Recently on a trip to Mexico, I was in a van when all of a sudden the car in front of us went bolting across the road. With the tires screeching and smoking, the car landed upside down in a ditch. In a matter of seconds, there were dozens of people attending to the overturned car and its two occupants. After the couple had been rescued, we flipped the car back onto its wheels and the crowd dispersed as quickly as it had gathered. Mission accomplished no big deal. Right?
The crowd here is like the ego mind and all its voices. These are your defense mechanisms. They come in and rescue you from the emotional pain of a situation stating “Everything is fine now–move along, it really isn’t that bad.” Is your mind keeping you from seeing you are in a ditch?
Defense mechanisms are used to provide a safe haven from situations that we don’t want to deal with. Denial, minimizing, and rationalizing are a few ways the ego mind protects itself. It’s a tricky game we play when we attempt to free our mind. We must continually ask ourselves, “Am I in denial? Am I rationalizing? Am I minimizing my situation? Do I think that everything is okay or am I in a ditch upside down and bleeding?”
A wonderful example of denial is in the comedy Monty Python and the Holy Grail. King Arthur is in a sword fight with the Black Knight, a skilled soldier assigned to guard a bridge. The king attempts to cross, but the Knight says “None shall pass.” King Arthur insists and a sword fight ensues. A few seconds later, the king severs the Black Knight’s arm. Afterward, Arthur acknowledges his worthy opponent and asks him to step aside. But the knight will not accept defeat and denies that his arm has even been cut off. In a confrontational tone, the knight says, “Tis but a scratch, I’ve had worse.” The fight continues and Arthur removes the knight’s other arm. But instead of surrendering, the knight wants to continue the battle. In disbelief, Arthur exclaims, “You haven’t got any arms left.” In complete denial, the knight says, “Of course I have.” It’s quite an amusing and gruesome scene, but it makes the point that we may want to look at our lives more closely to determine if we’re avoiding emotional pain through our defense mechanisms.
Whenever you are in a situation where you have an emotional reaction and your mind brushes it off as “not that bad,”–consider that perhaps it is! People who live in the neighborhood of “not that bad” are in a dangerous part of town. If your ego mind is minimizing and telling you that your life is “not that bad,” you won’t have a compelling reason to change and your life will continue to be–“not that bad.”
Emotional pain is a great motivator for change, but our ego mind works hard to blind us to our pain. Sometimes we need to feel that pain in order to inspire us to take those actions which will ultimately create healthier outcomes. If you could be aware of what your mind is doing and experience the painful consequences of your behavior, now and in the future, think of what a beautiful reality you could create!
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