Everyday Transformation Generators

Defensive strategy: Minimizing feelings

I don’t care!

Essence quality: Transform: Simple Truth

I’m realizing I do care and yet I try to shut down my feelings so I don’t feel so vulnerable. I forget I can transform my vulnerabilities back into my Essence.

Defensive strategy: Minimizing feelings

I said I was sorry! Why do you keep bringing up the past?! When are you going to move on?

Essence quality: Regulate emotions and nervous system

Simple Truth: Your feelings are valid. I know I made some fear-based choices in the past and we’re both learning to trust my ability to make choices now. 

Defensive strategy: Maximizing feelings

You never try to understand my feelings! You always disregard my experience! You don’t care about anything but yourself!

Essence quality:Validation

Simple Truth: Your feelings matter to me. When they get bigger than I let mine get I can get overwhelmed and want to run away. I’m realizing we’ve both been trained to deal with our feelings differently than the other. That can make us untrusting of how each other conveys their feelings.

Defensive strategy: Maximizing feelings

(First thing you say when your partner tells you they lost their job.) “What am I going to do? I now have to be the sole provider!”

Essence quality: Validation 

(To Self) I’m realizing we lose our connection to our empathy for others when our feelings blow up and we don’t remember to regulate them right back into settled.

Defensive strategy: Being cynical

I’m not capable of greatness like I see others doing.

Essence quality: Self-Trust

Simple Truth: My fear-based version has a hard time learning new things AND my Essencey version learns and grows from my inherent moment-to-moment creativity and curiosity.

Defensive strategy: Being cynical

People don’t really care about anything but themselves.

Essence quality: Compassion

Simple Truth: The only reason people shut down their caring is due to their own powerlessness beliefs and fears. It can feel very vulnerable to care when others aren’t. It’s time to infuse my compassion with some power!

Defensive strategy: Splitting

I love you when you make me feel comfortable. I hate you when you make me uncomfortable.

Essence quality: Inner Truth

Simple Truth: I’m interested in learning how to transform my uncomfortableness myself so I don’t need others to make me comfortable. I want to be loving of other people’s fears. 

Defensive strategy: Splitting

I love you when you see things and believe things the same way I do. I hate you and you can’t be trusted when you see things and believe things differently than me. 

Essence quality: Both/And

Simple Truth: I love you when you believe like me AND I’m learning to soothe my fears about you believing and perceiving differently than me so we can both be authentic.

Defensive strategy: Confusing

I would never say anything like that! (When you did during the heat of an argument.)

Essence quality: Forgiveness

Simple Truth: When I’m in my own powerlessness beliefs I can justify doing harm because I’m convincing myself I’m the victim here.

Defensive strategy: Confusing

Well, you did this 6 months ago! And two years ago you called me a horrible person. Just yesterday you said you would take out the trash and you see it there don’t you!

Essence quality: Clarifying

Simple Truth: When I get afraid that you’re seeing me as wrong or a bad person, my mind starts bringing up to me all the ways you’re wrong or a bad person. I want to stay focused on your wrongness and you want to stay focused on my wrongness. 

Defensive strategy: Cold-hearting

I’m not going to give you my affection right now because I want you to know you did something wrong.

Essence quality: Mindfulness

Simple Truth: I’m realizing I’m cutting off my caring for you right now because I’ve been taught that cutting off my caring makes me feel less vulnerable right when I’m actually feeling vulnerable.

Defensive strategy: Cold-hearting

Leave me alone! Can’t you tell I’m stressed! Geez! Who doesn’t have any empathy now!

Essence quality: Courage: Simple Truth

I’m scared to tell you this but when I get stressed I’m noticing I can’t think about anyone else’s experience but my own. I’d like to teach myself to be with my stress differently so it doesn’t consume me.

Defensive strategy: Disengaging

I will not talk to you about this until you can come to your senses!

Essence quality: Revealing: Simple Truth

I know we both want to be heard and understood. I know when I’m stuck trying to be right my mind is seeing things through either/ors instead of both/ands. 

Defensive strategy: Disengaging

(stopping participating and leaving things incomplete)

Essence quality: Engaging: Simple Truth

Let’s step out of making each other right or wrong and focus on a way we both can get what we want here? 

Defensive strategy: Dreading

I can’t wait until this is over. I can’t relax until it’s over.

Essence quality: Presence: Simple Truth

All I need to do is show up, connect to my Essence qualities inside and let them flow through me.

Defensive strategy: Dreading

(It’s Sunday night and you’re dreading going to work tomorrow because of the fear of how you’re being perceived or of the unknowns you’ll face.)

Essence quality: Comfort

Simple Truth: I know we were taught to be afraid of unknowns instead of recognizing them as a moment to get to use our amazing Essence qualities in action.

Defensive strategy: Self-righteous-ing

I told you so! (Whether we say it out loud or not.)

Essence quality: Validation

Simple Truth: Shoot Bud, you didn’t get the results you wanted there at all. What will you do differently to get the results you want?

Defensive strategy: Self-righteous-ing

My beliefs (political, religious, medical, justice, or educational) are better than yours.

Essence quality: Validation 

Simple Truth: Yes we were trained to feel superior by comparing ourselves with others instead of feeling our value from our unique use of our Essencey resources inside. 

Defensive strategy: Cheating 

If no one saw it, it didn’t happen. What happens in Vegas…

Essence quality: Integrity 

Simple Truth: I like the empowered feeling I feel inside when I do what I say I’m going to do and I don’t do what I say I’m not going to do.

Defensive strategy: Cheating 

This is the only way I can get my needs met.

Essence quality: Wisdom 

Simple Truth: I want to use my internal wisdom to get my needs met and feel the worthiness of my needs and not transact for my need to feel value from others. 

Defensive strategy: Justifying 

I had to do it or someone else would. You made me do this. You can’t be trusted to make your own choices.

Essence quality: Kindness 

Simple Truth: I choose to be kind as the way to change hearts and minds, especially when others can’t be kind. Kindness gets certain results and justifying my retaliations gets certain results. Which do I want?

Defensive strategy: Justifying

I’m the victim here so I deserve to retaliate by any means necessary even if that means acting outside my core values.

Essence quality: I’m realizing the powerlessness fear of not trusting our Essence qualities to do the job drives justifications.

Defensive strategy: Deadening 

I can’t experience joy right now because this or that or the other is happening.

Essence quality: Aliveness 

Simple Truth: This thing that I don’t want is happening. How do I face it from my Essence?

Defensive strategy: Deadening

Don’t think about it. Let’s think about something else. It is what it is.

Essence quality: Completion

I’m putting together how we could complete the feeling cycle we’re currently having by stepping next to our feelings and observing them trigger, flourish, and settle, so our feelings make clear what we want to create. (Instead of avoid)

Defensive strategy: Detaching 

It’s not my problem, it’s your issue.

Essence quality: Facing 

Simple Truth: I’m realizing I can require self-reflection in others by validating their need or want. (That’s happening underneath the problem.)

Defensive strategy: Detaching

I’m not going to “try on” anything other than what I currently believe because it makes me feel uncomfortable inside.

Essence quality: Conviction

I’m integrating that when I detach from what I don’t want, I lose my connection with my conviction about creating what I do want.

Defensive strategy: Back-stabbing 

I know right, she is such a selfish bitch! Let’s not ask her over.

Essence quality: Authenticity 

Simple Truth: I’m realizing I like to show my friendship to others by validating them without making others wrong.

Defensive strategy: Back-stabbing

(I’m going to show interest in you and ask you questions about yourself so I can use these things against you with others. You’re a sucker for trusting me.)

Essence quality: Discernment

I’m realizing I enjoy using my skills to discern the truth from my own and other people’s who’s-right-or-who’s-wrong drama. I’m remembering the times that I caused drama before I expanded my own awareness. This gives me compassion for those still stuck in their fears that cause drama they won’t take responsibility for. 

Defensive strategy: Closed-Mindedness 

You believe differently than me so you are being deceived. I know the facts!

Essence quality: Openness 

Simple Truth: I’m putting together how I don’t feel relaxed inside when I’m closed-minded. My powerlessness fears are convincing me there is only one right way and I have it.

Defensive strategy: Closed-Mindedness

(Listening only for how someone is wrong)

Essence quality: Compassion

(Listening for how to understand the powerlessness fears that are causing others to harm each other so I can validate the unmet need.) Maybe you’ve learned that the only way to be right is by making others wrong. I wonder how rightness differs from the truth here?

Defensive strategy: Contracting 

I have to limit myself or others in order to feel in control and not vulnerable to threats.

Essence quality: Expanding: Simple Truth 

I’m noticing I’m not creating what I want in the moment when I contract and control. I’m stuck in either/ors and right-or-wrong perspective taking which knocks me out of my Essence qualities.

Defensive strategy: Contracting

Contracting into protection mode is the only way to feel safe from attacks by others.

Essence quality: Truth-ing

I’m connecting the dots here that tapping into my inner truth, that doesn’t need to make anyone or anything right or wrong, allows myself and others to feel safe to show up authentically.

Defensive strategy: Stubbornness 

I refuse to admit I’m ever wrong because I’m usually right.

Essence quality: Flexibility 

Simple Truth: I’m integrating how much I hate it when other’s rightness makes me feel wrong, so I’m pushing away the people I want to connect with when I try to be right.

Defensive strategy: Stubbornness

(Being right is the way to feel powerful)

Essence quality: Power

I’m realizing my inherent truth and goodness of my Essencey resources inside feel much more powerful than being right. I also notice people want to be around me more when I’m speaking truth instead of trying to be right. Being right is a very lonely place.

Defensive strategy: Dissociating 

It’s not safe for me to show up and be fully me here so I need to freeze my goodness so it can’t be harmed.

Essence quality: Power

Simple Truth: I’d like to teach myself how to feel powerful inside right when other’s defensive strategies are attempting to take my power away.

Defensive strategy: Dissociating

(Disconnecting my mind from my body by intellectualizing or constantly thinking or worrying.)

Essence quality: Embodiment

I’m learning to honor my body’s intelligence by having my mind notice how my body responds to what I or someone else is expressing. If my body is calm, supercool. If my body is bracing, tense, or tightening, I validate that I’m afraid and get curious about what powerlessness belief might have been activated within me.

Defensive strategy: Disapproving

Why would you do it like that?! Why didn’t you say it this way?!

Essence quality: Understanding

Simple Truth: Oh my goodness Bud, seems like you’re trying to figure out how to trust your choices. What are you learning?

Defensive strategy: Disapproving

(Giving others the look)

Essence quality: Validation

I’m realizing our disapproval activates others defensive strategies and not their Essence so we get to battle with their defensive strategies when we give the look. I’m remembering we felt defensive as a child when our caretakers gave us the look.

Defensive strategy: Resenting

They shouldn’t have treated me that way. I am never going to talk to them again.

Essence quality: Repairing

Simple Truth: I’m realizing they weren’t in touch with their Essence when they did that and contracting into resentment is a pseudo-power and not me in Essence.

Defensive strategy: Resenting

Nobody ever appreciates me the way I need to be appreciated! They just take and take and take.

Essence quality: Asserting

I’m realizing resentments disconnect me from my Essence qualities inside. I can get clear within myself whether I want to do this thing as an action from my Essence or to feel value by transacting for my value by gleaning appreciations from others.

Defensive strategy: Giving up

I can’t. It’s too hard. You’re better at this than I am, will you do it?

Essence quality: Ingenuity

That didn’t work the way I thought it would, what could I learn so I can figure this out from my inherent creativity?!

Defensive strategy: Giving up

Why can’t things just be easy for once. If I had what it takes things would happen easily for me.

Essence quality: Confidence

I’m realizing the only reason I feel like giving up is because of my powerlessness fears that I’m not good enough. These fears are not the truth about me. They are how I was treated as a child by my caretaker’s defensive strategies.

Defensive strategy: Constricting

Tightening up, bracing, and limiting ourselves are the only way to stay safe.

Essence quality: Expanding

I’m realizing we need to teach ourselves how to feel safe, free from perceived threats, because we constrict when we perceive threats. To transform our perceived threats, we can validate the training we received from our parent’s defensive strategies and how their defensive strategies definitely could not see the truth about us.

Defensive strategy: Constricting

I can’t feel joy right now while the world is going to squat!

Essence quality: Equanimity 

I’m realizing teaching myself how to balance my mind and body during good times and bad times allows me access to my abundant Essence quality resources inside. I’m realizing I feel safer in this crazy world of people making fear-based choices when I’m feeling resources inside instead of stressed.

Defensive strategy: Being Curt

I don’t want to hear it. Shut up. Fine! Whatever…

Essence quality: Equality 

Instead of demanding or waiting for equality I can assert for it. It sounds like you want me to change so you don’t have to. Let’s both figure out what we can do differently to work this out.

Defensive strategy: Being Curt

(Having a tone in your voice and using fewer words than are necessary for the moment.)

Essence quality: Facilitating

I’m realizing I feel better, more powerful and creative, about myself and my conflicts when I creatively resolve them instead of justifying my defensive strategies.

Defensive strategy: Hoarding

I have to hold onto things because there’s never enough of what I need available.

Essence quality: Abundance

I’m realizing we only see a lack of resources externally when we can’t feel our Essence resources internally.

Defensive strategy: Hoarding

(Consider how we hoard attention, energy, time, love, or any other resources)

Essence quality:

I’m realizing when we feel a compulsion to hoard it’s because we are afraid of making a mistake or doing it wrong. I’d like to teach us how to make mistakes without it meaning our sense of self is wrong—unworthy, unloved, or unwanted.

Defensive strategy: Harshness

You got what you deserved! When are you ever going to learn!

Essence quality: Compassionately requiring Self-reflection

Whoooowie my friend, getting those results is brutal. I wish you didn’t have to experience that. What did you learn? 

Defensive strategy: Harshness

How could they be so stupid!!! People don’t think. They have no discipline. They’re such losers.

Essence quality: Curiosity

I wonder if there is ever a time when people act in stupid ways that isn’t driven by their own trained-in fears?

Defensive strategy: Settling

It’s too scary to be alone. I have to stay in this relationship because I would never forgive myself if I made the wrong choice.

Essence quality: Courage

I am afraid to be alone AND I can face my fears by tapping into my inner courage so I can trust my choices that emerge from my inner truth.

Defensive strategy: Settling

If I show up fully in my Essence I could get rejected or abandoned so I will phone myself in.

Essence quality: Validating

I know our Essence often got rejected/abandoned by our parents defensive strategies because their defensive strategies could not see us through their own fears.

Defensive strategy: Numbing

(Doom scrolling for hours instead of doing what I said I wanted to do.)

