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🔼: 💡 Parts
Protector Parts
"Protector" is a job title assigned to the parts of us who become tethered to the wounded or hidden parts of us and work tirelessly to either prevent their activation or repress them once they have been activated – it’s a sort of job or role some parts of us are in. These parts of us are usually the easiest to notice and get in touch with, because they’re often quite active in our day-to-day lives.
Some protective parts of us aren’t protecting a past wound, they’re trying to protect us from further fear, pain, or suffering.
Protectors are what others might call ‘defenses,‘ ‘adaptations,‘ ‘coping strategies,‘ ‘coping mechanisms,‘ ‘adaptations,‘ or ‘resistances,‘ but those are only their Protector Strategies 🛡️ — they themselves are much more complex and much more interesting than that. 🔑 Protectors are not their roles, but beings who are in those roles.[1]
These parts of us know that 🔑 our wounded parts can overwhelm us, so they do everything they can to keep those wounded parts tucked away in our subconscious and keep them there through various Protector Strategies 🛡️. These parts of us have a purpose and inherent gifts which are being blocked by their protective obligations.[2] They spend enormous amounts of time doing their jobs and are often exhausted.
Protectors keep the wounded and disowned parts of us contained until we are able to help them.
A part can act protectively without being a Protector. To be a Protector the part must be tethered to one or more exiles. Protectors would not do what they do or go to such extreme lengths if the exiles they protect and protect us from were given the loving contact they need. Liberated parts may act protectively from time-to-time because they care about us, but they otherwise do what they're meant to, grounded in the present moment and not past hurts.
The Basics
- 🔑 Hold labels loosely
- 🔑 Proactive Protectors and Reactive Protectors are more alike than different
- 🔑 Protectors are dedicated to maintaining their idea of safety, balance and homeostasis
- 🔑 Protectors are parentified children
- 🔑 Protectors can guard multiple Exiles, and Exiles can have multiple Protectors
- 🔑 Protectors do not like their jobs, but are afraid to stop
- 🔑 Protectors often accidentally bring about what they want to prevent
- 🔑 Protectors need to be genuinely befriended
- 🔑 Protectors can let go of their roles when their exiles are unburdened
- 🔑 Protectors can soften without unburdening
- 🔑 Multiple Protectors can use the same strategy
- 🔑 Each Protector thinks they know best
- 🔑 Go at your pace
- 🔑 The time we spend with our Protectors is just as valuable as the time we spend with our Exiles
- 🔑 Some protectors dominate other protectors
- 🔑 Parts use our minds and bodies to get or distract our attention
- 🔑 Protectors often doubt that things can get better
- 🔑 Protectors initially understand our inner-ecosystem much better than we or our practitioners do
- 🔑 We need Protectors
- 🔑 We need our Parts, and our Parts need us
Protectors fall into one of two categories.
Protector Burdens
Protector Needs
- To feel welcomed, because 🔑 All Parts are welcome exactly as they are
- To be understood, because 🔑 There are no bad Parts
- 🔑 To be genuinely befriended.[2-1]
- To be validated and negotiated with, as opposed to strong-armed.[2-2]
- To be honored and appreciated.
- To learn to trust in Self and in Self-Leadership.[2-3]