Defensiveness

You always, you never the worst, you're the most, you're the least. Or sometimes if they're generalizing and talking about all men or all women or everybody in our family or something else that lumps us in with other people. These kinds of extremes are extreme communication and they invite extreme reactions. So defensiveness is really hard not to succumb to when the communication about the problem is is coming in that kind of slanted way. Hi, welcome to Sex Love Power. I'm your host, Michelle Lizenberry Christensen. This podcast is where I convene the conversations about love and sex that help powerful women and those who love them to create the intimacy and intensity they really want in bed and in life. Together, we navigate the tensions between our desire and our devotions, between our wildness and our security with our eyes wide open. This podcast is designed to help you create more closeness, ease pleasure and justice in your relationship. And we do it by blending wisdom from the fields of sexuality and spirituality, trauma and self regulation, and intersectional feminism. I'm so glad you're here. People often ask me, my partner is so defensive what do I do to get them to really listen to what what I'm asking them for and have them actually respond instead of just tell me why they are the way they are or be defensive. And then on the other hand, people often ask me what do I do when I feel attacked or unfairly accused by my partner. So I wanted to do a whole episode just about defensiveness, how we engender it in each other and why we get defensive ourselves. Because this is one of the biggest things that stops us from communicating effectively, from connecting more deeply, and from experiencing more turn on and erotic charge in our relationships when we've got defensiveness going, either because I am attacking you and that's why you feel defensive, or because you're not available to experience what it's like for me to be with you and your behaviors and your moods. Then the connection between us gets stopped. So today we're going to look at a number of areas. First, reasons we get defensive. Some of these reasons have to do with me and the way that I'm communicating with you, and some of them have to do with you and the way that you listen to me. And some of them have to do with our connection. We're going to look at what to do when your partner or someone else seems very defensive. And then on the other hand, we're going to look at what to do when you feel unfairly attacked or accused of something that you're not doing or not saying or not thinking. And we're going to talk about how to calm down when either of you has gotten defensive so that you can resuscitate the conversation on a healthier, less defensive footing. So if you've had defensiveness on either side of the conversation, this episode is for you. My deep desire is for every couple to be able to talk about the most tender things, the most raw things, the deepest reactions we have to one another, because those contain the gold of both our personal evolution and the most intimate relationship that we can possibly have with each other. So if we can't talk about the tough stuff, then our relationship has to stay on the surface. And if we're getting defensive over and over again, all of those defensive interactions that lead to dissatisfying conclusions for both people wind up being like gravel in our pockets that, through the years together, tend to weigh us down. And, you know, gravel in your pockets can eventually pull your pants down. That's just the image that just came into my mind. But really, I mean that they can weigh down our connection with each other and weigh down our experience of life. So I want to help you be able to have even challenging conversations, even conversations that do touch upon your deepest fears about yourself, about your partner and theirs, and build the awareness and the skills to create truly satisfying, resolved conversations in those situations. I want to start by putting this conversation in context, both when we talk about defensiveness and when we talk about fault finding and a way of communicating that would arouse defensiveness in anyone because it's making an accusation of character problem, making the very real feelings, or even, we could say, complaints of the person who's sharing, turning those into an accusation about the very person who's on the receiving end. Both of those, the defensiveness and the fault finding, are obstacles to intimacy. We within the individual, not so much in the relationship, but within us individually. And what I do with couples is help each of them identify the obstacles to intimacy that they're living with. There's a category of obstacles to intimacy. There are four categories, and both of these fall into the category I call presence. This is the set of traits and skills and capacities that allows us to be close to another person in a way that's mutually satisfying or that gets in the way of that. So either your presence makes for better love or it makes love harder for both people. So when we can identify that, we've got a challenge. You know, possibly we were trained by our family of origin, or we've got a track record in this relationship, a history together with this partner or prior partners that has built a habit of a knee jerk reaction. When I feel something, I'm going to tell you how you caused it and why I'm mad at you about that, or when I hear you saying something, I'm going to immediately make sure that the first thing I tell you is where you're wrong about, that you don't have your facts straight, or how it's perfectly justified that I did what I did. Those kinds of reactivities are actually good news when we can see them clearly, when we can pause, notice them and name them as obstacles to intimacy. Because then we're like detectives that have now discovered what's limiting our ability to be close to each other and to enjoy the best love and sex we can have. So I want you to start to look at it that way. When defensiveness arises or when that kind of accusatory stance arises in your relationship in either direction, I want you to celebrate. And I know that might sound like a lot, you know, a real flip around, but it really is a golden opportunity. You're standing on sacred ground when you see that that's what's happening. Because by being able to pull that out like a splinter in a sore thumb, you're going to reduce the pain in your relationship and increase the capacity for joy. So let's look at some of the reasons that we get defensive that are about us. So if I'm getting defensive, it's almost always because there's some kernel of either truth or, or identification in what the other person's saying. I'm someone who has inattentive add, and as a kid I heard a lot about how I was lazy and disorganized and didn't track time well and had a hard time focusing. Nobody said you have a hard time focusing. They said you are bad at focusing. So those accusations in my childhood became part of my negative story about myself. And I've done a lot of work to overcome that negative story. But anytime what somebody is saying hits on those hot buttons, those sore points, when I think they think I'm lazy, disorganized, bad at focusing, bad at managing time. You're hitting close to home. So I share that example so that you can look for you at what are the things that you're most worried that people would say about you? What are your deepest fears about yourself? Or what are you convinced is true and terrible news about you? What are the things that you think of as your shortcomings? Those are the places you're most likely to get defensive whether the person is actually saying that or not. Anything that our problem scanning mind can hone in on and say, oh, he's accusing