Armour

ARMOUR

“It’s a disservice to yourself and humanity to pretend there are no chinks in your ARMOUR” ……. Janet Louise Stephenson reminds us.

We learn at such a young age how to wear ARMOUR around our hearts in order to keep our tender hearts safe. It’s wise. Life can be a bloody battlefield for kids, adolescents and adults that for damned sure.

However, what is as important as learning how to put on our ARMOUR, is learning how to take it off too.

Those who live too afraid to surrender the ARMOUR shielding their hearts and those too naïve to self protect and strap on their ARMOUR when situations become unsafe will struggle with heartfelt intimacy.

Our hearts “ARMOUR” could also be called our “personal boundaries”. Intimate relationships require strong personal boundaries, or bullet proof ARMOUR that preserves and protects a sacred heart space. Lovers, spouses, families and trusted friends treasure those we can be truly vulnerable with and drop our social ARMOUR feeling safe, respected and protected.

For most of us throughout life it’s trial and error. Kids start out adoring super heroes for they seem to always win and triumph no matter what villain tries to hurt them. As we surrender our capes, swords, crowns and magic wands in childhood we pick up new weapons of mass distraction or emotional ARMOUR in adolescence. We experiment with what works best at keeping our heart safe.

I chose booze and drugs as emotional ARMOUR as a young adult anesthetizing my heart but it actually did more damage than I realized. When we are numb, we do not feel any physical or emotional blow in its full force. Remove the anesthetic however, and we become the walking wounded.

Recovery is all about surrendering our emotional ARMOUR that works against us sabotaging self-care. We need to learn how to replace our inhibiting ARMOUR with individually tailored, resilient, healthy personal boundaries that enhance our self-care.

So today is Word Vitamin invites us to review any ARMOUR working against us compromising the quality of our intimate relationships? Perhaps it is booze, drugs, workaholism, food, social media, gambling, spending or bullshitting (self denial)?

Our healthy ARMOUR that adds to the intimate relationships we treasure needs to be maintained and cared for. What shields us from fatal emotional blows is our boundaries of self-respect.

Is our ARMOUR inhibiting emotional intimacy?

Has our ARMOUR become dull and neglected requiring a bit of loving attention and perhaps a spit and polish? These questions might help us clarify our answers if we find a diminishing capacity to …

1. Disagree without disrespect,

2. Own our sadness and anger

3. Give and receive an authentic apology

4. Say I love you to those who matter most

5. Ask for help when we are wounded

We all get chinks in our healthy ARMOUR of personal boundaries from time to time, once we own it, we can repair it and get on with living and loving out aloud!

We are all a work in progress so let’s remember that a Knight or Knightess in shining, undented perfect ARMOUR, is a warrior who has never had their metal truly tested!

Lotsa love Cynthia xxx