Essence quality: Engaging

I’m realizing I miss getting to feel my Essence qualities like my integrity, discipline, power, determination, and resilience when I avoid doing hard things.

Defensive strategy: Numbing

(Eating, drinking, gambling or pursuing something beyond what I know is balanced and in my control.)

Essence quality: Balancing

I’m realizing every choice I make to go for “more” instead of what I told myself was what I wanted to do, is driven by my fears and the defensive strategies that try to keep me out of my fears.

Defensive strategy: Entitlement

(In order to feel my value I have to experience more value than others.)

Essence quality: Supporting 

I’m realizing the value I feel from lifting myself AND others up is satisfying and fulfilling while needing to feel special while taking from others feels limiting and not very creative.

Defensive strategy: Entitlement

People must really like what I have to say because they are just listening to me talk.

Essence quality: Wonder

I wonder how I could express myself from my authentic Essence instead of the part of me that’s split between feeling unworthy of attention and demanding attention? What would I want others to know about my Essence?

Defensive strategy: Hindering

I need to get this person to stop making me so uncomfortable inside. I’m not going to validate their experience because they are not validating mine.

Essence quality: Revealing

Validations transform uncomfortableness inside of me back into my authenticity because what makes me uncomfortable is my own fears, not what they are doing “to me.”

Defensive strategy: Hindering 

You can’t do that!

Essence quality: Personal Power

I know you want to feel your power to make your own choices. Is there a way you can do that that works for all of us instead of just you?

Defensive strategy: Lack of Appreciation

I can’t appreciate you until you do something right!

Essence quality: Appreciation

I know Appreciations transform stuckness while criticisms invoke stuckness.

Defensive strategy: Lack of Appreciation

Inner Critic: Why do we keep giving so much to others when they don’t appreciate us back!

Essence quality: Appreciation

I’m choosing this action to help myself AND others to experience the goodness of my generosity, thoughtfulness, and kindness, not to get anything in return. (If we notice that someone is not reciprocating consistently we can express that to them compassionately or move on.)

Defensive strategy: Disconnecting

(If anyone gets too close to me they will see that I am flawed, so I have to keep others at arm’s length.

 Essence quality: Connecting

I can connect more deeply with myself when I transform my powerlessness fears and their defensive strategies by validating the difference between the training we received and the truth about us. (Validation Yes we were trained to believe that we are flawed because we misinterpreted our parent’s defensive strategies as the truth. Notice how your inner body responds.)

Defensive strategy: Disconnecting

(Talking without checking in with your inner body state can leave you not realizing you’re talking from a Defensive strategy instead of Essence. This is disconnected expression.) 

Essence quality: Attunement

How can I take a moment to tap into my inner loving presence so I can feel my love internally emerging and then say I love you from the openness and warmth I feel inside?

Defensive strategy: Abusing

(Acting out my Fighty anger before I have transformed it into authentic anger.)

Essence quality: Transformation

I’m realizing my fighty anger needs to make someone or something wrong and my authentic anger expresses Simple Truths without the wrongness or rightness needed. Simple Truth I’m putting together how humans only abuse each other when they are afraid (feeling not good enough, or uncared about) and don’t know it. 

Defensive strategy: Abusing

(Convincing myself that I have to do harm because harm was done to me.)

Essence quality: Adaptability

Since harm requires defensive strategies to flare up instead of self-reflection, I am going against my own desire for the other person to self-reflect.

Defensive strategy: Interfering 

(I have to insert my opinion here or I won’t be heard and respected.)

Essence quality: Value 

I’m realizing my value comes from my experience and expression of my Essence qualities and not my opinions about events and facts.

Defensive strategy: Interfering

(Why can’t others see the right thing to do like I can?! I should point out the right thing to do. Offering solutions without validating the current experience.) 

Essence quality: Trust 

I’m connecting the dots how I can draw forward other’s Essence with my Essence (Compassion for current experience) and I can require others Essence to retreat inward if I use defensive strategies (opinions). 

Defensive strategy: Hiding 

(I need to stay small or invisible to be loved.)

Essence quality: Spaciousness

I’m putting together how I was trained to link being loved with playing smaller than I want to be. I’d like to teach us (present moment you and all the past versions of you that live inside of you) how to take up the space that we want to take up and know we’re loved at the same time.

Defensive strategy: Hiding 

I can only be my true self when I’m alone so I never get to relax completely around other people.

Essence quality: Dignifying

I’m realizing our Essence wasn’t validated so we haven’t known how to give it a valuable distinction. Our People Pleaser kicks in for social situations and drains us of our aliveness instead of generating our aliveness.

Defensive strategy: Shaming

No child, partner, family member, or group member of mine is going to act this way. (Severe disapproving to change behavior.)

Essence quality: Empowering

I’m integrating how shaming changes behavior immediately but leaves a lasting mark of powerlessness in myself and others. Defensive and reactive learning happens which will cause more stuckness in the future. If I invoke empowerment when myself or others make mistakes creative learning happens. Transformation happens!

Defensive strategy: Shaming

You shouldn’t have done that! You should have done this! (Imposes solutions from outside of us instead of inside of us.)

Essence quality: Accountability

I can see how you’re trying to do things differently and I appreciate the effort. Seems like you made a choice there that didn’t get you the results you wanted. What choice can still get you the results you want?

Defensive strategy: Pragmatism

(Showing caring by teaching the steps for a solution without conveying the softened feelings of caring.)

Essence quality: Evoking

You’re willingness, boldness, vulnerability and resilience are inspiring to all of us! Let’s figure this out together!

Defensive strategy: Pragmatism

Why don’t you just end it then?! Why don’t you just stop?!

Essence quality: Joining

As I tune into you I can tell you’re stuck between what you want to do and what you tell yourself you should do which causes you to make choices to try to get away from your overwhelming feelings by doing your go-to addiction.

Defensive strategy: Self-Conceit

(Your mind only showing you how you’re better than others so you don’t feel the not-good-enough that’s inside haunting you.)

Essence quality: Reframing

I’m realizing we can transform our not-good-enough by validating the difference between the training we received from our caretaker’s defensive strategies and the truth about us. WE can then feel our value from our Essencey resources inside and not from comparisons with others. 

Defensive strategy: Self-Conceit

(Your mind limiting your self-reflection to limit the feelings of vulnerability and intense discomfort inside.)

Essence quality: Humility

I’m realizing we were taught that self-reflection was dangerous and trying to be right about everything was safe. I’d like to teach us how to transform our vulnerability back into our empowered and authentic self. Validation Yes we were trained to believe that the way to feel good about ourselves was to be superior instead being of our Essence.

Defensive strategy: Being grandiose

I need to see myself as only good and prevent any feelings of feeling weak or less than or I won’t get the supply of energy I need from outside of me to know for sure that who I am is good.

Essence quality: Humbleness

I’m realizing inflating my self importance is directly related to how fearful I am that I am not important to anyone. I’d like to teach us to enjoy our Essencey resources inside instead of our being better than everyone else.

Defensive strategy: Being grandiose

(My mind only shows me the good things I do and not the harmful or inconsiderate things I do to keep me from feeling the shame of not mattering or feeling worthy that already resides inside of me.)

Essence quality: Self-Reflection

I’m realizing we learned to get our needs met by getting others to see our worth instead of feeling the unique value we have to offer the world FROM our Essence qualities inside, like empathy. I’m putting together how people get to see our inherent goodness when we convey empathy to others.

Defensive strategy: Over-Seriousness

(I can’t laugh at the unnecessary drama that my defensive strategies cause because I’m identified with my defensive strategies of People Pleaser, Protector, or Punisher.)

Essence quality: Playfulness

I’m integrating how to know the difference between my Essence qualities and my fear and defensive strategies allows me to dis-identify with my defensive strategies instead of defending them.

Defensive strategy: Over-Seriousness 

This problem needs to be solved with effort, logic, and analysis.

Essence quality: Assiduousness

This problem can be faced with great care, attention, and presence so I can feel my creative Essence qualities surprising me with solutions I can never think of when I’m too serious.

Defensive strategy: Enmeshing 

I have to do what my partner/boss wants or they will reject or abandon me.

Essence quality: Individuating

I’m realizing I can be myself and be loved. I’m putting together how our parent’s defensive strategies confused us about whether we can be loved being our whole selves.

Defensive strategy: Enmeshing

I can’t say what I want because I get too uncomfortable thinking they won’t like my choice.

Essence quality: Autonomy

I’d like to teach us (present moment me and all the past versions of me that were trained a certain way), how to enjoy making our choices by learning to listen to our inner truth instead of our abandonment fears.

Defensive strategy: Confounding

(When someone asks me to change my behavior, I perceive it as an attack on my character and start to bring up all the things they’ve ever done wrong so they start talking about that instead of me.)

Essence quality: Non-Attachment

I’m realizing I’m not my Defensive strategies so I can own them and offer more Essencey possibilities for the future to change me defensive behavior, especially if I want others to do the same. 

Defensive strategy: Confounding 

(Instead of just expressing a feeling like sadness, fear, or anger, I add the word “that.” I feel that you are being passive aggressive and then claim you’re not listening to my feelings!)

Essence quality: Taking Responsibility 

I’m realizing I can take responsibility for my own feelings instead of making my feelings the victim of what someone else “made me feel.” Nothing and no one can make me feel anything. It is the meanings I give to what’s happening that activates my feelings.

Defensive strategy: Collapsing 

I never get what I want easily. I just want to crawl into bed and hide.

Essence quality: Facing

I’m learning that I can teach myself to face hard things by first validating my collapsing energy as automatic and teaching my collapsing energy how to face what we don’t want from Essence so we can transform it instead of suffer from it.

Defensive strategy: Collapsing 

I’m overwhelmed because I have to work and do school and keep everybody happy.

Essence quality: Simplifying 

I’m realizing I can go inside and stand right next to my overwhelm and comfort and soothe it by validating how hard things are sometimes. Once I’ve settled my fears inside, I notice my mind can see things more simply.

Defensive strategy: Repeating 

(I don’t notice my own stuck repeating patterns of defensive strategies but I sure can notice and comment on everybody else’s!)

Essence quality: Noticing

I’m noticing that what I don’t notice about myself causes me to get stuck in deadening repeating patterns that destroy my love, kindness, flexibility, and creative solutions. Noticing my own defensive strategies and the fears that drive them helps me get unstuck in ways I never imagined possible before. 

Defensive strategy: Repeating

I’m so tired of this! If this doesn’t change I’m going to lose my mind! I can’t stand it any longer.

Essence quality: Self-Compassion

I’m connecting the dots about how my fighty anger and fighty frustration don’t transform the situation at all. I’m realizing when I get frustrated I need to hear a kind voice inside guiding me through the fighty-ness and back into my Essence qualities where I can remember I want to feel my power to transform situations instead of suffer from them.

Defensive strategy: Belittling

What is wrong with you?! Why do you have to be so pathetic and helpless?! So and so got a job but you can’t! Do something about it!

Essence quality: Validating

I know you tend to beat yourself up until you feel powerless to change the situation my friend, so you don’t need me piling it on. You’re going to need to develop some new skills from the inside out to feel more powerful and confident about your value and what you have to share. I want you to know I see the good in you. Are you willing to develop some skills?

Defensive strategy: Belittling 

How do all these people on Social Media feel so confident? I could never put myself out there like that. I don’t have anything special to say to the world.

Essence quality: Illuminating

I’m realizing my fears about myself as not being capable knock me out of my connection with my Essence qualities that allow me to feel capable. My Essence qualities allow me to feel resourced and ready for any moment. My fears erupt when I can’t feel my resources inside.

Defensive strategy: Assuming

Why should I listen to you when I already know what you’re going to say!!!

Essence quality: Creative Listening

I’m putting together how my assumptions don’t allow me to see anything new that’s happening so I miss the slim windows of potential transformation. If I listen to make someone wrong I’m as stuck in my defensive strategies as I’m trying to accuse them of. If I listen to validate the need or the feeling, I get to feel the power of compassion to transform another from stuck back into their Essence. It’s their Essence that I want when I make assumptions about their non-Essence.

Defensive strategy: Assuming 

You always get passive aggressive. So why would I tell you something if I know how you’re going to react?!

Essence quality: Pausing

Let me take a moment and calm my fears that the same thing is going to happen again. I notice when I go inside and stand right next to my fears that things are going to stay stuck. When I’m understanding toward my fears they trigger, flourish, and settle in seconds. Then I can see something new or do something new that my anxiety and fears cannot never imagine me doing. 

Defensive strategy: Externalizing 

(The only way to know who I am is by noting how other people and life in general treat me. I’m good when people treat me as good and I’m bad when bad things happen to me.)

Essence quality: Internalizing

I’m integrating that my Essence qualities are my inherent goodness. I feel like doing good in the world when I’m connected to these transformative resources inside of me. My value comes from within instead of without.

Defensive strategy: Externalizing 

I just need a break here. If I could get a break in this world, I could get back on track.

Essence quality: Taking Responsibility 

I’m realizing I feel insecure when I project my fears of being rejected onto others. I see others as dangerous and start treating them that way. I’m realizing others are rejecting my projections onto them and not me.

Defensive strategy: Guilting

Well you can do that but then I won’t be able to do this thing I want to do.

Essence quality: Credibility

I’m connecting the dots about how I lose my self-credibility when I give into manipulating to get what I want instead of creating to get what I want. I notice my creativity bursts out of me when I contemplate: You want to do that. I want to do this. How can we both get what we want? My guilting is not creative at all so I don’t get to feel good about it.

Defensive strategy: Guilting

If I don’t do this I’m going to feel shitty about myself.

Essence quality: Deepening

I’m noticing I can motivate myself to do things from guilt or from my own enjoyment of getting to be in and use my Essence qualities to do this. How would my Essence motivate me right now?

Defensive strategy: Being Unreasonable 

Blah, Blah, Blah, I’m not listening to you anymore because you just keep talking and not making any sense.

Essence quality: Adaptability 

I’m realizing when I use a defensive strategy nothing new happens. When I use an Essence quality, because I shifted, the other person was required to make a shift too and things started to get unstuck.

Defensive strategy: Being Unreasonable

(I’m going to take this action because I’m mad and when I’m mad this is just what I do.)

Essence quality: Equanimity 

When I take a moment to notice what I’m doing and whether it’s from Essence or a defensive strategy, my mind and body come into balance and I like who I am and how I handle things in this state much better than when I have to apologize for my assholery.

Defensive strategy: Biasing 

How come other people are so closed minded and prejudiced! I can’t understand it.

Essence quality: Developing

I miss opportunities to develop my authenticity when I see other’s biases without reflecting on my own. Our biases are hidden from us until we get curious about them. (Just like others.)

