🔼: [[💡 Trailheads]], [[Symptoms of Unresolved Trauma]] #### Protector Strategies [[🔑 Protectors are dedicated to maintaining their idea of safety, balance and homeostasis|🔑 Our Protectors want to keep us safe, inside and out]], and their strategies are *how* they achieve this — they are attempts at finding safety. They were often helpful to navigate [[💡 Trauma|trauma]] and past experience but are a mismatch for our present lives. They are temporary, short-term solutions that potentially elongate inner and outer problems, but there is real intelligence to be honored in each of them because they also keep the [[💡 Exiles|wounded parts of ourselves]] contained until we are able to attend to them. These strategies are [[💡 Trailheads|trailheads]] – by focusing on them we can find and get to know the [[💡 Protector Parts|Protectors]] who use them. > [!NOTE] > I use the word “strategy” because it’s the best approximation I've thought of, but it’s only tonally accurate for some [[💡 Protector Parts|Protectors]] — not all of them are strategic or cerebral. Many are just doing their best with what they know. Protector Strategies tend to be either… - Compensatory: they’re intended to help us not feel our [[💡 Exiles|Exiles]]’ pain. - Overriding: they override other protector strategies that our [[💡 Protector Parts|Protector Parts]] or those of other people take issue with. These strategies exist on a spectrum from mild and socially acceptable to extreme and polarizing, and [[🔑 the more wounded the Exile, the more extreme the Protector]]. Some are behavioral, some are [[⭐️ Emotions|emotional]], some are psychological processes. A full list would be enormous and probably impossible, but this one can bring some of the most common into awareness and help us recognize others which aren't represented here so we can start to [[🕯️ Unblending|unblend]]. Having [[💡 Protector Parts|Protector Parts]] who use these strategies is not any kind of failure — [[🔑 Parts can use our minds and bodies to get or distract our attention|🔑 they are signal flairs]]. [[🔑 Proactive Protectors and Reactive Protectors are more alike than different]]. Remember: - [[🔑 Parts are not their burdens, roles, or strategies]] - [[🔑 Multiple Protectors can use the same strategy]] - [[🔑 Protector Strategies create unintended negative byproducts]] - [[🔑 There are no bad Parts]]. - If you find yourself triggered: [[⭐️ Safety Tools and Resources]]. - [[🔑 The more wounded the Exile, the more extreme the Protector]] - Not all of these things are *exclusively* protector strategies, it's not so [[💡 Black-and-White Thinking|Black-and-White]]. Some of them just *can* be used this way. ##### Common Protector Strategies | [[💡 Proactive Protectors\|Proactive Protector]] Strategies | [[💡 Reactive Protectors\|Reactive Protector]] Strategies | Either/Or | | :---------------------------------------------------------: | :-------------------------------------------------------: | :--------------------------------------------------------------------: | | Appearance Fixations | [[🛡️ Fight]] | [[🛡️ Emotional Foreclosure]] | | Health Anxiety | [[🛡️ Flight]] | [[🛡️ Emotional Repression]] | | [[🛡️ Hypervigilance]] | [[🛡️ Freeze]] | [[🛡️ Emotional Suppression]] | | [[🛡️ Inner Defenders]] | [[🛡️ Fawn]] | [[🛡️ Emotional Armoring]] | | [[🛡️ Over-eating]] | [[🛡️ Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)]] | [[🛡️ Avoiding]] | | [[🛡️ Perfectionism]] | [[🛡️ Fixing and Advice Giving]] | [[🛡️ Criticizing]] / <br>Self-Deprecating | | [[🛡️ Overachieving]] | [[🛡️ Emotional Eating]] | [[🛡️ Blaming]] | | [[🛡️ Under Eating]] /<br>[[🛡️ Restricted Eating]] | [[🛡️ Acting Out]] | [[🛡️ People-Pleasing]] | | [[🛡️ Score-Keeping]] | [[🛡️ Acting In]] | [[🛡️ Performing]] | | Self-Improvement | | [[🛡️ Codependency]] | | [[🛡️ Masking]] | | [[🛡️ Isolating]] / <br>Can't be alone | | [[🛡️ Narcissism]] | | [[🛡️ Self-Distraction]] | | | | [[🛡️ Dissociation\|🛡️ Dissociating]] | | | | [[🛡️ Worrying]]/[[🛡️ Ruminating]] | | | | [[🛡️ Procrastinating]] | | | | [[🛠 Fidget Toys\|🛡️ Fidgeting]] | | | | [[🛡️ Intellectualizing]] / <br>Analyzing | | | | [[🛡️ Presence-ing]] | | | | [[🛡️ Spiritual Bypassing]] /<br>[[🕯️ Meditation 🧘\|🛡️ Meditating]] | | | | [[🛡️ Spiritual Materialism]] | | | | [[🛡️ Projection\|🛡️ Projecting]] | | | | [[🛡️ Retail Therapy]] / <br>Over-spending | | | | [[🛡️ Overworking]] | | | | [[🛡️ Over-exercising]] | | | | [[🛡️ Controlling]] | | | | [[🛡️ Joking]] | | | | [[🛡️ Manipulating]] | | | | [[🛡️ Denying]] | | | | [[🛡️ Blocking]] / <br>[[🛡️ Confusion]] /<br>[[🛡️ Brain Fog]] | | | | Rebelling | | | | Thrill-Seeking | | | | Medicating, Self Medicating | | | | [[🛡️ Gambling]] | ##### Extreme Protector Strategies These strategies are disruptive or destructive to our lives and are often highly [[💡 Polarization|polarizing]]. [[🔑 The more wounded the Exile, the more extreme the Protector]]. - [[🛡️ Addiction or Dependence]] - [[🛡️ Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)]] - [[🛡️ Eating Disorders]] - [[🛡️ Self-Harm]] - [[🛡️ Suicidality]] - [[🛡️ Abuse]] ##### Healthy, Non-Polarizing Alternatives ![[🛠 Pendulation Toolkit]] [^1]: