is necessary. But at the heart-energetic level, there is no need for being closed, for protecting.
Do you have any guidance on things to try?
What I'm describing is the practice. For example, if you're in a dance and you evaluate that it's a safe enough place, that the men approaching you are safe enough, that there isn't a danger to your body or your person, then you don't need to guard your heart. Of course, you can only read moment by moment: which men, how they approach you. As a woman, you always need to be attuned to men who have bad intentions. That's just how it is. But you do need to be attuned to any potential bad intentions or intentions that are not what you are wanting.
The roots of confusion
Something really intense is moving in me right now. I also mentioned this in the message I sent you. I'm only bringing it up because it's present with me right now. I can't connect to why the guarding of both body and heart has happened in the past, or where it started. But what is coming right now is this sense, and it's fully alive: that if something wrong were to happen, it was my fault, that I let it happen.
You're opening up a place where there's a lot of pain and a lot of confusion, because of how a young mind interprets a situation. It's very normal, because of the situations you were in as a child. All of this is very naturally what would be happening because of that. I'm speaking vaguely for your own privacy. The confusion there is: what is your doing, what is your responsibility, what can you do, what can you not, what to guard, what you can't guard.
Exactly. It's not only what is my responsibility towards me and towards what I want to allow or not allow, but what is my responsibility towards what I'm inviting from the other or in the other. It gets very confusing, and I think that's where it comes from.
Yes, because it's overload. "I don't know what to do, so just in case, shut down." And that was necessary. There's even at the heart level, it was necessary. Because what I'm saying about the heart not needing to be protected: that's true after a certain age.
A child's heart does need protection
Right. At the beginning, the heart does want to be protected, and does deserve to be protected.
A child's heart cannot take, and I'm not talking about the biological heart, it's not ready to be open to everything. So that closing is a needed protection: to preserve the innocence, to preserve the lovingness, to preserve that sweetness. Which you've done really well, very successfully.
It was a miracle that I protected anything.
You did. And it was. Well, as Osho said, always plan for a miracle. You had a good plan there.
What is really beautiful is that this is not the first time I'm aware of this, but it's just so alive right now. It's so beautiful from here, because just sitting with it from here feels like a celebration. Something did get protected, and it's time to let it free now. It survived.
Your heart, your sweetness, your innocence, your openness, your vulnerability: all of that is alive and well. And that was a miracle. As you deepen in more intimacy with this, it will become more clear. The confusion that's unnecessary around that relationship with men is going to become more clear, as a lot of the coping ideas you've had become unnecessary.
Thank you.
You're welcome.