Defensive strategy: Biasing

(I’m adamant about this and my being adamant shows me that I am right.)

Essence quality: Honesty

I’m realizing being adamant is often a defensive strategy if it has extra rigid energy in it. My Essence qualities are flexibly powerful and my defensive strategies are rigidly powerful.

Defensive strategy: Intimidating

You will do this because I said so! 

Essence quality: Collaborating

Both of our creativities put together can come up with ideas that work for all of us. I’m realizing if I motivate others through fear, they will do what I want but resent it and act out about it.

Defensive strategy: Intimidating 

If you don’t do this there will be serious repercussions.

Essence quality: Power-sharing

I’m realizing when I power-over with my unilateral decisions others don’t feel valued for what they have to offer and lose their motivation to do what I want.

Defensive strategy: Breaking Down

(A repeating pattern of not being able to show up for what I say I want to do or experience because of this or that body problem.)

Essence quality: Reconciliation 

I’m connecting how my body can tighten up inside as the way to feel safe and cause all kinds of confusion to my body about how it can function in ease and flow as the way to feel safe. I notice when I attempt to understand my internal tension instead of being afraid of it, it transforms back into ease and flow.

Defensive strategy: Breaking Down

(I’ve learned that if I cry like a victim, people can’t stay mad at me for not doing what I said I would do.)

Essence quality: Daring

I’m noticing I can’t feel my daring venturesome boldness to learn and grow when I play the victim. I miss in those moments the part of me that is scared and still dares to show up.

Defensive strategy: Deceiving

I can’t tell the truth all the time because it would be harmful.

Essence quality: Creativity

I’m realizing my creativity can find the right truth to speak for any occasion without doing harm because my truth functions outside of the who’s-right or-who’s-wrong system.

Defensive strategy: Deceiving

If nobody saw it happen, it didn’t happen.

Essence quality: Devotion

I’m realizing committing to speaking Simple Truths to get what I want generates so much positive energy inside of me for me. Deceiving to get what I want drains me of my vibrant energy. Not just while it’s happening or when I think about it, but all the time until I tell the truth.

Defensive Strategy: Indecisiveness

If I don’t make a choice I can’t be made wrong.

Essence quality: Freedom

I’m putting together how I can transform my fear of being wrong so I can set myself free to thoroughly enjoy my choices. I’m realizing I can separate my sense of self worth, lovability, and value from whether I’m making right or wrong choices. 

Defensive Strategy: Indecisiveness

When I think about the pros I want to do it. When I think about the cons I don’t want to do it. I get stuck and immobilized.

Essence quality: Purifying

I’m realizing our thoughts are often disconnected from the body-felt truth inside of us. I can teach myself how to locate my inner truth by speaking Simple Truths to myself inside, like, we were taught to think our way to the truth instead of put our attention on our inner body as the truth. Notice how your body responds. Noticing how your body responds connects your mind and body opening up the inner pathway to the truth.

Defensive Strategy: Discouraging

You shouldn’t wear that it makes your ass look…

Essence quality: Marveling

The way you move in that outfit lets me know you feel good in it! You moving freely because you’re comfortable in it makes it the perfect choice for you.

Defensive Strategy: Discouraging

You don’t have what it takes so I think you should try something else.

Essence quality: Mentoring

If you are clear that’s what you want let’s get you the skills to meet the expectations. That motivation I can see in you is what matters most here. Your motivation and fortitude as well as all your other Essence qualities will allow you to feel that you’re resourced to do this.

Defensive Strategy: Analyzing 

You didn’t get what you wanted because you jumped to conclusions again like you always do.

Essence quality: Validating 

I know you’re disappointed about not getting what you wanted. I so wished that would’ve worked out for you. Let’s figure out how you can still get what you want. Anything you’ve learned you want to do differently? Any stuck patterns you can see in yourself?

Defensive Strategy: Analyzing

They are being passive-aggressive with Covert Narcissistic tendencies because they need Narcissistic supply on a regular basis.

Essence quality: Empathy

They didn’t get the empathy they needed growing up and so don’t know how to give it—only take it. Self-reflection became the dangerous thing to do and avoiding their own vulnerability at all costs became the safe thing to do.

Defensive Strategy: Being Negative

People never change. The world is a dangerous place. No one really cares about anybody.

Essence quality: Being authentic

I’m realizing people have two versions of themselves inside: their Essence which creates a friendly world we all want to participate in and their defensive strategies acting out or protecting them from their fears, causing a world of harm.

Defensive Strategy: Being Negative

Why should I even try?! Nothing goes my way. I’m such a…

Essence quality: Nourishing

I’m integrating how I wasn’t taught to believe in myself because I wasn’t taught about how many Essence quality nutriments I have inside of me. I’d like to teach us how to tap into our inner Essence truth by speaking Simple Truths to myself instead of seeing myself in a negative light. 

Defensive Strategy: Being moody

(I don’t let myself experience or express my feelings fully so they come out sideways in me as bad or irritable moods.)

Essence quality: Mediating Internally

I’m connecting the dots about how I can regulate my feelings by turning my attention within and sitting right next to my body sensations of feelings. From this perspective I can welcome the feeling and convey my desire to understand it instead of avoid it or act it out. I’m noticing when I do this little internal action, our feelings quickly complete the cycle of trigger, flourish, and settle.

Defensive Strategy: Being moody 

I can’t help it I just need to lash out at people sometimes because they are so inconsiderate and self-focused.

Essence quality: Completion

Since I know my caretakers were inconsiderate and insensitive to my needs, I’m going to be susceptible to others with the same defensive strategies. I’m reminding my little past versions of us inside that we want to have the power of regulating our internal states and not let others defensive strategies determine our internal states. Validation: Yes we were trained to believe that we are not worthy of consideration. Notice our inner response to this. Validating Truth: The truth about us is we are worthy of being considered and regulating our own internal states. Notice how your internal body state responds.

Defensive Strategy: Appropriating

(Everything is mine to make use of as I need it no matter where it comes from.)

Essence quality: Dignifying

I’m realizing I can honor other cultures by validating individual rights to own their cultural byproducts in ways that I may not have the right to use. I get to enjoy dignifying others and what they have created just like I would want them to dignify my unique contributions to my own culture.

Defensive Strategy: Appropriating

You snooze you lose!

Essence quality: Organicity

I’m remembering, at my most foundational level I am inherently good because my Essence qualities inside are inherently good. I enjoy making choices that are good for me AND good for others AND all that share this planet with me.

Defensive Strategy: Disrespecting

You are not worth my time or energy. You are a f**k-up and a loser and you’re trying to take me down with you.

Essence quality: Shifting

I can feel myself wanting to make you wrong really bad right now. I know that’s not my Essence, because my Essence can find a way to express myself that is in alignment with my core value of kindness. I’m realizing I’m frustrated and scared at the choices you’re making. They don’t seem to be in alignment with what you say you want.

Defensive Strategy: Disrespecting

(I’m going to offer you this solution that just floated into my head because the story I’m telling myself is that you’re incapable of coming up with the solution yourself.)

Essence quality: Manifesting

I’m realizing when I offer solutions before I’ve validated my own or others experience, the solution feels invalidating, and I manifest other’s defensive strategies instead of their Essence. I’m choosing to validate to manifest Essence in myself and others.

Defensive Strategy: Obliviousness

What?! It was just a joke! You can’t take a joke.

Essence quality: Resolving

I’m realizing I did my funny thing without checking in with where you’re at. 

Defensive Strategy: Obliviousness

I can’t be racist! I have all kinds of black and brown friends.

Essence quality: Self-Reflection

I know racism is an unconscious bias until we bring it into our conscious awareness. That’s why we can see other people doing it but have trouble seeing our own biases. I choose to get curious about the ways I could be color biased or any other biases because I know that we have some FOO (family of origin) training in our unconscious that we may not be aware of.

Defensive Strategy: Gloominess

(I’m going to leave myself in a low energy state as the way to stay safe from being disappointed again.)

Essence quality: Aliveness

I’m realizing I can transform my fears about being disappointed by validating them and watching them move through, so that my aliveness can fill me with an energy to go for what I want to create in life.

Defensive Strategy: Gloominess

I so want someone to notice that I’m hurting inside but no one ever does.

Essence quality: Tenderness

Simple Truth: I feel you little sweet ones inside. I know we didn’t get some needs met that we definitely needed met. I’m here inside too and I’m learning how to give us the interest and attention to our pain that we didn’t feel worthy of receiving when we were young. Notice how your inner pain responds to being met with tenderness instead of withdrawal or attack.

Defensive Strategy: Bewilderment

I don’t know what I want. I don’t know how to even know.

Essence quality: Clarity

I’m realizing we can only feel our clarity when we connect to our internal Essencey resources inside by speaking Simple Truth to ourselves and watching how our body responds.

Defensive Strategy: Bewilderment

(I freeze or faint into a mind/body state where I can’t think straight or know what’s true.)

Essence quality: Practicing

I know I’m in an automatic fear alert mode. In fear alert mode I’m afraid if I show any sign of power or autonomy I will be rejected or abandoned. That was what happened to us in our FOO (family of origin) and this is now, where we can guide ourselves through our fears. I’m realizing I can identify as the observing, wise, and compassionate guide inside. I can dis-identify from my past pain by talking to my body sensations of pain as if they were the past versions of me that got our parent’s defense strategies instead of their Essence. I’m integrating how when we bring Essence to a part of us that didn’t receive Essence, our pain transforms. 

Defensive Strategy: Harried-ness

(I can’t deal with anybody else’s problems I’ve got too many of my own right now.)

Essence quality: Tranquility

I’m realizing we’ve been taught to leave our insides dys-regulated and to try and work over the top of our dys-regulation. I’m noticing because we didn’t have a caretaker’s calming and soothing voice to guide us through our feelings, we never learned to locate ourselves right next to our feelings inside, calming and soothing our fears from the inside. I’m integrating how when we identify with our feelings and not our wise and compassionate observing guide inside, we get so lost in our feelings. When we identify with our guide, it feels like someone is home inside to regulate our feelings.

Defensive Strategy: Harried-ness

I can’t stop thinking about my problems. How will I ever solve them if I don’t think about them.

Essence quality: Within-ness

I’m realizing I need to settle my internal body/mind state inside so that when I think about my problems, I see through the lens of my own creativity and curiosity instead of fears of not being good enough or failing.

Defensive Strategy: Fixing It

I have no value if I just listen to someone’s problems; I have to fix it to have value to them.

Essence quality: Wholeness

I’m realizing my value comes from experience and expression of my internal resources inside, my Essence qualities. My Hero/Rescuer/People Pleaser doesn’t know how to feel value from our internal resources, only from transacting for it externally.

Defensive Strategy: Fixing It

I listen for problems.

Essence quality: Listening

I listen to understand myself and others because when we feel understood we drop into Essence. I enjoy interacting with other’s Essence so much more than their problems.

Defensive Strategy: Limiting

I don’t want to try because I will only be disappointed.

Essence quality: Expanding

I’m learning to trust myself to settle my fears internally so I can see myself clearly in my Essence. I’m learning to dis-identify with being small and constricted as safe and expand into my muchness as safe. If I’m disappointed I can validate my disappointment, learn from it, and try something new from what I’ve learned, instead of getting stuck in my powerless disappointment. 

Defensive Strategy: Limiting

(I notice if I limit my own and other’s expressions of emotions then I don’t feel so uncomfortable.)

Essence quality: Welcoming

I’m realizing I can teach myself to welcome my uncomfortableness because I can transform it, instead of avoiding it. I can transform it by teaching myself to watch my feelings inside as body sensations trigger, then flourish, and then settle. When I watch my feelings in this cycle they settle in seconds instead of getting stuck.

Defensive Strategy: Resisting

You don’t get to be the boss of me! I said yes, but I’m not going to do that!

Essence quality: Going With

I’m putting together how when I resist what’s already happening, I’m resisting reality. I can teach myself to go with an uncomfortable energy or an unwanted event by accepting that it’s happening and making a conscious choice to still create what I want. 

Defensive Strategy: Resisting

(I tighten up my body against what I don’t want to be happening.)

Essence quality: Harmonizing 

I notice when I tighten up my body it disconnects me from my Essence qualities inside, like my ability to create harmony from discord. I’d like to teach us how to face this unwanted situation from our creative self instead of our reactive self. Our reactive self gets stuck in reacting and forgets to create what we want.

Defensive Strategy: Shutting Down

(In order to control my feelings so I don’t act them out like my dad, I tighten up my insides and shut off the part of my brain that can sense my body.

Essence quality: Enlivening 

I’m realizing when I shut down my insides to my own feelings, I shut down my aliveness. I would like to teach us to regulate our feelings by observing them and validating them instead of getting pulled right into the middle of them. I’m realizing I can feel more in control while I’m feeling and I can feel more aliveness inside which feels amazing!

Defensive Strategy: Shutting Down

I don’t want to talk about it. Leave me alone. I don’t want to be around people right now.

Essence quality: Engaging 

I’m realizing when I feel powerlessness erupt inside of me I don’t want to be with others because I can’t even pretend that I’m okay anymore. I’m teaching myself how to transform my powerlessness because it has a whole meaningless perception that I see through when I’m in it. I’m noticing if I engage with my powerlessness it transforms. If I identify with it, it takes me over. Speaking Simple Truths to it helps me stay outside of it.

Defensive Strategy: Deflecting

I didn’t say that. You must have misheard me. You always act this way. I would never do that!

Essence quality: Taking Responsibility

I’m realizing I can take responsibility for my powerlessness fears and my defensive strategies because they are not my authenticity. Taking responsibility for them helps me deepen into my authenticity because they are the only thing disconnecting me from my authenticity. 

Defensive Strategy: Deflecting 

(I change the subject, blame others, and use humor to dismiss more serious conversations so I don’t have to feel my own vulnerability and powerlessness.) 

Essence quality: Effulgence (I know, big word, but we could all use to be in touch with this inside. It’s our radiant splendor and brilliance.)

I’m realizing when I use a defensive strategy like deflection, I don’t get to tap into my inner brilliance to transform stuck relationships and situations. 

Defensive Strategy: Withholding

I can’t say what I really want to say because they will get upset.

Essence quality: Revealing

I’m learning that I can reveal my wants through Simple Truths that don’t make anyone right or wrong. I can feel good about speaking up when I know I’ve done it in a kind yet powerful way. I’m learning to let their upset (usually fighty anger defensive strategy that erupts in them), be about their fears and not my value and lovability.

Defensive Strategy: Withholding

I don’t want to tell them the news because it will ruin their_____________. (Vacation, day, life).

