Transforming Your Chief Defense Into a Mighty Purpose

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"This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose considered by yourself a mighty one"-—G.B.Shaw

"The greatest tragedy in life is to die with your music still in you"—Source unknown

In our last blog post, we discussed how to transform our anxiety into fulfillment with the power of “a mighty purpose." We further discussed the essential role of deconstructing what is called the core fear, our fundamental interpretation of how life can be threatening, when pursuing that fulfillment.

In this post, we present an additional concept in our Deconstructing Anxiety model, equally important as the core fear … the chief defense.

What Is the Chief Defense?

The chief defense is our primary strategy, our repertoire of behaviors, that is designed to protect us from the core fear. Someone, for example, who is afraid of abandonment (loss of love) might adopt a chief defense of becoming a people-pleaser, believing that pleasing others will secure their goodwill, providing “insurance” against abandonment. Someone else with a core fear of losing meaning might become a perfectionist, trying to guarantee that every moment will be meaningful and fulfilling.

It is the combination of the core fear and chief defense that, together, build our personality. Except for those moments when we are fully and joyfully immersed in the present moment, literally every thought we think comes from our core fear’s interpretation of how life can threaten our fulfillment. At the same time, every decision we make or action we take comes from the chief defense strategy for how to try to secure that fulfillment. This is why it is so essential that we deconstruct our core fear and chief defense.

Living with purpose, then, is the natural result of not just gaining insight into our core fears and chief defenses, but realizing they simply do not accomplish what we had hoped. Michel de Montaigne said, “My life was filled with terrible misfortunes … most of which never happened." When we can truly see that our core fear and chief defense were devised from faulty childhood thinking, we spontaneously step back and gain a perspective that frees us from their hold. We no longer feel pulled to obey their dictates and are set loose to pursue our higher good.

Case History

Here’s a case history of someone who found her purpose after deconstructing her core fear and chief defense.

Jennifer was a 52-year-old holistic nurse. She worked in the cardiology unit of a hospital. During our time together, she uncovered a core fear of abandonment and a chief defense of being a nurturer—taking care of others in the hope of feeling the fulfillment of love herself. Of course, her nurturing was a good thing, but she was emotionally exhausted from a lifetime of it, never having let herself receive in return (such is the result of the chief defense).

In discussing her history with romantic relationships, I inadvertently opened up a deep pocket of pain. Her relationships had always left her bitterly disappointed. She would give and give and, in the end, feel taken advantage of by a partner who couldn’t or wouldn’t reciprocate. Working with the exercises in the Deconstructing Anxiety program, such as “The Alchemist,” “The Witness,” and “The Warrior’s Stance,” she began defying the dictates of her core fear and chief defense; she would, for instance, resist the impulse to give until she was sure it was fulfilling rather than draining to do so.

During this time, she discovered her “mighty purpose." She came into session one day and pronounced passionately, “I now know what I want to do with my life. My heart has been broken every which way but loose. I want to help heal broken hearts.” She didn’t quite realize the coincidence until I pointed it out ... that she worked in a cardiology unit! With this, she understood why she had been drawn to that specialty, saying, “I guess I wanted to heal broken hearts from the start.”

After she had fully defined the details of her purpose with a process called "Vision Questing," she decided to seek permission from the hospital to incorporate a certain holistic healing technique in her work with patients. When I saw her the next week, she was positively glowing, the exhaustion seemingly erased from her face. The administration had approved her request and she was already using the technique. This enabled her to talk to and connect with her patients in a new way. She was able to sit with them, listening to their emotional pain, sharing her own story as appropriate, and offering what she called “a healing of the heart.”