Do You Know Our Most Common Defense Mechanisms?

Each of us, just all of us, has covered ourselves with layers to protect our dignity, integrity and physical health. These layers, called defense mechanisms in psychology, are magical because they seem to protect us from being hurt. But the truth is that the threat most often, and in some cases even the damage, cannot be counteracted as easily as it seems in the beginning. In other words, these strategies tend not to be as effective as first thought.

We sometimes cover our ears very hard because we do not want to listen to the truth that we consider painful. The problem is that this becomes something real. It ends with us covering “the ears of our souls.” We simply do not want to listen to what we do not want to listen to. It hurts me so much that I prefer to live in uncertainty. A very dangerous uncertainty.

The problem is that living in ignorance is also a punishment. For what we deny takes over. It will repeat itself over and over again until we accept it. And this vad is what Carl Gustav Jung meant:

It seems that life is never unaware of our existence. It will repeatedly present us with situations that we try to avoid in order to make us confront and accept them.

Defense mechanisms protect us from painful truths

Defense mechanisms exist to protect us from these truths, which hurt to listen to. These truths damage our egos, reduce our self-love and completely destroy our self-concepts. Few people consider it comfortable to accept something related to themselves that they hate. Some of them themselves that they would not acknowledge or accept if they were treated with their own reflection.

For example, there are some people who simply assume that their partner wants other people. This makes them furious. In fact, they will not hesitate to throw this out in front of their partner, even though it is really they themselves who want other people. It is therefore their own desire that they project on their partner.

Acknowledging that we want other people, when we are the ones who are jealous, is a truth that can be both painful and embarrassing. Accepting it implies acknowledging that the thing you were afraid to see in others was actually something you do yourself. So the person who does this “abominable” thing is really himself.

Projection, how to paint a picture of someone else when it’s really about oneself

So we come to a point where we have to see everything clearly to really feel one way or another. If we do not realize what is happening to us, we will spend our entire lives seeing and experiencing this in someone else. We will see what we hate in the other person. And in this clear way we will become strict judges, who lack any form of empathy with the victim.

This defense mechanism, which in some way protects the integrity of our self-concept, is called “projection”. It is one of the most widely used mechanisms. Through this we will “project” what we hate about ourselves onto other people. The anxiety that had been produced by seeing this quality in ourselves is reduced to seeing it in another person instead.

The more we project outwards, the more blind we become inwards. The more of MYSELF I throw at the world, the more blurred I become, and I lose my power of action more and more. Instead, we should slowly but surely work to retake all the arrows we shoot out. Do so and you will surely regain authenticity, honesty and awareness.

Denial, how to cover everything you do not want to see

Projection is linked to denial. Through denial, we cover something we do not want to see. We are putting holes in that stream of truths that we must accept. We do not want to see the truth, or even smell it. Reality and truth are sent far away to a magical world where we leave everything we do not want to see or handle.

Denial, for example, is one of the phases that a grieving person goes through. Whether it is a breakup, a death or a drastic change in life… Denial is a defense mechanism against anxiety and pain.

But life is also pain… and we already know that we can move forward by accepting this pain. Our defenses are often there to help us, but we must free ourselves from them if we want to live up to our full potential, and be loyal to who we really are.