Essence quality: Competency

I’m learning to see others as capable of facing the truth because I know they can feel that energy coming from me toward them. When I see them as incapable/incompetent to make their own decisions, they feel that coming from me also.

Defensive Strategy: Using Counter Will

I won’t do what you want no matter what you do to punish me.

Essence quality: Shifting

I’m realizing using resistance as a way to get what I want is a pseudo-power and graciously requiring others to consider my choices along with their own is real power.

Defensive Strategy: Using Counter Will

(When others are using counter will against my needs or wants.)

Essence quality: Mastering my Insides

I check in with myself when others are using counter will with me to see if I’m considering their experience as valid as my own. Our creativity can imagine solutions that get us both what we want. Our fears scare us into believing either they get what they want or we do, but it can’t be both.

Defensive Strategy: Disrupting

(I interject my ideas for solutions right when someone else is feeling their feelings.)

Essence quality: Nurturing

I’m realizing we all need our fears of being incapable and unworthy to be validated and not treated as a problem to solve (which feels invalidating).

Defensive Strategy: Disrupting

If someone is spouting out misinformation, I step in and correct them immediately. 

Essence quality: Intervening 

I understand if I activate another’s defensive strategies with my need to be right, they entrench more deeply into their defensive strategies. I’m realizing if my intention is to require self-reflection in another then I need to validate their wants and needs so their defenses lower before I introduce any new information. Validation: I can sense how much you want each of us to follow the Golden Rule. Seems like most of us want that. I wonder how we each knock ourselves out of following that. I’m realizing for me it’s mainly when I’m justifying that others did something to me first. I would like to teach myself how to respond from Essence, especially when others aren’t.

Defensive Strategy: Manipulating

I know you say you want to eat there but do we really want to drive all the way across town?

Essence quality: Honoring

I’m learning to honor other’s choices even though mine were often manipulated out of me when I was young. I’m realizing I have my caretaker’s defensive strategies downloaded into my repertoire of how to get what I want. That means if it was done to me as a kiddo, I’m capable of doing it to others when I’m an adult.

Defensive Strategy: Manipulating

(I convey my feelings through my sighs, disappointment, and rolling of my eyes.)

Essence quality: Expressing

I’m putting together how I can transform my need to control others by expressing what I want, getting interested in what they want, and putting our creativity together to both get what we want. I’m noticing I feel more empowered and authentic when I express my experience cleanly and with clarity than when I try to control with my grunts and silence.

Defensive Strategy: Intellectualizing

(I figure out solutions so who needs the feelings.)

Essence quality: Presence-ing 

I notice when I stay present with my feelings (watching them instead of getting pulled into the middle of them), my feelings trigger, flourish, and settle in seconds. After I have felt the feeling my solutions are much more creative, powerful, and clear.

Defensive Strategy: Intellectualizing

(Feelings make me feel uncomfortable and sometimes out of control so I avoid them by staying in my head.)

Essence quality: Embodiment

I’m realizing when I teach my mind to focus on the body sensations of our feelings instead of getting swept away right into the middle of our feelings, our mind and our body connect and then we can feel access to our internal resources inside, our Essence qualities.

Defensive Strategy: Restricting 

(I tighten up and limit my movement when I feel vulnerable, uncomfortable, or distressed inside.)

Essence quality: Movement 

I’m integrating how noticing myself restricting my movements allows me to begin to move as a way to shift out of an old habit of a defensive strategy. My movements, postures, and tone of voice allow me to discern whether my mind and body are in Essence or powerlessness fear/defensive strategies.

Defensive Strategy: Restricting 

I’m not going to let myself think about what I want because I will just be disappointed.

Essence quality: Moment to Moment Creativity

I’m realizing when I think creatively about what I want I come up with new ideas about how to get it more easily. I’m learning how to transform my disappointment so I don’t have to avoid contemplating what I want as the only way to keep from being disappointed.

Defensive Strategy: Criticizing

I tell you what I want and you do it for a little while and then just go back to the old way.

Essence quality: Empathy/Compassion

I know you care about me and want to give me what I want and we feel more connected when you show you’re caring. I wonder what causes your caring behaviors to go back into hiding?

Defensive Strategy: Criticizing

(When someone has asked you to change your behavior.) Why are you always criticizing me?! You know the stress I’ve been under. You don’t have any compassion at all.

Essence quality: Mastery of Feedback

I’m choosing to self-reflect about all feedback because I know my defensive strategies run under my awareness until I step outside of them so I can actually see them. I know others are unaware of their defensive strategies also, so instead of criticizing their defensive strategies, I try to understand that fear requires them to use a defensive strategy instead of their Essence to solve problems.

Defensive Strategy: Being Aggressive

Tell me now! Why would you do this?! What were you thinking?! You deserve the treatment you’re getting you worthless piece of s—t.

Essence quality: Dignifying

I’m angry and my anger wants to lash out at you, but I know you are worthy of respect even though you didn’t show it to others when you did this. Tell me about these choices that you made and how you’re going to interrupt the pattern of making these choices again?

Defensive Strategy: Being Aggressive

(When I’m angry because someone “made me feel” unworthy, I make them feel unworthy by making unilateral choices, getting in their face, and not caring about what they have to say.)

Essence quality: Modeling

I know that one of the fastest ways that others learn to become aware of aspects of themselves that they have been unaware of is by me modeling the very behavior I want them to adapt. When others see me take a moment to regulate my anger and then respond from a balanced and compassionate place, they learn to do this also. 

Defensive Strategy: Staying Stuck in Grievances

I’m so sick of people being inconsiderate. They are so entitled and act like it’s the rest of us who have to think about them. They’re special and don’t have to do things the way the rest of us do, apparently.

Essence quality: Communion

I’m realizing when my mind and body are stuck in grievance mode, I’m not in communion with my internal Essence qualities and therefore not in communion with the Essence of a higher power/the planet/life. I’m not using all I could have access to inside and outside when I use my grievance as a pseudo-power, instead of my real power of communion with higher thought and being.

Defensive Strategy: Staying Stuck in Grievances

(I want you to validate my feelings so I can feel heard even though I’m only expressing my grievances about you.)

Essence quality: Assiduousness 

I’m realizing my feelings are worthy of assiduous attention and caring, so I want to transform my grievances by using them to get clarity about what I’m feeling and express the feeling. I’m integrating how leading with my grievances requires other’s to get defensive instead of Essencey.

Defensive Strategy: Gaslighting

(After you have stepped out of integrity and done something you said you wouldn’t do) Come on, you know I would never do that. That’s not who I am. Those are just your fears. You know how much I care about you. You are my life.

Essence quality: Repairing/Integrity

I’m realizing I can manipulate other’s reality of me but I don’t feel good about me when I do that. I notice I feel really good about myself when I stay true to my integrity and do what I say I’m going to do and don’t do what I say I’m not going to do.

Defensive Strategy: Gaslighting

You’re over-reacting. It’s not a big deal at all. Everyone agrees with me that you’re the only one who thinks this way.

Essence quality: Altruism 

I’m realizing that because my caregivers gaslit me, I have the defensive strategy in my repertoire to do it to others. I’m putting together how just because I can do it doesn’t mean it makes me feel good about me. I wonder how I could learn to get my needs met and have regard for others needs at the same time instead of getting my needs met on the down-low?

Defensive Strategy: Advice-giving

You should totally not talk to that guy anymore. He’s a lyin’ scoundrel if I ever saw one!

Essence quality: Attunement/Drawing out the Essence

It’s difficult to let go of something you thought was going to be special. It’s going to take your belief in yourself and your courage to stand up for what you’re worthy of. Keep looking for your belief in yourself inside, because that’s where you can feel your truth.

Defensive Strategy: Advice-giving

(My value comes from me having the right solutions for everyone’s problems.)

Essence quality: Deepening

I’m realizing my value comes from my unique experience and expression of my Essence qualities inside, not offering solutions for people’s feelings. People don’t want their feelings to be solved. People want to know that I know my own insides well enough to be able to handle their feelings instead of trying to make their feelings go away with advice-giving.

Defensive Strategy: Superficiality  

(I change the topic whenever someone starts getting into their feelings because feelings make me uncomfortable.)

Essence quality: Embracing

I’m putting together how feelings can be transform instead of avoided. I’m enjoying learning the masterful skill of transforming feelings by meeting them with an Essence quality like understanding or empathy instead of a defensive strategy like keeping things surface-y.

Defensive Strategy: Superficiality

(I interact with different strangers in the same way. I tell the same jokes. I talk about the same things.)

Essence quality: Benevolence/Creativity

I’m noticing when I do the same things over and over again it means I’m stuck in a repeating pattern (other than helpful routines). Not noticing my stuck patterns keeps me from feeling my true desire to do good and my creativity to do good in brand new ways each time. 

Defensive Strategy: Being Indifferent

It doesn’t really matter in the long run anyway.

Essence quality: Wonder/curiosity

I’m realizing our indifference protects us from doing it wrong or fully committing to what we’re doing so we can’t fail. I wonder why I would need to protect myself to such an extent that I miss out on cultivating my enthusiasm and interest for what I’m creating. 

Defensive Strategy: Being Indifferent 

If I don’t give value to things or people I can’t be hurt by them.

Essence quality: Devoting

I’m realizing when I devote my inner Essencey resources to things and people I feel more alive and engaged with life. I’m teaching myself to feel my value internally through my Essence qualities instead of transacting for it from others and from events. (For example, Old Belief: My value comes from accomplishments or from how other people see me.)

Defensive Strategy: Being Right

(I listen to others to see how I can make them wrong so I can correct them and help them see the light.)

Essence quality: Essence Listening

I’m realizing when I make people wrong their defensive strategies go up and it’s a lot harder for them to try on what I’m saying. I’m teaching myself to listen to validate their needs or feelings so they drop into their Essence and then I speak a Simple Truth which doesn’t make anyone right or wrong. I’m learning how much I like transforming with durable and lasting Simple Truths instead of a brief adrenaline rush from being right.

Defensive Strategy: Being Right

I’m never wrong. I’m smarter than others. I pride myself on being a great debater.

Essence quality: Creative Intelligence

I’m noticing how my need to be right is trying to keep me from feeling like the wrong one. I’m putting together how I often felt like the wrong one in my FOO (family of origin). I’m integrating how I’m missing out on my brilliant ever-evolving creative intelligence when I return to my familiar and fear-based need to be right. I can teach my need-to-be-right Protector inside how to shift from either/or thinking to both/and perception. 

Defensive Strategy: Being Bored

I get bored easily. It takes a lot to hold my interest.

Essence quality: Passion

I’m connecting the dots that my boredom is my responsibility not the worlds. I’m noticing I’m stuck in Victim when I’m perceiving myself as bored. I’m realizing my Essence qualities are so curious and creative that I never get bored when I’m connected to them. I’m realizing I can activate my passion for life anytime I speak a Simple Truth to myself and notice how my body responds. Simple Truths are my pathway to my Essence qualities. 

Defensive Strategy: Being Bored

When others are stuck in their uninteresting and stuck defensive strategies I get so bored I want to yell at them to stop already!

Essence quality: Purifying 

I’m connecting the dots about how I can purify my mind and body by cultivating an internal environment of perceiving through my Essence instead of through my fear-based lens. I’m realizing my fear of boredom stems from my lack of awareness that I can connect with my internal aliveness at any moment by connecting with my Essence qualities through my mind (challenging myself to think creatively about what I want to create) and my body (deep breathing, movement, speaking Simple Truths to myself inside and noticing how my body responds).

Defensive Strategy: Being Perfect

I know there is one right way to do everything and all I need to do is find it and I will never feel wrong or like a failure again.

Essence quality: Pliability

I’m realizing how being perfect is a Protector defensive strategy that is stuck in the right or wrong version of life. I’m integrating how Simple Truths function outside of the right or wrong system to allow me to be more pliable in my interactions with myself, others, and life.

Defensive Strategy: Being Perfect

I can’t relax until it’s perfect!

Essence quality: Presencing 

I’m putting together how I can teach myself to enjoy the process by challenging myself to connect to the present moment during the process. I can connect to the present moment by speaking a Simple Truth like, I’m realizing my Perfectionist doesn’t know how to access our Essence resources inside until I teach it.

Defensive Strategy: Making wrong

If I just would have done that differently none of this would have happened!

Essence quality: Stewarding

I’m realizing I’m in here inside myself stewarding myself through my mistakes with either an Essencey voice or my inner critic. My inner critic wants me to do better by making me wrong. My Essence teaches me to do better by getting the learning and committing to doing something different the next time.

Defensive Strategy: Making wrong

You know I can see that you’re starting to do better, but you’re still messing up here. Why can’t you be more focused?!

Essence quality: Unifying

I can see you working on your skills to master your focus. What are the areas that are still difficult for you? Let’s figure it out together.

Defensive Strategy: Waffling

I can’t make a decision. Each choice I think about seems to be the best choice while I’m thinking about it.

Essence quality: Validating 

I’m realizing when I validate my fears about making decisions, I get some space and distance from my fear of making the wrong choice. That space and distance from my fear allows me to guide myself through my fears instead of being guiding by my fears. 

Defensive Strategy: Waffling

Essence quality: Validating

I’m realizing my fears rev me up or shut me down into a fear alert mode where I think in either/ors instead of both/ands. I’m integrating how I can validate my fears as a way to comfort and soothe my fears so I can drop back into a relaxed mind and body state of being in my Essence. 

Defensive Strategy: Either/or-ing 

Either you get what you want or I get what I want but we can’t both get what we want.

Essence quality: Both/And-ing

I’m realizing either/ors are how we all think and perceive when we’re in fear alert mode, afraid of doing something wrong. It limits our perception to just the extremes which is not usually the truth of what’s happening. I’m choosing to see this situation through a both/and lens so I can feel my infinite creativity to come up with solutions I can’t perceive from either/ors.

Defensive Strategy: Either/or-ing

Either you have the right way to be a good human or I have the right way to be a good human but it can’t be that both of us have the right way.

Essence quality: Equality/Sharing Power

I’m realizing humans don’t know how to be good humans when they’re perceiving from their either/or defensive strategies because they are not in touch with their inherently good Essence qualities inside. I can choose to use my Essence skills to validate or speak Simple Truths to communicate with another’s Essence so we collaborate on what makes a good human.

Defensive Strategy: Excluding

There’s only one right way to do things and we have the right way.

Essence quality: Unconditional Loving

I’m realizing people act from their Essence (authenticity) when they sense they are being understood instead of judged. I’m connecting how people tend to do the right thing for themselves and each other when they are sourcing from Essence.

Defensive Strategy: Excluding

(I don’t share my emotions because then I will feel them and they take me to a dark place.)

Essence quality: Regulating/Soothing

I’m connecting the dots that I can become the notice-r of my feelings instead of identifying with them so I can separate my feelings from my trained-in powerlessness beliefs. For example, I can feel sadness about a loss of something I wanted without believing my powerlessness beliefs that I’m unworthy of good things happening for me.

Defensive Strategy: Being cruel

(After something bad happens to someone.) They deserve what’s coming to them.

Essence quality: Learning

I wonder what I can learn about myself from how I shut down my caring as the way to feel power-over in this moment. I’m realizing I was taught a system of feeling good about myself by comparing myself to others and whether they are doing things the right way or the wrong way, instead of leading with empathy and compassion. I’m noticing when I require myself to tap into my empathy and compassion I see more deeply what’s going on and can express myself in ways that get what I want more easily. My not-caring activates other’s defensive strategies when I really want to interact with their Essence. 

Defensive Strategy: Being cruel

(I cut off my caring so they will learn that they have to change their behavior.) 

Essence quality: Collaboration

I’m realizing punishment activates defensive strategies in others which makes it harder to collaborate on us both getting what we want. I’m putting together how if we punish to get the learning, we can also get the learning without the punishment needed when we lead with our creative ideas.

Defensive Strategy: Worrying

If I don’t worry about my family how will they know I care about them?!

Essence quality: Caring

I’m noticing how my worrier is a defensive strategy to try to regulate my own feelings inside. I’m putting together how defensive strategies know me out of my Essencey resources inside and therefore knock me out of my caring. I can show caring by regulating my feelings internally so I don’t put my fears onto others.

Defensive Strategy: Worrying

What if they don’t text me back? Does that mean that they don’t value me? What did I say that would make them abandon me like this?!

Essence quality: Orienting

I’m realizing when I get afraid about my worth or lovability, I orient to what I did wrong instead of wondering what I want to create in this moment.

Defensive Strategy: Being a Coward

I can’t do it. I’ve never been good at it. I don’t have what it takes inside to do it!

Essence quality: Courage

I’m integrating that my fears infiltrate my perception and cause me to see myself through my fears instead of through my Essencey resources inside. This is going to need courage. Let me tap into my inner courage.

Defensive Strategy: Being a Coward

It’s too hard. It won’t work. I can’t do it. No one can help me. Success is for other people.

Essence quality: Prosperity

I’m realizing I wasn’t taught to tap into my inner Essencey resources that allow me to feel prosperous even before I accomplish what I’m attempting to accomplish. I’m realizing I can tap in right now by validating my fears and noticing how my body responds. When I meet my fears with Essence instead of more fear, my fear transforms and I can once again feel my deeper connection with myself.

Defensive Strategy: Agitating

Come on! You know you want to hit me. Hit me! Go for it you chicken-faced lint-licker!

Essence quality: Passion

I’m realizing I’m capable of powering-over others because it was done to me in my FOO (family of origin). I’m connecting how this pseudo-power knocks me out of my real power which is being passionate about helping myself and others tap into our current passion, instead of letting fear take us far away from it. I’m realizing passion is energy flowing inside from Essence not energy resisting and constricting inside from my defensive strategies.

Defensive Strategy: Agitating

Don’t test me right now, I’m about to lose it!

Essence quality: Reframing

I’m noticing the story I’m telling myself is that I can’t regulate my own emotions right now because somebody is doing something to me. I’m catching this powerlessness belief and reframing it into: I can validate my feelings so they can trigger, flourish, and settle so I can come back to equanimity and trust the way I’m assessing the situation.

Defensive Strategy: Being Apathetic

Nobody else cares about this place so why should I?!

Essence quality: Invigorating

I’m realizing basing who I am off of how others are being is not my authenticity. It’s me getting stuck in reaction mode like others are stuck in. I’m putting together how when I ask myself what I want to create, instead of resenting what I don’t want, I feel invigorated with ideas that motivate me to go for what I want no matter what I see others doing. I’m noticing I love my experience when I’m creating, and I hate my experience when I’m stuck in reacting and not realizing it. 

Defensive Strategy: Being Apathetic

I’ve tried before and it never turns out the way I want it to. Why should I even keep trying?!

Essence quality: Shifting

I’m realizing I have two different versions of me inside: my powerlessness and defensive strategies that are desperately trying to turn the power back on and my authenticity that has a wide open connection to my internal Essence quality resources inside. When I connect to my resources inside like my power to choose, my patience to take internal actions before making external actions, and my compassion to validate the difference between my training and the truth about me, I feel alive with hope and possibility.

Defensive Strategy: Being Rigid

There’s no way I’m going to change my mind. This is the way it needs to be and that’s all there is to it.

Essence quality: Flexibility

I’m realizing my rigidity activates defensive strategies in others which makes it harder for me to get what I want in any kind of a durable way. 

Defensive Strategy: Being Rigid

Essence quality: Adaptability

I’m realizing how being rigid stems from perceiving through either/or while my adaptability stems from my seeing through the lens of both/and. For example, if I think through either/ors then I believe it’s me vs them, right vs wrong, and their way or my way. When I see through both/ands it’s more like, I see their momentary defensive strategies and they are annoying as all get out AND I see their Essence qualities which are brilliant and attractive. I wonder how I can communicate with their Essence even when their defensive strategies show up?

Defensive Strategy: Being Pessimistic 

This is not going to work. I shouldn’t have even tried. I knew I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up.

Essence quality: Joying

I’m realizing I can validate my moments of distrust and self-doubt so they transform quickly back into our authenticity. Our authenticity can experience the joy of cultivating our Essence qualities like, our playfulness, our gratefulness, and our tenaciousness to keep learning from our mistakes instead of believing they are a commentary on how well we’re doing as a human.

Defensive Strategy: Being Pessimistic 

If I take the risk to be fully me I will be rejected or abandoned.

Essence quality: Magnifying

I’m realizing I’m bringing my whole emotional history to this thing I know I want to do which is changing my perception from it being something I can learn and grow from to meaning something about my value and worth. If I magnify my pessimism by pretending I’m giving a seminar about how to be pessimistic, I step outside of the defensive strategy of pessimism and can see how it scares me into not going for it. For example, Okay class, today we are going to learn how to scare yourself out of going for your dreams. The first step is to make other people’s treatment of you while they are in defensive strategies determine whether you are doing well as a human. Pull out your workbooks and…

Defensive Strategy: Being Vague

Okay, maybe I’ll come.

Essence quality: Directness

Thank you for the invitation. You’re so good at pulling people together to have fun! I have already made other plans though. 

Defensive Strategy: Being Vague 

I know I want to enjoy how my body looks and feels. I need to get in shape.

Essence quality: Commitment

I’m realizing I am avoiding learning how to enjoy my commitments by making them into very unpleasant ‘have-too’s.’ One way I could learn to enjoy my commitments is by realizing how good and powerful I feel when I stay true to what I say I’m going to do and when I don’t do what I say I’m not going to do. I commit to going to the gym before work 3 days a week for an hour so I can feel myself believing in myself—that I can do hard things.

Defensive Strategy: Being Dissident (Note: Opposing unfair or unlawful acts can be Essencey if there is a creating-what-we-want component to it.)

The ________________ religion is a bunch of lunatics wanting to tell us all what to do and they shouldn’t be able to get away with that!

Essence quality: Creating

I’m realizing when an unfairness happens I have some choices to make: get stuck in the grievance as a pseudo power or use the unfairness to create what I want as power.

Defensive Strategy: Being Dissident

I will never work with the other side. They are not worth the time and effort. I will exert my power over them any chance I get.

Essence quality: Real Power

I’m connecting the dots about how I’m doing to them exactly what I’m complaining they are doing to me. I’m choosing to use my Essence qualities of attunement, understanding, and connecting to cultivate environments where my Essence can have impact because my Essence is looking for our common ground of authenticity. I choose to use my power to create instead of getting stuck in resistance mode.

Defensive Strategy: Being Divisive

Leader: Those other people are a threat to your way of living. They are going to take from you what you need in order to live a good life. They are trying to get you to do more so they can do less.

Essence quality: Concordance

Follower: I’m realizing when someone tries to get me to see others as threats or enemies they are trying to manipulate my emotions for their gain somehow. I notice when I see others as threats my defenses go up and my Essence goes down. I recommit to my Essence each time I automatically get knocked out of it by my own fears that my needs aren’t being considered. I commit to getting my needs met through harmony and durable agreements with others instead of by resisting others. 

Defensive Strategy: Being Divisive

We have different beliefs about finances, spiritual beliefs, parenting styles, and career and social priorities so there’s no way we can work together on this.

Essence quality: Communication

I’m realizing everyone’s Essence and defensive strategies have very different values and beliefs. Our Essences can have empathy for each other and try to understand each other. Our defensive strategies don’t listen to each other at all because they are too busy trying to be right to listen and empathize. I’m realizing empathy and feeling understood are what drop people’s defensive divisiveness.

Defensive Strategy: Being Competitive

I have to win at all costs and by any means necessary. When I don’t win, it must be because others have cheated.

Essence quality: Learning (from what we don’t want to happen)

I’m realizing my need to win (being the right one and having the right way) is trying to protect me from how I feel when I lose (being the wrong one and doing it wrong). My competition is being driven by a fear that you either win or you lose. That’s me stuck in either/or thinking. I can teach myself to see through the both/and lens of: I can feel my value and worth AND lose and learn so I can win the next time. I’m realizing I don’t learn the new thing I need to learn if I see things through either/ors. 

Defensive Strategy: Being Competitive

The only way to get my needs met for value, worth, power, and approval is to be better than everyone else.

Essence quality: Cooperation

I’m realizing when I put my needs ahead of others I’m just trying to prove I’m worthy of having my needs met. I wonder how I could feel worthy of having my needs met while cooperating with others to get their needs met? I better tap into my creativity in the moment to do this. I’m realizing I can’t tap in if I’m competing for needs. 

Defensive Strategy: Dismissing

Your feelings don’t matter here. What matters is what you do. Your choices are unacceptable.

Essence quality: Befriending

Your feelings matter to me. How about we don’t try to solve anything until I know you know I understand where you’re coming from. I’m realizing people’s feelings move through in seconds when their feelings feel understood. 

Defensive Strategy: Dismissing 

That’s not what happened at all! You’re totally remembering it wrong. Here’s what really happened…

Essence quality: Accepting/Engaging

You’re remembering in a way that paints you as a victim. Is there a way you can remember what happened that doesn’t make you the victim and me the villain? How about if we both try to see how our defensive strategies might have crept in on us and we didn’t realize it when this thing went down?

Defensive Strategy: Lying

No you don’t look fat in that. (Telling a white lie so you don’t hurt another’s feelings.)

Essence quality: Daring

I’m not interested in judging your level of fatness or thinness. I’m too busy noticing your beauty/handsomeness. It sounds like you’ve got some judgments of yourself though. Want to tell me how you’re feeling about you?

Defensive Strategy: Lying 

(Lying because you know there’s no evidence to prove you did or said something.)

Essence quality: Integrity

I’m realizing every time I step out of my integrity I lose trust in myself. I commit to doing what I say I’m going to do and not doing what I say I’m not going to do so I can feel the power and passion of my integrity. I’m realizing I’m seeking passion from outside of me instead of feeling it within me.

Defensive Strategy: Stonewalling

(I go silent when that other person doesn’t deserve my attention anymore.)

 Essence quality: Expressing

I’m realizing when I use my passed-down-from-my-FOO (family of origin) defensive strategies I’m not being who I am authentically in the moment. The other person gets to feel the way I did when I was a kid and the defensive strategy was used against me. I’m putting together how I could express my fear that I don’t know how to stay engaged in connection with another when I feel frustrated that I’m not going to get my needs met. 

Defensive Strategy: Stonewalling

(Speaking in a flat emotionless tone as the way to prove you are right that the other person is doing something inappropriate.)

Essence quality: Within-ness

I’m zooming out from myself and watching what I’m doing inside. I’m realizing I’ve just launched into defensiveness instead of my Essence. I can validate my powerlessness fears inside that no one cares about my experience and bring myself back into a settled mind and body state of Essence. Validating my fears allows me to see that I’m projecting my fears on top of what the other is doing, instead of noticing whether they’re in Essence or defenses.

Defensive Strategy: Segregating

I choose to only associate with people who look like me and believe like me.

Essence quality: Embracing

I’m realizing my trained-in need to be right requires me to compare myself with others to see how well I’m doing. This requires me to segregate people into categories. I’d like to teach myself how to embrace differences instead of judging them so I can actually see each person’s Essence. I’m putting together how I’m not getting to experience my Essence when I’m segregating.

Defensive Strategy: Segregating

I want to get my access to resources and they have to get their own access to resources.  

Essence quality: Accessibility 

I’m integrating how when I don’t access my internal resources of Essence qualities, like generosity, equality, prosperity and dignity, I start competing with others for resources externally. 

Defensive Strategy: Using Contempt

(I make sounds like tsk or pfft and eyeball and smirk when I sense someone is stuck in their powerlessness.)

Essence quality: Contemplating

I wonder how I might have been trained to automatically judge others as disdainful for not having the skills to move themselves through their powerlessness. Am I rejecting other’s powerlessness in the same way my powerlessness was rejected/abandoned in my FOO (family of origin)? I’d like to teach myself to have compassion for what happened to me so I can have compassion for others in the same way. I know understanding powerlessness is the first step to transforming it.

Defensive Strategy: Using Contempt

(I mock others or disengage with them when they show a need for my interest and attention.)

Essence quality: Caring/Cohering

I’m realizing I wasn’t shown caring when I needed interest and attention growing up. I’m putting together how I disengage from my own insides when certain parts of me need interest and attention from others. I’m integrating how showing caring to the parts of me whose needs didn’t get met allows me to feel more coherence inside. Like all are welcome inside now.

Defensive Strategy: Distracting

I promise myself I’m going to go to the gym and then I eat, or scroll, or stream instead.

Essence quality: Discipline

I’m realizing I’ve been trained to give into immediate gratification instead of staying with my goals for the future. I putting together how I can guide myself through those moments of wanting it now, so I can remember the payoff of taking the steps to get to where I want to be. I get to feel good about myself for staying true to myself instead of succumbing to the quickie feel-good thing.

Defensive Strategy: Distracting

When I get excited or stressed my mind bounces around inside on so many different things at once that I can’t remember what I actually set out to do.

Essence quality: Focusing

I’m realizing I can teach myself to focus by calming my nervous system inside first. I can speak a comforting and soothing Simple Truth to myself like, “Yes, our mind does bounce around like a fruit fly in a fruit basket when we get too activated inside.” I then notice how my body responds. In the noticing of my body my body relaxes and my mind comes back into focus.

