The Balance Myth

Lay down your defences; you have nothing to defend. 

And it's not that you have nothing, and that's why you have nothing to defend. No. You are everything; you are made up of everything, you contain multitudes… you have much, and you are much. 

You have nothing to defend because your value and the validity of your life are not up for question. There is no war for your soul. HERE THAT AGAIN: 

There. 
Is. 
No. 
War. 
For. 
Your. 
Soul. 

I know that seems wild, because sometimes it does feel like you're being attacked, and I don't even mean that in a super religious way, as if there is a divine enemy out to get you - Although, I do know that many of us were taught to believe the opposite; that we have an enemy out to get us, that are inherently drawn to destruction and that keeping ourselves on the straight and narrow (yawn), holy and righteous IS the war we fight every day. I don’t believe that anymore - No, sometimes life just feels like it asks a lot of you, like it asks you to explain why things are the way they are… why you are the way you are… 

And we fall over the words like we fall over untied shoelaces, trying to find ones that will make us stand tall against the onslaught of all that seems to rise up against us

But friend… what IS against you? Who are you defending yourself to? 

Surely not God, no. God does not need you to defend yourself to them. If Divine Energy knows all and is in all and is in you, and if by God all things take their form and find their expression, then The Ground Of Being doesn't need you to defend what you have organically become at the work of their energies. In the eternal space, on a foundational level, you are fully seen, fully known, and fully accepted. As you are. Including whatever it is you feel you need to defend yourself about. 

So is it your family, then? Or your friends? Your partner? Or perhaps it's a culture of success and image, education and achievement? Maybe you feel as though you need to defend your grief or your lack of trust or even your joy and the wild whimsy you give yourself to from time to time?

If you're anything like me, when I peak underneath all the defensiveness, the person I'm trying to convince the most about why I am the way that I am, why things are the way they are, why I am here as I am here is…

Myself. 

Listen, something I know about defensiveness: it never works. It never provides the relief you think it will. It never changes anyone's mind, least of all your own. 

Audre Lorde said: 

"Guilt and defensiveness are bricks in a wall against which we all flounder; they serve none of our futures."  

Defensiveness only strengthens the wall between yourself and your freedom. 

You will not find your rhythm in defensive words or acts or liturgies. It is not a free-flowing dance. Defensiveness is stiff and sharp, clenched and afraid. It wraps around you and protects you only from your own growth, from the sound of the beat of your life wanting to dance its way through time. 

Jesus said: 

"Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you…"

So when you feel guilt or shame about who you are or what you have done, or something that's happened to you or something that you were/are a part of - whatever the source may be - resist the urge to defend yourself, and instead lean into the music of grace. It takes trust - have faith that your value lies in a realm beyond right and wrong. It takes courage - vulnerability is an act of bravery and the gateway to growth. Allow yourself the room to practice, learn, and become… you do not even have to defend your right to do that. 

REMEMBER: Defensiveness only strengthens the walls between yourself and your freedom. Resist the urge to defend, and lean into grace instead. 

Liz xo