How to Heal the Defense System of the Personality



Help for Spiritual Emergency, Spiritual Crisis, Dark Night of the Soul & Kundalini Syndrome

I theorize that ‘mental health problems’ of all kinds arise for many in the awakening process which can happen before or after a major awakening event. When it pops up suddenly, I think it is very likely due to an awakening that is happening in the individual rather than being a psychosis. A ‘mental health flare-up’ commonly occurs sometime after a profound awakening experience after the high energy settles down. When it follows an awakening event, it is known as dark night of the soul, spiritual emergency, kundalini syndrome or spiritual crisis.

As an awakening individual, what you need to know is what we are now working on is letting go of need for our programmed flight-fight defense strategy for our personality. In an awakening process, our awareness level and energy vibration are increasing. Because of this higher energy then whatever persistent thought, emotional reactions or beliefs ‘related to personal identity’ are uppermost in our mind (these reduce our awareness the most), they will automatically present and become visible (magnify) so we can see what the problem is and work to deprogram or not reinforce this thought/emotion/belief pattern. This outer defense system of our personality IS our programmed and preferred way to respond with the fight/flight reactions. We cannot go further on the awakening path until we drop this outer protection programming, as it is the strongest program (for survival of the imaginary person) that keeps our personality intact. We are moving away from being non-awakened personality mostly reacting to life out of these programmed responses in an auto-pilot fashion towards being aware and spontaneous - not needing programmed responses anymore. Shifting our perspective towards awareness and away from our personality, we will be dropping these autopilot programs one-by-one as they arise and we detect them and quit feeling we need them. Once we clear our outer defense system for our personality, our awareness increases much after that. This is the hardest step and a big reason why many can remain in spiritual emergency for years is that they do not see through and let go these outer programs that keep the personality intact at the outer most edges.

There are two programs for the outer defense system of the personality one for flight (fear) and one for fight (anger). Together these two programmed response patterns can be seen to define our ‘mental health problem’ from the traditional psychiatric definitions. Really, the label is not that important - you just need to see what your patterns are as once you can see them, then you can catch them when they get triggered which *seeing them clearly* is key to be able to choose not to react when they get triggered. The first side of the personalities’ defense system we will automatically work with (it will come up by itself) is the fear reaction or the flight response as this is a less energetic response as compared to fight/anger component. After we clear the program for the fear response we will gain much energy and awareness and then later the other side (fight) will come up when we are strong enough and it’s ready to clear. Anger is much stronger energy than fear. So all those in dark night of the soul, having spiritual emergency, crisis or kundalini syndrome are basically working on letting go the need for or belief of the programmed fear or flight reaction of their personality.

The mental health concern that arises is the cornerstone of our mental and emotional defense system that our personality has adapted and learned in its very early life to protect our growing self-image or personality. There are two sides to our defense system, which map to our preferred method to respond to ‘flight’ and ‘fight’ impulses. Each side is composed of two aspects which are our interpretation of the happening (story) and a corresponding preferred way to emotionally respond to the perceived threat.

A important part of working to let go this defense system is to realize that mental health problems are NOT hard-wired, it is NOT a physical problem. We create these programmed responses with our belief, thoughts, emotions, repetition and actions. Admittedly, the established medical professional health system will be able to analyze our brain responses with the advanced equipment they have these days, and they will see brain abnormalities in certain regions. This evidence might then support their diagnosis or label of the mental health calling it anxiety, depression, bipolar, OCD, dissociate disorder, PTSD or schizophrenia, etc. BUT, this brain pattern exists because we have used this defensive thought emotional pattern the majority of our lives (we programmed it early), so the brain will reflect and be wired in the way we have been using our brain. From the medical establishment because they can *see* this in the brain, they therefore think mental health problems are physical problems and can be solved with medicines. While the medicine will work to alleviate the symptoms and return the thinking and response pattern to near normal, it can never touch the cause that is the defense system of the personality for its self-image and imagined threat or harm to it. However, the truth is our consciousness and level of wisdom is what created this defense program, via our choices and actions, which is very personal and related to our character. However, in essence it is *merely* a programmed response pattern in the brain. Because we created it, we also are the seat of power and with knowledge about what is going on with this defense system and knowing how our own mind and emotions work we can use this information with our choice and action to erase a no longer wanted automatic response program.

The main step I think that needs to be done here is to stop believing that the story we tell ourselves is truth and to DIRECTLY SEE how what we think manifests as an energized personality with emotion and that the thoughts generate or create the tone of the manifested emotional state. Once we CAN SEE THIS, we can stop reinforcing our story and emotion pattern that is related to this psychotic-defense pattern. We do this by using our awareness to take attention out of that narrative and onto something else that doesn’t need thinking like deep breathing or feeling or focusing on an object or petting an animal, etc. Then work consciously to relax the mind and release the body tension. This action to be willing to ‘not listen to the internal narrative’ (no longer believe it) by shifting focus to something else is essentially an action of non-reinforcement of that triggered program. By continued non-reinforcement of the triggered program, we give the signal to our brain we no longer want this program and with enough repetitions of the new behavior (which is no-action), eventually that auto-pilot programmed response pattern is erased from our brain. In essence, with the new behavior we are saying: we no longer want the autopilot defense to playback, we are ready now to *be aware* to what is happening in the present moment when triggered with fight or flight and base our actions or decisions on how to respond according to the current conditions.

Later, one might realize that one created that program and one is the programmer and with awareness and self-knowledge one can erase any program one no longer wants. One erases them by no longer believing in them (the narrative that goes along with the particular response you do not want) and not acting upon or reinforcing them.

To get to the root of this, we have to peer inside our mind and watch our thoughts and emotions and experience like a cat focused intently on catching a mouse. We need to look within and discover how we weave our thoughts together to create a narrative and to see for oneself how this narrative then creates our experience. We need to see how this is a program pretty much running by itself, because of our lack of knowledge about it. Once we can see it is in fact a program then we can start to affect it and erase it by catching it when it triggers and not responding in the programmed way. This deprogramming only can happen via our NEW RESPONSE, which happens in the NOW. Therefore, we cannot avoid those situations, people, or things, which trigger this old program. If we take drugs or medicines to calm our reactions or to reduce being triggered, this prevents an opportunity to work with it real-time and remove it once and for all. Rather, we should embrace every opportunity for these reactions to trigger so we can work ‘real-time’ to learn to no longer react and reinforce it. With enough successful non-reaction repetitions to the triggering, it will eventually erase.

Betsy
April 9, 2024

Additional Resources:

There are many more articles on my blog about healing emotions and mental health.

I found this article and think it is nice compliment to read for deeper understanding:
Understanding stress and the fight-or-flight response is humanities first-key to self-healing

Posted in Healing, Healing of Emotions, Healing of Mind, Kundalini Awakening, Self-realization Tagged with: , , , , , , ,
11 comments on “How to Heal the Defense System of the Personality
  1. Vivek says:

    Felt very good to read the post. Thanks for holding the light…
    Vivek

    • Celeste says:

      Dear Betsy,
      I love your blog!
      I’m turning 50 this year but I have been feeling spiritually depressed for the last 4 years. Is this a symptom of pre-menopause? I don’t know.
      What I know is that I feel lost, hopeless and helpless in life. I feel like I cannot go on and if I do go on there is no meaning to it.
      I wonder is anyone else feels the same? I just don’t understand what is this life for??? More often than not I feel like giving up…

      • betsy rabyor says:

        Dear Celeste, Thank you for your appreciation of my blog.
        When menopause comes around, then our energy will naturally rise as it takes much energy
        to keep the reproductive system going. Thus when that system is turning off, then we
        get that energy boost. Some people can get awakening in menopause times
        for that reason. Depression I feel has the most to do with habitual thought patterns
        we have had for long time, where at some point the depressed state was helpful for us.
        But as our energy increases, then any overused or no longer needed habitual thought
        patterns will amplify which indicates it’s time for us to let them go. You do that
        by not reacting that way when triggered, I have several articles on this topic (this
        being one of them) and more in the blog. With our defense system of our personality
        expanding, it will become unpleasant as the mind-chatter goes into overdrive and we
        feel constant emotional state from the most-often repeating thoughts: re: depression.
        When we let go defending this self-image, when we give up protecting that ‘mind-form’ of ‘me’,
        when we give up and let go - then it can happen that our spirit awakens. So it seems the
        suffering does motivate us to let go. So I think it’s positive you want to give up and are
        tired of this ego - to be clear I am NOT talking about physical death. It’s just letting go the
        belief that you are this personality and have to be depressed. Once you understand we
        are creating this state with our thoughts and emotions, once you SEE it clearly, then
        you can stop believing in the story/emotion reaction and let it go.
        I also have several articles on menopause on this site which you can find by using search box.
        Hope that helps!
        Love & Blessings,
        Betsy