Defensive Strategy: Using Dissension

I like to debate to get my way. Others should hone their skills if they want to be able to be right with me.

Essence quality: Facilitating 

I’m realizing I can over-power others to get my needs met or I can facilitate both of us getting our needs met. Facilitating both of us getting our needs met relaxes other’s defensive strategies while over-powering them stings them initially into compliance but then they passive aggressively undermine me in the future.

Defensive Strategy: Using Dissension

(I’ve been told that I can get verbally aggressive but that doesn’t sound like something I would do.)

Essence quality: Bravery

I’m realizing that I do things that run under my awareness until I zoom out and watch myself to become aware of them. I’m going to need my Big Brave to look at myself to see the nugget of truth in the feedback I’m given. I’m reminding myself that my defensive strategies are not my authentic self but how I’ve been trained to handle certain situations.

Defensive Strategy: Being Narcissistic (using Narsi defensive strategies)

When I get stressed my experience is the only experience that matters.

Essence quality: Sharing

I’m realizing Narsi defensive strategies are passed down through my FOO (family of origin) so I would have been wired to get self-absorbed when I could be self-and-other aware. I’d like to teach myself to become aware of my narrowed-down-to-me-only focus when it happens so that I can teach myself how to share my attention in those moments. Tracking my experience and then tracking another’s experience allows me to feel connected while I’m stressed or revved up in ways I have never felt before. 

Defensive Strategy: Being Narcissistic

I blame others when I feel powerless (not good enough, unworthy of appreciation, like a failure, uncared about).

Essence quality: Ownership

I’m putting together how my powerlessness is mine. Others may activate it but I have felt this way long before I met them. I’m realizing if I take ownership for my powerlessness so I can transform it, which blaming others can’t do, I can validate that we were trained to feel unworthy by our caretaker’s defensive strategies not their Essence. Their defensive strategies saw us through their own fears and not the truth about us.

Defensive Strategy: Being Oppositional

(I oppose what others want me to do as a way to feel some kind of power.)

Essence quality: Sympathy

I’m realizing opposing others is a pseudo-power and that I wasn’t taught how to feel power any other way. I’m feeling sympathy for the little past versions of me inside who had so many unmet emotional needs that they felt completely powerless. I’m noticing my powerlessness heals and transforms as I feel some sympathy for it. I’m realizing if I transform my powerlessness then my need to oppose others as power also diminishes. 

Defensive Strategy: Being Oppositional

I don’t want to do whatever anybody tells me I have to do.

Essence quality:

I’m realizing my spirit has been trying to emerge through my oppositional perception. I can feel how it drains me of energy to oppose others as the way to be me. I’m realizing we can learn how to be authentically us by going with the energy of others instead of resisting it. If they are being mean, I can understand they feel powerless. If they are stuck and can’t show up for me, I can understand how they feel powerless. If they are controlling and perfectionistic, I can understand how they feel powerless. I’m realizing how everything leads back to powerlessness.

Defensive Strategy: Fantasizing

I like to get lost in my thoughts about how I wish my life was. It’s a nice diversion from my real life.

Essence quality: Presencing with my own insides

I’m realizing I’m trying to avoid reality because I was never taught how to regulate my feelings. I can regulate my feelings by zooming out and noticing the body sensations I’m experiencing internally. When I observe my body sensations of feelings they don’t feel so overwhelming. I’m realizing I’m going to need to practice this skill to get consistent at it.

Defensive Strategy: Fantasizing

I try to fit my partner into my ideal version of a partner.

Essence quality: Authenticity

I’m realizing when I have idealized expectations of others it’s because I long for someone to want to meet my emotional needs that went unmet in my kiddohood. I’m putting together how I’m not showing up authentically when I do this and I’m not inviting the authentic them to show up by accepting and appreciating their Essence qualities. 

Defensive Strategy: Over-Reacting

I jump in too hot for the circumstances of the moment. I speak before I regulate myself and I act on impulse before I executive control myself.

Essence quality: Pausing 

I’m connecting the dots about how I can pause for a moment and step back and watch my experience instead of getting hijacked by my experience. When I become the notice-r of my experience, my experience immediately moves through its cycle of trigger, flourish, and settle. I’m noticing when I’m settled my responses are more authentic and less driven by my powerlessness beliefs and fears.

Defensive Strategy: Over-Reacting

I shut down and exit situations where others are over-reacting.

Essence quality: Enlivening

I’m realizing I’m over-reacting to other’s over-reacting when I shut down. When they act out I’ve been trained to go in where they can’t reach me. I knock myself out of my authenticity when I shut down my connection to myself and the outside world. I can validate my fears of enlivening myself in these moments so my fears can realize they are not the truth about us. The truth about us is, we can feel safe within our plethora of Essence qualities instead of hiding behind a wall of defensive strategies. 

Defensive Strategy: Busying

When I feel rejected or abandoned I just get busy doing stuff around the house and it seems to go away.

Essence quality: Shifting

I’m realizing my escape from powerlessness is only temporary when I distract myself from it. I’m putting together how I can transform my powerlessness by validating that we were trained to believe we’re being rejected/abandoned when others are in their defensive strategies. I’m integrating how they weren’t rejecting/abandoning us but were rejecting/abandoning their own powerlessness inside.

Defensive Strategy: Busying

I like to stay busy all the time or I end up feeling that scary feeling inside about myself, that I’m not measuring up. 

Essence quality: Lucidity

I’m realizing I want to know the truth about myself. Was I really meant to feel powerlessness inadequacy my whole life or can it be transformed? I notice when I validate the difference between how we were trained and the truth about us, I feel this lucid connection with my inner truth.

Defensive Strategy: Devaluing

No one can help me with this. I have to do everything alone.

Essence quality: Receiving

I’m realizing my experiences of my caretaker’s defensive strategies in my kiddohood caused me to believe that no one really cares about my emotional needs. I’d like to teach myself how to feel powerful and receive help at the same time.

Defensive Strategy: Devaluing

When others don’t measure up to my expectations, I criticize them, verbally attack them, and I emotionally withdraw from them because they deserve it.

Essence quality: Giving Value

I’m realizing I devalue others because I was devalued when I didn’t measure up to someone’s defensive expectations. I’m putting together when you devalue others, it feels invalidating to them and it activates whatever powerlessness they have inside of them. When I activate their powerlessness they slide into resistant defensive strategies and cannot meet my emotional needs from there. I’d like to teach myself how to validate (give value to) as the way to get my needs met.

Defensive Strategy: Interrupting

That reminds me of something I wanted to share…

Essence quality: Validating

I’m realizing one way we feel our value is by expressing our experiences, both what’s happening for us now, and what we’ve been through in the past. I’m integrating how when I interrupt others I am over-powering to feel my value instead of validating all of our value of experiences. I’m choosing to value another’s experiences as equal to my own.

Defensive Strategy: Interrupting

I have to say what I need to say now, because I will forget it if I don’t.

Essence quality: Connecting to the Truth inside

I’m realizing I can teach myself the skill of connecting to the truth inside of me right while I’m listening to others. From here I can catch the difference between my truth voice, that tells me I can do both, listen and remember my thing, and my fear voice in my head that tells me things like, we’re going to forget if we don’t jump in now.

Defensive Strategy: Capitulating

I give up. You’re just going to do what you want to do no matter what I want. 

Essence quality: Asserting

I’m integrating, not completely, but little by little, how giving up is a sign I’ve already slippery-slid right into my own powerlessness. Even though my powerlessness can be activated by others, I know I’ve felt this way my whole life, so it was in me before I met them. I’m realizing that my powerlessness is a part of me that wants to be authentic but doesn’t trust itself yet. I’m willing to assert myself in new ways that convey my needs and other’s needs matter equally.

Defensive Strategy: Capitulating

I will give up my needs in this moment and meet your needs so hopefully you will meet my needs in the future. 

Essence quality: 

I’m realizing there’s never been a capitulation that wasn’t followed by a resentment and some passive aggressive acting out. I’m realizing I have been relying on my passive aggressiveness to get my needs met instead of my multi-talented Essence qualities. I’d like to teach us how to get our needs met and the other’s needs met at the same time instead of either/or.

Defensive Strategy: Withdrawing

I’m tired. I’m just so tired.

Essence quality: Invigorating

I’m realizing I’m often tired because I’ve been in my kindest yet exhausting defensive strategy of People Pleasing all day long. This strategy to “not upset anybody” drains me of my energy because it’s not connected to my energy-generating Essence qualities. I can validate my powerlessness fears about not doing it right or failing if others get upset. I can remind myself that others only get upset in a who’s-right-or-who’s-wrong mode when they are in defensive strategies. Defensive strategies distort the truth with their own powerlessness fears.

Defensive Strategy: Withdrawing

(I just stop talking and walk away when someone is not getting what I’m trying to say in an argument.)

Essence quality: Practicing 

I’m practicing how to shift my mind and body state first before I speak or think so I can trust that I’m sourcing from my Essence qualities and not my own powerlessness fear and defensive strategies. I’m realizing this is a skill that I need to build in and consistently practice even when I’m not activated so I can do it in the heated moments.

Defensive Strategy: Disregarding

Oh you’re just being dramatic. Calm down.

Essence quality: Sensitivity

I’m realizing people rev up or shut down even more if I disregard their experience. I’d like to teach myself how to use my sensitivity to track others in an understanding way instead of a “they-should’t-be-doing-that” kind of way. Conveying understanding melts powerlessness fears and defensive strategies while Disregarding hyper-activates them.

Defensive Strategy: Disregarding

I don’t care how you feel. You have to do it.

Essence quality: Invoking 

I’m realizing I can give the gift of validation whenever I choose. When I validate someone’s feelings, contrary to what I’ve been taught, other’s feelings transform and they drop back into their Essence. I have the power to invoke Essence in myself and others when I choose.

Defensive Strategy: Denying

It’s not that bad. I don’t have a problem. I can stop anytime I want to.

Essence quality: Self-attuning

I’m realizing I need checks and balances inside of me to notice whether I’m in fear perception or Essence perception. In Essence perception I can step back and watch how I’m perceiving and notice if I’m stuck in a pattern. In fear perception, even if I don’t feel afraid, I notice I’m not willing to do this type of self-reflection. 

Defensive Strategy: Denying

Reality is the way I see reality.

Essence quality: Inner Truth

I’m integrating how we have two very different perceptions inside. One tinted by our own fears and one tinted with our Essence. My fear-based lens sees others as critical and controlling or cold and withholding, while my Essence lens sends others as fearful and stuck in their own powerlessness perceptions. I can tell when I see through the lens of my inner truth that I am not fearing my unworthiness (rejection) or my lovelessness (abandoned) based on how others are treating me. To connect with my inner truth I speak Simple Truths to myself and watch how my body responds.

Defensive Strategy: Being Opinionated

I give my opinion as a way to feel my value. I expect others to follow my advice.

Essence quality: Speaking Simple Truth

I’m realizing that my opinions are a defensive strategy to feel my value instead of feeling value from my Essencey resources inside. Opinion: If you don’t like it, you can go back to what you used to be doing. Simple Truth: I know it’s scary to really go for what you want. You are being brave and intuitive about making these choices outside your comfort zone.

Defensive Strategy: Being Opinionated

(With a tone of superiority and dismissiveness) I don’t ever say anything mean. I wouldn’t do that. I’m just trying to help.

Essence quality: Aligning

I’m realizing when I align with my observing awareness inside I can notice how my opinions come through my tone and attitude even though I’m not saying anything mean. I’m realizing I try not to do what my FOO (family of origin) taught me which is overt opinions but I have been covertly sharing my opinions through my non-verbals. I’m realizing I can transform my opinions into Simple Truths as they arise, aligning myself with the truth inside of me. Opinion: I’m right and you’re wrong. Simple Truth: Here’s what I am picking up that you want. Here’s what I want. Let’s let both matter by tapping into our creativity to figure out how we both can get what we want.

Defensive Strategy: Being Disloyal

I always put my needs first because no one else is going to. If no one finds out, then nothing happened.

Essence quality: Integrity

I’m realizing the way I learned to get my needs met was on the down low. I learned it from my father and it was all I knew. I’d like to teach myself how to get my needs met using my integrity instead of my sneakiness. I perpetuate my fears about my worthiness of getting my needs met when I sneak. I feel the power of my choices to experience my inherent goodness when I make choices from my worthiness, my Essence. 

Defensive Strategy: Being Disloyal

(Spoken in an accusatory tone) Are you cheating on me? Are you lying to me? Who were you talking to? Where have you been?

Essence quality: Candor

I’m noticing I project onto others what I am doing. I can’t relax in relationships because I know what I’ve been capable of. I’d like to teach myself how to feel my goodness instead of my badness as the way to get my needs met. I can see the fear-based part of me was trained to make fear-based choices instead of Essencey choices.

Defensive Strategy: Downplaying

Come on! It’s not that bad. Look at the bright side. You never have to do that again.

Essence quality: Validating

I know you feel sad and disappointed. You really wanted that to happen very differently than how it went down.

Defensive Strategy: Downplaying

You’re making a big deal out of nothing. Why do you always do this?! You’re feelings are always out of control.

Essence quality: Wisdom

Take a moment to watch your feelings flourish and settle so you can trust your perception. Most of us distort reality into our biggest fears when we get stuck in the flourish.

Defensive Strategy: Being Ambivalent

My brain convinces me of one choice one moment and then completely counters that choice in the next moment. 

Essence quality: Knowing

I’m realizing my mind can function from fear or from Essence. I wonder if I’m going back and forth between the two in my head. I’m integrating how I can feel the truth of my knowing when I notice how my body responds to what I’m thinking. It tightens and braces when I’m in fear and lets go and expands when I’m in Essence.

Defensive Strategy: Being Ambivalent

(My fears of loss and the uncertainty of outcomes keep me from making decisions so I procrastinate.)

Essence quality: Initiating

I’m realizing my fears have been making my decisions for me. I can teach myself to sense the difference in my body when I’m in fear mode and when I’m connected to my inner Essence qualities. When I’m connected to my Essencey resources inside I actually feel like initiating actions because I know I’m resourced to handle whatever happens next.

Defensive Strategy: Being Aversive

I use verbal punishment to modify other people’s behavior because it works very effectively.

Essence quality: Engendering

I’m realizing the goal of punishment is to change a behavior. Since punishment causes unwanted side effects like resentment, passive aggressiveness, and resistance, I wonder how I can change the behavior without these? I’m realizing if I engender defensive strategies in others they don’t learn anything new because they are too busy defending themselves. I commit to using my inherent skills to understand others, which melts defensive strategies, as the way to engender learning.

