Q & A: "Aren't Some Emotional Walls Appropriate to Keep Up?"

 (Question from Kerry, an NLP TimeLine client)

Kerry:  When is it appropriate to have my emotional walls up that protect me from being hurt by other people, and when is it appropriate to have them down?  I'm afraid I'm either not going to be able to make that distinction, or if I work through things and become more emotionally vulnerable, I'm afraid I won't be able to have the walls up when I need them, and I'll end up being hurt or taken advantage of.

Jane:  When you put the walls up you are putting yourself outside of where you can be in communication with other people, so in a sense you could say you are protecting yourself because you're not being present. But your emotional walls are not actually protecting you, because they are not based in reality. They are based on the idea that people have the power to emotionally hurt you if they can get to you.  The pain that could potentially be elicited in you by other people is already in you.  If it weren't, no one could bring it up in you. 

You are holding in place a distorted relationship with other people, based on limiting decisions you have made. What you are doing by keeping the walls up is reinforcing that distorted perception of reality, because you never find out what is actually true.  This is not helping you because in that state you can't make the distinction between what's really happening, and your unconscious misinterpretations.  It's not a way of coming into your power.  It's a way of abdicating. The only real safety is to be present in the here-and-now and therefore present to what's happening, which is where life actually does work. 

Kerry:  If I'm going to help someone start a business, they have to have a good tax lawyer and a good attorney. I see those as walls. 

Jane:It they are good attorneys, it's because they are able to come into reality and clearly see situations and understand what the right procedure is to get a positive outcome.  The fact that you are saying this in relation to having walls up or down is because you have a limiting decision in that area.  Before you made a limiting decision related to seeing other people as having power over you or being your enemy, the concept of walls was not a distinction you made.  There was no need to think in terms of having a wall up or down because there was nothing you had to defend yourself against.  But when you made the limiting decision that you needed defending, then your focus, rather than directly engaging in life, switched to "Do I need to defend myself in this situation or not?" Your focus became building an effective defense system, which inherently puts you in an adversarial position with others.  That is what people do when they make limiting decisions.  That's how it works.

When we clear the limiting decision, it won't leave you undefended and powerless.  It will put you in your power.

© 2011 Jane Ilene Cohen