    • betsy rabyor says:

      Thank you Vivek for taking time to read and give me an energy boost. 🙂

  2. Paddy Linehan says:

    Hi Betsy I think it was today or yesterday I read your post about fear anger response as personality protectors and how to deprogram them. Wonderful post thank you and just for me at this time. I have a question in the deprogramming … this is from other readings in other places. I have read and felt comfortable with this idea. That when the response to some perceived threat comes we can just seek the physical manifestation of that perceived threat ie pain or contraction … and take our awareness to it … to the physical manifestation and just leave it there. One place I read this idea said that it has a big advantage in that many ‘thought forms’ manifest in a single physical manifestation ie chest tightness and if we take our awareness to it and leave it there that deprograms the response not from just one thought but many. And that this is efficient because it would be impossible to ‘find’ all the thoughts and deal with them individually. One more question Betsy - what do you think about ‘inherited tendencies’? Could such ‘tendencies’ be karmic influences. If our karmic load determines what situation we are born into could it be that that so called tendency is a kind of karmic inheritance to that family or group.

    • betsy rabyor says:

      Hi Paddy, Thanks for letting me know you liked the post and found it helpful. I like your word for the defense system: “personality protectors” ! I think what you describe is how I worked with it, just put attention first into the area in body where the tension is and stay with that energy feeling it until it dissolves. Once the risen energy of the reaction dissolves, then the thoughts become more visible to see what story was driving the reaction. Once you realized that all reactions are triggered from the past, then you can go general with this…. Just become the observer or witness, but one will find stuff keeps coming up. How I see it is like this defense of personality has with it the belief that there is a person that needs protecting, so then why one reacts to fight/flight like it’s real when it’s often not. Once you clear this program by not reacting to it, then you realize you are not that inbuilt personality reaction. So it opens the personality up for dissolution. Once this belief is dropped in the personality being fixed or hard-wired and now seeing it’s more like a collection of brain programs — then many programs related to that belief you will not longer believe it.. How I see it is that when a core belief is dropped, it erases or diffuses 1,000’s of programs. All the ones associated with that belief, effectively become inoperative because you no longer believe. There are quite a few core beliefs to drop having to do with identity to the personality. This one that I speak of is the one that is outer shell of protection. People who have spiritual emergency or are struggling for long time haven’t yet resolved that the “I” doesn’t exist. They still believe they are the “I” and usually have the fight/flight going very strong too, so like running on fear energy afraid to let go.

      You never have to find all the thought patterns and deal with them individually. The awareness that we are, automatically brings to conscious mind that which we need to clear next which is related to a core belief of identity. I think we inherit many behavioral responses and memories from our ancestors, which seems to have strongest influence for the last 7 generations.

  3. sundar says:

    Each words are Divine words. Thanks betsy.

  4. Sherry Goff says:

    I had to read this article three times to grasp everything you are saying. It makes so much sense and so helpful to me now. I am not sure what stage of awakening I am in, but I have been gaining so many realizations as of late. I believe they come from my meditation and yoga practice. Anyways, my intention for practicing yoga yesterday morning was to leave my personality out and come to the mat empty. I like your articles, although they are very deeply written, they resonate within me. Thank you

  5. kt says:

    Hello Betsy,

    I’m not sure if you’re still active here but I thought I’d try anyway. I am really interested in this article, I’ve never read anything quite like what you’re proposing anywhere else about Kundalini. I think it makes a lot of sense.
    In terms of my Kundalini progress so far, my body definitely wants to purge trapped emotions stored in my body. I am stuck at this point in my progress with trapped fear from a childhood trauma in my life (the largest trauma I’ve experienced). I know the emotion is trapped in my kidneys and is largely the source of most my anxiety in other life situations. Recently I was trying to do this method, of attempting to deprogram my fear in every day life and it’s been working. However, the trapped fear emotion from the trauma in my body during relaxation began to rise and I felt all the somatic responses to the fear: my heartbeat racing and temperature increasing, but it was separate from the *emotion* of fear, although I felt it physically. It’s a really strange sensation. I think I stopped it from fully expressing itself physically throughout my body because I wasn’t sure what would happen, or whether I should even be doing this. My question is, should I be doing this? I feel like I am “cheating” in some way. Are there any adverse repercussions to doing this?

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