Defensive Strategy: Being Aversive

I react negatively to my own thoughts and feelings that I don’t want to be having.

Essence quality: Observing Awareness

I’m realizing I’m treating my own thoughts and feelings like threats instead of validating that they reveal my previously unconscious powerlessness fears. I can use my skill at observing myself as a way to understand myself more deeply instead of believing my my powerlessness thoughts and feelings. I can validate the difference between what I was trained to fear about my self, like I’m bad for having certain needs, and the truth about me, like my needs are valid.

Defensive Strategy: Being Flippant

If people don’t like that I try to lighten the mood then they are negative Nellies. 

Essence quality: Attunement 

I’m realizing my timing is off. If I lead with lightening the mood it can seem disrespectful of what someone is currently experiencing. I can teach myself to validate others feelings first so they can feel understood by me and then I can be funny and I get to experience others as appreciating my humor instead of resenting it.

Defensive Strategy: Being Flippant

I use humor to deflect conversations that make me feel uncomfortable inside.

Essence quality: Resolving

I’m putting together how I can resolve my uncomfortableness so my comedic timing is authentic instead of deflecting. I’m realizing I would like to know the me that can have crucial conversations instead of avoiding them. I can resolve my uncomfortable feelings by validating them instead of avoiding them. Validation: I feel you in there uncomfortableness. I know you’re the uncomfortableness of getting consumed by our feelings. I’d like to teach us how to be the watcher of our feelings instead of getting lost in them. Notice how your uncomfortableness responds.

Defensive Strategy: Being Nonchalant 

I hate feeling vulnerable so I shrug off the feeling by telling myself I don’t really care.

Essence quality: Transform

I’m connecting the dots about how I can transform my vulnerability instead of avoiding it. My vulnerability is a part of my authenticity that didn’t get validated so if I validate it, it has a new experience and transforms from vulnerability to authenticity. Simple Truth: My vulnerability is my fear that I’m doing something wrong and I will be the wrong one. Notice how your body responds. It’s more settling to our insides to bring understanding to it than solutions.

Defensive Strategy: Being Nonchalant

(Unconsciously, I suppress emotional connection with others because I was never emotionally connected with growing up.)

Essence quality: Emotional Connection

I’m realizing I feel so alone. I’d like to teach us how to emotionally connect with others so we can feel the love and aliveness that comes from connecting deeply with others. I can start by taking snack-sized bites of beginning to express my emotions instead of just my thoughts. I can do this by expressing a thought, then noticing how my body responds to my thought, and then sharing how my body responded. For example. I just got tight inside when I said that, even though I know I wanted to say it. I’m realizing I have a fear that my vulnerability will be rejected. Notice your body response. Notice how the other person responds.

Defensive Strategy: Being Sarcastic

(Unconsciously: I use sarcasm to mask my true feelings)

Essence quality: Transparency

I’m realizing I’ve been trained to avoid my feelings AND other people’s feelings using sarcasm. I’m integrating how I can validate my feelings so they trigger, flourish, and settle in seconds. My defensive sarcasm can turn into my authentic sarcasm that all can enjoy instead of being confused by.

Defensive Strategy: Being Sarcastic

(Unconsciously: I like to use sarcasm to make people wrong. Because I can deny it if they make a fuss about it.)

Essence quality: Playfulness 

I’m realizing I’m stuck in the who’s-right-or-who’s-wrong either/or. Either/ors are an indication that I’m in my defensive strategies and not my Essence. I’d like to teach us how to be playful with the whole craziness of each of us trying to be right and trying not to be wrong. How that takes us away from our inner truth.

Defensive Strategy: Being Careless with feelings

Everything doesn’t always have to be about something deeper. It is what it is.

Essence quality: Nimbleness

(Guiding myself through my own feelings inside.) It’s hard when others protect themselves by shutting down their curiosity, self-reflection, and ability to take responsibility. I’m realizing it’s only fear that shuts people off from their open-mindedness. I have a choice about how I respond and so I’m responding from my Essence instead of my counter-defensive strategies. 

Defensive Strategy: Being Careless with other’s experiences 

I tell it like it is. If you can’t handle it, then toughen up.

Essence quality: Oneness

I wonder why I was trained to believe that I know the truth about everybody when I haven’t taken the time to understand truly where someone is coming from. When I contemplate that we’re all in this together and that we need each other’s authenticity to live together, my truths get more Essencey and less superior. 

Defensive Strategy: Judging

Why would anyone act that way?! They shouldn’t be doing that. It’s plain wrong.

Essence quality: Discernment

I’m connecting how I can discern, noticing what is happening without ascribing a right or wrong to it, because when I judge my mind and body contract and I can’t learn anything new from what’s happening. Life gets very boring if I’m judging and not learning and evolving.

Defensive Strategy: Judging

I shouldn’t want what I want. I shouldn’t have said that. I should have acted more friendly even though I was grieving. 

Essence quality: Liberating

I’d like to liberate my mind and body from believing that judgments are the only way I can get myself to do better. I notice we contract and limit our perception when we judge so we no longer see the whole picture. I’d like to teach us how to notice our actions, especially our mistakes, from a compassionate and curious place. When we’re compassionate and curious we no longer contract when we make mistakes, we expand. The learnings are then much more pleasant.

Defensive Strategy: Acting Out 

(I take great pride in the fact that I control my emotions and don’t let them out.)

Essence quality: Keen awareness

I’m realizing if I don’t bring Essencey energy to my feelings inside they don’t transform and I act them out unconsciously. 

Defensive Strategy: Acting Out

(I don’t notice whether I’m in defensive strategies or my Essence so I don’t know if I’m acting out my feelings or transforming them.) 

Essence quality: Lucidity

I’m realizing when I train my mind to notice how my body responds to what’s happening, I can notice whether I’m contracted and tight inside or in ease and flow. If I’m contracted and tight, I’m acting out my own powerlessness fears through my defensive strategies and very sadly getting the same results over and over. If I’m in ease and flow inside, I can perceive myself, my feelings, my thoughts, and others crystal clearly. Being the observing awareness of my inner experiences cultivates this lucidity.

Defensive Strategy: Gossiping

I like to know everything that’s going on and share it with everybody as the way to have some value and connect with people.

Essence quality: Speaking Simple Truths

I’m noticing ways I can feel my value from my Essence instead of my defensive strategies. I’m integrating how I can connect with my Essence in an instant by speaking Simple Truths to myself, a perspective that doesn’t make anyone or anything right or wrong.

Defensive Strategy: Gossiping

We better pray for them. They have betrayed their oath. 

Essence quality: Mercy

I’m realizing I can use the guise of praying as a way to share delicate details about another’s life. I’d like to teach myself to feel mercy by remembering these are details of other’s lives that they get to have the choice to tell or not to tell and I don’t want to take that choice from them. I don’t want others to take my choice away.

Defensive Strategy: Being Complacent

(Unconsciously: I settle in my life and relationships because I’m afraid of being alone and starting over.)

Essence quality: Invigorating

I’m realizing my perception has been so collapsed that I have a whole identity imprinted with trying not to be alone and isolated instead of creating from my Essence qualities, like my courage, my purposefulness, and my indomitable spirit to thrive.

Defensive Strategy: Being Complacent

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I don’t have time to change it.

Essence quality: Curiosity

I’m realizing I can drop into my curiosity instead of my Protector defensive strategy. My protector keeps me safe by limiting my thriving. My curiosity keeps me safe by noticing what’s happening beneath the surface of things, so I can feel myself connecting to the truth inside of me instead of believing my fear-based perception. I’m integrating how my curiosity helps me to see the ways that I am keeping myself stuck in fear instead of Essence.

Defensive Strategy: Forcing

My father taught me to force my will and opinion onto others by making it seem like it’s their idea. It works so I still do it.

Essence quality: Ingenuity

I’m realizing I can use my ingenuity to get what I want by understanding what others want and being clear about what I want. Instead of one winning and the other losing, I can use my zesty inventiveness to come up with clever ideas of how we both can get what we want. I’m realizing others resent being talked out of what they want and act out their resentments, making things harder in the long run.

Defensive Strategy: Forcing

I work hard and have achieved a lot so I’ve reached a status where I know what’s best for everybody. 

Essence quality: Validation

I’m realizing all of us need to feel valued in order to want to give our all to a common good. When I authentically value other’s Essence qualities, they inherently want to produce good things that help us all.

Defensive Strategy: Catastrophizing

(When one little thing goes wrong.) I’m going to lose everything I’ve worked so hard for. I’m going to end up homeless.

Essence quality: Nuancing

I’m remembering that I can guide myself through my automatic moments of catastrophizing. I can calm and soothe my catastrophizer by bringing some Essencey warmth and understanding to the place inside of me that is filling me up with extreme fear. When I identify as the warmth and compassion it allows me to step outside of my fear and see what it needs in order to settle.

Defensive Strategy: Catastrophizing 

I’m a failure. (After not getting something I really wanted.)

Essence quality: Organizing

I’m learning that my insides get disorganized when I listen to my catastrophizing Protector inside. I appreciate my Protector for trying to get me ready for the worst case scenario. I’m teaching myself how to step outside of my perception so I can see it more clearly. Doing so organizes my sense of self as my Essence, who’s observing what I’m doing instead of getting stuck right in the middle of all the disorganization that’s happening inside. 

Defensive Strategy: Being Depressed

(Repeating Pattern of behavior:) Leave me alone. Can’t you see that I’m having enough trouble the way it is. You always hit me with something when I’m down.

Essence quality: Sharing

I’m realizing I can share with my partner/friend/family how I can get stuck in feeling like I’m not enough or doing enough and how I lose my motivation then. I can notice if I’m using my depression to not face something I have said I want to face.

Defensive Strategy: Being Depressed

I’m tired. I’m too tired to do what I said I was going to do. I’m just exhausted!

Essence quality: Inquisitiveness

I’m connecting the dots about how my People-Pleasing Hero defensive strategy drains me of energy while engendering my authenticity from my Essence qualities generates aliveness energy. I can appreciate my People Pleaser for its hard work to keep me functioning over the top of my not-good-enough fears. I can validate my powerlessness fears so they move through, allowing my People Pleaser to transform into my authenticity. Validation: Yes we were trained to believe that if someone is unhappy with us it’s because there’s something wrong with us. Notice if your body relaxes or contracts inside. Validating Truth: The truth about us is, our actions and choices might be wrong, but our sense of self is worthy of love, especially when we mess up. Notice how your body responds.

Defensive Strategy: Self-Doubting

I really want to go for my dream job/experience/relationship, but I’m going to put it off until tomorrow. Again.

Essence quality: Purposefulness 

I’m realizing my powerlessness fears of failing/not being capable/not enough take over my whole perception and I can step back behind/beside that perception and notice it’s not the truth about me. It’s fear perception. I’m remembering I have an Essence perception inside of me that feels resourced and ready for challenges I’ve never faced before.

Defensive Strategy: Self-Doubting

What if it doesn’t go the way I thought? What if no one likes it? What if no one talks to me?

Essence quality: Mattering

I’m integrating (trying it on in my body) how I matter because of my unique experience and expression of my Essence qualities, not how others treat me. When I can feel this mattering internally, I want to take my mattering and match it up with this challenge I want to overcome.

Defensive Strategy: Procrastinating

Until I figure out how to do it perfectly, I’m not going to finish it.

Essence quality: Interest

I’m interested in how my perfectionist sees only one right way and how I can teach my Perfectionist Protector to enjoy our Essencey creative myriad ways of doing things, instead of the who’s-right-or-who’s-wrong way. I appreciate you Perfectionistic Protector for keeping us safe from failing by making sure no one can find fault with us. I know my Perfectionist Protector needs me to show interest in guiding it and mentoring it to trust our Essence, instead of evaluating how well it’s doing.

Defensive Strategy: Procrastinating

I still have time. I don’t really need to do it right now. I’ll do it later. I work better under pressure!

Essence quality: Intervening

I’m learning how to catch my stuck repeating patterns that give me immediate relief or gratification but lead to long-term stress or suffering. I can cultivate my Essencey voice to intervene anytime I catch myself putting off until later what I said I would do right now: I’m realizing our procrastination is a fear state we can automatically get propelled into and we can shift ourselves right back into Essence by speaking a Simple Truth to ourselves and noticing how the truth feels to our inner body.

Defensive Strategy: Being Routine

I like to say the same phrases over and over in conversations so I don’t feel any vulnerability about what I’m expressing.

Essence quality: Diversity

I’m realizing my need to minimize risk is killing my aliveness and moment-to-moment creativity. I’d like to teach us how to transform our vulnerability, instead of avoiding it. Simple Truth: I’m sensing how my vulnerability is my authenticity that didn’t get validated. We learned to limit the risk of doing it wrong or being the wrong one by limiting our creative diversity. Notice how your body responds. I’d like to teach us how to enjoy our diversity of resources inside by reminding ourselves we are worthy of knowing ourselves as creative, instead of limited.

Defensive Strategy: Being Routine

I stick to my routines or else I feel intense uncomfortableness that I don’t know what’s going to happen.

Essence quality: Solace

I’m realizing I can take solace in my internal world or try to control for solace by controlling my environment through rigid routines. I’m teaching myself how to feel the comfort of my routines and the comfort of my awareness to transform uncomfortableness (Powerlessness fear of being or doing it wrong) into the ease and flow of my flexible and confident Essence qualities inside. I can tap into my Essence qualities by speaking Simple Truths to myself like this.

Defensive Strategy: Being Aloof

I like to keep my distance emotionally from others by keeping my conversations more superficial and light.

Essence quality: Regulating my emotional and nervous systems

I’m putting together how I’m regulating my emotions by controlling my external environment. I’d like to teach myself how to go inside to regulate my emotions so I can have more meaningful and deep emotional connections with myself and others.

Defensive Strategy: Being Aloof

(Unconscious: I don’t care about and am not interested in other’s experiences.)

Essence quality: Softening

I’m realizing my FOO (family of origin) taught me emotional connection with another was dangerous because I will be rejected or abandoned. I’d like to teach myself to enjoy the power of my softness instead of the pseudo-power of my aloof defensive strategies. I’m realizing I can learn to care about other’s experiences by learning to care about my own. I’m realizing I have never let myself feel the sadness of how my need for connection with others was messed with by my caretaker’s defensive strategies. I can validate my sadness and watch it trigger, flourish, and settle inside so it no longer overwhelms me.

Defensive Strategy: Betraying 

(Unconsciously: I betray my Essence every time I use defensive strategies to try to get my needs met.)

Essence quality: Aligning

I’m connecting the dots of how I can align with my Essence qualities or my defensive strategies to get my needs met. My defensive strategies evoke defenses in others. My Essence cultivates Essence in others. 

