Unlearning Inner Child Self-Protection Strategies for Deeper Connection and Vulnerability
If we want more Intimacy and connection with others, it requires vulnerability. We all have ways that we protect ourselves from potential rejection, pain, and vulnerability. Many of these self-protection strategies are deeply subconscious and picked up in childhood as ways we had to adapt and survive in our life context. But in adulthood they become ways we distance from ourselves, each other, and the world at large. In this episode, I discuss the 11 self- protection strategies outlined by psychologist Stefanie Stahl in her book The Child In You. When we are aware of which self-protection strategies we tend to use most often, we can actively chose differently and cultivate more connection in our lives.
“Either we will repress our thoughts, feelings, and beliefs, or we will project our own lenses and needs and feelings onto other people. So projection and repression are the two dominant self-protection strategies. Repression is really when we push down our feelings of fear, anger, or helplessness, and we deny our own reality. Projection is when we respond to other people from a place of either inferiority or a place of superiority based on our projection of our past experiences onto them.”
What You’ll learn in this episode:
Projection and repression: the two ways we distance ourselves to avoid pain
11 self-protective strategies that our inner child uses to try to stay safe
ways to heal and become more aware of each strategy
“We go to great lengths to prevent others from realizing how inadequate we truly feel.”
DEPTH Work - A Holistic Mental Health Podcast
This is a space for those who love to dive into the underbelly, to revel in the mystery, question assumptions about what is normal, play in the both/and, and honor the wide range of human emotions.
As a complex trauma survivor, holistic counsellor and co-founder of a mental health institute, I learned that there is immense wisdom in our pain and what we call crazy is just what we are yet not willing to understand and explore. Let’s dive in!
Research:
The Child In You by Stephanie Stahl: https://stefaniestahl.com/books
GROUNDING PRACTICES:
FOR ALLEVIATING FEAR, ANXIETY & DISSOCIATION
12 SIMPLE GROUNDING PRACTICES TO HELP YOU COME BACK TO YOUR BODY