Defensive Strategy: Betraying

(Unconsciously: I’m betraying my moment-to-moment creativity every time I use judgment, assumptions, or opinions to try to change other people’s behavior.)

Essence quality: Moment-to-Moment Creativity

I’m learning to trust my in-the-moment-creativity to solve my problems and get my needs met will emerge right when I need it to. I can summon this creativity anytime by speaking a Simple Truth to my own insides and watching how my body responds. This puts me in the perfect mind and body state to be my authentic self outside of any of my trained-in not-measuring-up fears. 

Defensive Strategy: Being Ambiguous 

(Unconsciously: I avoid options with uncertain outcomes in favor of those with known probabilities.)

Essence quality: Emergence

I’m realizing I limit my choices so I don’t feel that intensely uncomfortable feeling inside of not knowing what’s going to happen. I’m putting together how those body sensations are the beginnings of my creativity, since creativity emerges from nothing. I’ve been taught to fear this internal experience of my creativity just-getting-started, and haven’t learned to let it emerge into its full expression. 

Defensive Strategy: Being Ambiguous

I can’t seem to get clear about what I want, let alone express it, so people get frustrated with me.

Essence quality: Choosing

I’m integrating (trying on in my body) how I avoid my choices when interacting with others so I don’t have to worry about doing it wrong (choosing wrong so they are upset or unhappy). I’d like to teach myself to separate my choices from my sense of self’s worthiness and value. I can do this by speaking the Simple Truth to my own fears: When we make a not-so-great choice, we are especially worthy and valuable because we can learn and grow from our mistakes, instead of registering them as a condemnation of our worth.

Defensive Strategy: Being Incompetent

I’ve noticed if I act like I don’t know how to do something, my partner/friend/family will kick in and do it for me. 

Essence quality: Intuiting

I’m intuiting that I play incompetent to get others to do things I don’t want to do. I’m realizing I don’t want to do them because I feel something is lacking in me that won’t do it right. I’ve used other people to regulate my own powerlessness fears about myself. This hasn’t made my powerlessness disappear, only submerge to re-emerge in the near future. I want to feel my intuition and instincts to be able to handle whatever problems scare me. I can do this by reminding myself that I have resources inside (Essence qualities) that I can connect with by speaking a Simple Truth to myself: I miss out on my intuitions and instincts when I automatically pass off the challenge just because I feel scared inside. Notice how your body responds to you speaking a truth to it.

Defensive Strategy: Being Incompetent

I go quiet and invisible when there’s conflict because I don’t know what to do.

Essence quality: Enjoying Learning

I’m realizing the cycle of incompetence to confidence goes from initial feelings of ignorance, then questioning my competency because I feel ignorant (don’t know the answer yet), through progress through curious persistence (which are Essence qualities). I’d like to invoke an Essence voice within to guide me through this cycle so I don’t scare myself out of it. I want to become the master at solving conflict instead of avoiding it.

Defensive Strategy: Super Competent

I’m so sick of always having to be the one who knows the right way to do everything. People are so stupid and unhelpful.

Essence quality: Connection

I’m realizing I feel very alone in my super-competent. I want to learn to feel competent and share competency so I can connect with others in new ways. I’m realizing me trying to be right is a defensive strategy and keeps me from my inner truth. When I see through a right-or-wrong lens I limit my view of reality. When I speak Simple Truths that don’t make anyone right or wrong, I touch into a whole new version of life.

Defensive Strategy: Super Competent

(Unconsciously: I only have value if I’m fixing other people’s problems or helping them be better people.)

Essence quality: Mentor

I’m realizing I’m trying to regulate my own insides by telling myself the story that I know what other people want without really checking and attuning to them. I’ve been wanting people to want what I want for them. I want to feel the meaning and satisfaction (both Essence qualities) of drawing out another’s Essence, instead of imposing my will onto them.

Defensive Strategy: Being Crude

(Unconsciously: I tell people to calm down and relax whenever they make a big deal about what I’ve said.)

Essence quality: Courtesy

I’m realizing I’m missing out on my amazing in-the-moment creativity when I say things that are offensive to some people. My creativity can find a way to be clever or funny that does’t throw anybody under the bus.

Defensive Strategy: Being Crude

I was only joking, come on, can’t you take a joke.

Essence Quality: Playfulness

I’m realizing humor without attunement to the present circumstances feels invalidating to others. I want to be known for my playfulness and I want my playfulness to delight others, not invoke their defenses.

Defensive Strategy: Rejecting

(Unconsciously: I abruptly stop communicating with others when I’m done with them.)

Essence Quality: Empathy

I’m realizing my integrity is about my relationship with me. Do I treat others the way I want to be treated so that I feel I’m spreading Essence instead of harm?

Defensive Strategy: Rejecting

(In reaction to someone else’s idea) What were you thinking?! This is what you came up with?

Essence Quality: Validation

I’m understanding that we all need to feel valued for our effort in order to be motivated to produce new ideas or info. I can validate another’s Essence qualities even if I don’t like their idea or offering. I can validate their fortitude, their perseverance, their ingenuity, their desire to help, their creativity, or their courage.

Defensive Strategy: Projecting

(Someone who is being unfaithful) I know you’re cheating on me! (Expressed with strong emotions, blame, and defensiveness.)

Essence Quality: Contemplating

I wonder what lens I’m seeing others through. Is it a fear-based/defensive lens or an Essencey lens? I’m noticing my fear-based lens is rigid and impermeable to self-reflection and my Essence lens is flexible and open to self-reflection.

Defensive Strategy: Projecting

You’re the one who’s selfish! That’s all I do is give and give an give. You only care about yourself.

Essence Quality: Evoking

I’m realizing I can put my feelings onto another person if I don’t find a way to feel them. I can regulate my feelings by stepping outside of the body sensations of feelings and validate that my feelings are worthy of being understood instead of unacknowledged.

Defensive Strategy: Blaming

If you hadn’t done that, then I wouldn’t have_____________.

Essence Quality: Non-attachment

I’m realizing my need to be right requires me to blame others so I’m not the wrong one. I wonder how I can step behind the who’s-right-or-who’s-wrong system I learned so I can express my needs without blame. I’m realizing I can let go of my attachment to needing to be right by learning to speak Simple Truths that don’t make anyone or anything right or wrong. My creativity will love the challenge.

Defensive Strategy: Blaming

You made me feel___________.

Essence Quality: Taking Responsibility 

I’m connecting the dots that my feelings are mine and no one can make me feel any certain way. I’m opening to the awareness that others can activate the powerlessness feelings that already exist inside of me. I can take responsibility for my feelings by going inside and bringing some Essencey warmth and understanding to my feelings so they can trigger, flourish, and settle.

Defensive Strategy: Whining

(Without intending to do anything about it.) It’s too hot in here! Why is it always so uncomfortable here?!

Essence Quality: Realizing

I’m seeing how my FOO (family of origin) taught me to get others to take actions I don’t want to take by complaining and whining. I’m realizing I don’t get to experience my Essence when I take this route. I want to enjoy my ability to come up with creative solutions in the moment on my own.

Defensive Strategy: Whining

Why does this always happen? Nothing is ever easy.

Essence Quality: Ease & Flow

I definitely didn’t want this to happen, how can I still get what I want?

Defensive Strategy: Freezing

(When something intense happens I shut down and can’t move.)

Essence Quality: Facilitating

I’m realizing when I automatically freeze there’s no one home inside that can guide me out of it. I’m noticing sense of self is stuck in a fear perception instead of an Essencey perception. I can step back behind my perception so I can see it instead of getting lost in it.

Defensive Strategy: Freezing

(When I want to express an appreciation I get so uncomfortable inside I don’t do it.)

Essence Quality: Soothing

I’m putting together how I’m afraid of my own uncomfortableness inside. My fear keeps me from learning something new about my uncomfortableness so I can soothe it from tight and fearing doing it wrong or even feeling my deep caring, to Essencey and capable of enjoying my deep caring even if I don’t do it right.

Defensive Strategy: Fainting

(When something intense goes down I feel all of my courage drop to the floor where I can’t reach it.)

Essence Quality: Fortitude 

I’m realizing no one taught me how to transform my fear so I can get stuck in it. I’m realizing now I can transform my fear by stepping outside of the body sensations I feel in my belly and validating it until it settles. Then I can feel back in touch with the strong spine of my unique fortitude.

Defensive Strategy: Fainting

When I’m asked a question my mind goes blank and I panic.

Essence Quality: Effulgence

I’m realizing I’m missing out on my brilliance when my fears hijack my sense of self. I can appreciate my Freezing Protector for keeping me safe from saying the wrong thing by draining us of our Essence. I’m noticing when I bring Essence to my Protector defensive strategies, I can feel my brilliance re-emerge to handle the situation.

Defensive Strategy: Constricting

My body automatically tightens up whenever I start to feel too good or too powerful inside.

Essence Quality: Nourishing

I’m realizing my tightness is just trying to keep my sense of self feeling about as good and powerful as I was allowed to feel in my family of origin. I can bring nourishment to my tightness in the form of Essence qualities—the very thing my tightness didn’t get growing up. I can validate; be gentle and tender; speak the Simple truth; or try to understand my tightness as the way to allow it to have a new experience so it can transform.

Defensive Strategy: Constricting

(Unconsciously: I monitor other’s behavior and let them know when they are making me uncomfortable.)

Essence Quality: Considering

I’m connecting the dots about how I can transform my uncomfortableness instead of defensively controlling other’s behavior. I’m realizing I could really enjoy considering other people’s experience as valid and different from my own. I can transform my uncomfortableness by validating it as body sensations inside of feelings inside of me, my fears, about not knowing how to feel in control with controlling everything. I can watch how my body uncomfortableness responds to being met with Essence instead of a defensive strategy.

Defensive Strategy: Distancing

When someone is acting out with their own reactivity or drama I get as far away from them as possible.

Essence Quality: Surrendering

I’m realizing my defensive strategy of distancing is trying to regulate my fears. I could take some internal actions and regulate my fears by meeting them with Essence, so my defensive strategy won’t be the only way I can regulate my fears. I can teach my defensive strategies how to be Essencey.

Defensive Strategy: Distancing

I don’t know what to do with my feelings so I try to live a short distance from them by cutting off my connection to my body.

Essence Quality: Embodying

I’m realizing if I cut off my body, I cut off my Essence qualities like passion, joy, and exuberance. I can learn to be in my body by getting my mind very interested in how my body is responding to what’s happening. I can talk to my little past versions of me who got taught to be afraid of their feelings because no one knew how to validate feelings. Validating and noticing how my body responds is the pathway to instant Embodiment. 

Defensive Strategy: Being Short-sighted

I need the immediate gratification of something because I just don’t feel good inside. It’s okay to want to feel good, right?

Essence Quality: Flexible Focus

I’m realizing my Protector defensive strategies like to limit what I can see so it seems like the only way to feel happy is to get the food/substance/thing right now. I can appreciate my protectors for their very convincing tunnel vision skills and let them know we’re going to keep those skills, just use them in Essence instead of fear. I’m realizing we miss out on our discipline, empowerment, and integrity when we lose sight of the long term.

Defensive Strategy: Being Short-sighted

(Unconsciously: I don’t let myself try on any new view of things because I start to feel some anxiety about not being so sure what’s right.)

Essence Quality: Inner Truth

I’m realizing no one taught me to access the truth inside of me. I was taught to try and be right and make sure you’re not wrong. I can see how being able to transform my feelings instead of avoiding them by using the right-or-wrong system, allows me to go deeper than right or wrong to the truth inside of me. Simple Truths don’t make anyone or anything right or wrong so my body and mind and other’s body’s and mind’s relax when I speak them.

Defensive Strategy: Being Closed Off 

(Unconsciously: I stay closed off as a protective mechanism from feeling emotionally overwhelmed and vulnerable.

Essence Quality: Openness

I’m realizing I learned being closed off from my mother. It’s not my authenticity and wasn’t hers.  I know how I felt when she closed off from feeling vulnerable. It felt like she was closing off to me. I don’t want others to feel the way I did. I’d like to teach us how to validate our feelings and vulnerabilities so we don’t have to use a defensive strategy to keep us from feeling. Simple Truth: I only feel overwhelmed or vulnerable when my feelings hijack my sense of self. When I teach myself to be the observing awareness of my feelings they trigger, flourish, and settle in seconds. 

Defensive Strategy: Being Closed Off

(Unconsciously: I only notice my good qualities. I don’t ever take a look at what I might be doing that I don’t realize I’m doing. I just like to notice other people doing it.)

Essence Quality: Self-Reflection

I’m realizing my defensive strategies run under my awareness until I start to look for them. I’m realizing I don’t need to defend my defensive strategies because they aren’t my authenticity (My Essence qualities).

Defensive Strategy: Being Messy

The story I tell myself is that I’m too stressed and too worn out to take care of what’s not absolutely necessary. 

Essence Quality: Order

I’m realizing my stress and my energy drains all come from my powerlessness beliefs not from what’s happening to me. I’d like to teach myself how to comfort and soothe my fears of not measuring up or not being adequate instead of running my People Pleaser over the top of my fears all day long. When I settle my fears internally first, I don’t feel stressed, I feel resourced and ready to handle the challenge.

Defensive Strategy: Being Messy

When I have a feeling I express it without knowing what feeling it is. 

Essence Quality: Pausing 

I’m realizing I can take a pink cloud pause when I’m feeling so I can focus my attention within momentarily. Since my body responds to images, I can envision a pink cloud emerging inside of me to settle my feelings before I speak or act them out. By pausing and turning my attention within I can meet my feelings with Essence which is all they need to transform.

Defensive Strategy: Getting rid of

(Unconsciously: When I don’t like something like a person, an experience, or a feeling, I want to know how to get rid of it.)

Essence Quality: Transform

I’m integrating how my awareness can transform unwanted situations and feelings back into ease and flow in an instant. Giving value to something, validating it, transforms it. I want to feel the power of being about to have this kind of impact on things.

Defensive Strategy: Getting rid of

(Unconsciously: I refuse to acknowledge certain thoughts, feelings, or realities that are distressing.)

Essence Quality: Facing

I’m putting together how not facing things leaves them to erupt again in the future. I want to tap into my Courage and Big Brave to face my fears and validate them to transform them instead of avoiding them. Validation: Yes, we were trained to believe that the only way to deal with internal distress is by using defensive strategies to get rid of them in the moment. Notice how your body responds. Validating Truth: The truth about us is, we transform our internal distress, our powerlessness beliefs of not being worthy or failing, by meeting them with Essence instead of more fear.