you of this. That's where you'll get defensive. Another big place we get defensive is where we feel guilty, where we know we've let the other person down. The Arbinger Institute has several great books about this. Leadership and Self Deception was the first. The Anatomy of Peace and the Outward Mindset are also good books to help you see where. Oh yeah. When I have done something that I feel badly about, where I know that I've neglected what I want to have be my commitment to you, I want to look for a way to blame you for that or to fend off any accusations from you that I have let you down. Our very guilt makes us more likely to be defensive. Isn't that strange? I think it's an ironic quirk of human nature, but it's true. I see it time and again. So we want to be sensitive to that, oh, I'm feeling so defensive about what you just said because you're right, you know, because I already felt so badly about that, but I haven't remedied it and I haven't really put my finger on it. So I just want to fight back. And then the third big reason that that's about us for getting defensive is that we feel helpless to change it. So there's something that we hear from another person, feedback that they're giving us about ourselves or our behavior or our moods or how we're interacting and we don't know what to do about it. Maybe we're already feeling spread too thin. We're feeling anxious about everything cumulatively. Or this is a particular piece that we've been trying to do better on and we're not. That feeling of helplessness to do better has us want to push away the feedback that we're having a negative impact on another person. Even if the other really true response is, oh my gosh, I'm sorry that it's having that impact on you. What we may say first is, no, I'm not, or why are you getting on my case about it? You always do X, Y or Z. So that kind of knee jerk retort can often come from just the feeling that, yeah, you're right, but I don't know what to do about it. So becoming aware that that may be the case can be really helpful because we can kind of slow down and go into that vulnerable level answer of like, I hear you it's true. And I feel powerless to change it right now. And you can hear in the tone of voice I just used that there's a vulnerable way to say that that's just kind of looking together at my helpless feeling. And then there's, of course, a defensive way to say it too, like, what am I supposed to do about it, you know? Or I don't know how to help it. So. So what I'm suggesting is that you tap into that softness, that undefended place. So next, let's look at reasons we get defensive that have to do with our partner and the way that they're communicating. So anytime somebody's coming at us and telling us you're. So they're telling us about our traits as opposed to talking about their feelings, their response. The specifics of here was the behavior, and here was the impact it had when they tell us that we are a certain way, especially when that way feels like a character assassination. It feels like they're saying that that's absolute and that's all there is to us. If we don't feel like they're balancing the negative side with our good qualities, it's really hard not to get pretty defensive. A second reason we get defensive that has to do with the other person and how they're communicating is, is if they use absolutes. You always, you never. The worst, you're the most, you're the least. Or sometimes if they're generalizing and talking about all men or all women or everybody in our family or something else that lumps us in with other people. These kinds of extremes are extreme communication, and they invite extreme reactions. So defensiveness is really hard not to succumb to when the communication about the problem is, is coming in that kind of slanted way. And then the third quality of communication that tends to invite defensiveness is emotional intensity. So when we're not, it's not so much that we're emotionally intense, it's that we're not grounded, you know, so we can have big feelings. But if we're rooted down into ourselves, if we are able to regulate ourselves in the face of those big feelings and communicate, it's less likely to engender defensiveness. But frequently, what I hear in the debrief of a defensive conversation is that the person trying to convey their feelings was like, in the feelings, had not processed them, had not looked at, okay, here's what they did. Here's how it impacted me. Here's the need for me, my boundary or my requirement or what I really Prefer that underlies my feelings about this. And here's what I need to ask for. If you haven't pre processed it and you're kind of digesting while you're spitting it at your partner, you're likely to elicit a defensive reaction from them because it's a lot to take in. So it really behooves us when we have big feelings about something our partner has done or not done, to pre digest it, to write about it, to talk to somebody else about it, to follow what I call the 33 degree rule, cool it down enough, not that the subject has frozen over for you 32 degrees or lower, but that you can talk about it in a grounded, calm way. So it's not all on you. For your partner not to get defensive, but setting them up to win is a pretty good idea. And that's almost a segue into what to do when your partner or someone else seems very defensive. But first, I want to talk a little bit about the reasons that we get defensive that are about the relationship. Because as I mentioned earlier, over years together, which is where most of the people who come to me as clients are, there's. They've been together for 7, 10, 15, 20 or more years. And they've got a long history and that long history. The times you said things to me that were so intense and negative, the times I know you acted out in defensiveness, I remember those. And you know, our brains are really designed to keep us alive. And so they record threats with so much more intensity and detail and recall. Then they do good things that every one of those painful moments is very vivid to our brain. So those are vivid parts of our picture of each other. And it's a tremendous challenge and opportunity to be fresh in today's conversation rather than to call up that whole library of painful experiences that everybody, even in a good relationship, has over years and years together because you're both human. So it takes real discipline, if we've been together a long time, to wipe the board clean so that we're not making reference to those old painful experiences when we're having this important conversation today. I think the biggest reason, if we were just going to describe the granddaddy reason why we get defensive, is because we are not intentional enough in talking about subjects which are likely to have hot buttons for both of us. So in the spirit of being intentional like that, let's look at what to do when your partner or someone else seems defensive or when you can anticipate that they might be given the topic you're about to bring up. So first I'll say, here's what you don't do. Let's go. I know you're going to get defensive, but you know, we're like, no, don't get defensive. Because that's just a flag inviting someone to get defensive. Instead, set it up so that they know your intent. Declaration of intent is one of the best tools in dismantling defensiveness. You might start by saying, I'd like to talk with you about something, and my intent for the conversation is that you and I feel closer and stronger. Or your intent might be, I'd like for you and I to feel more turned on and more connected, or I'd like for our next vacation to run smoothly. Whatever your intent is the positive vision you have for what could come out of the conversation, share that with them. And then the next piece is you've prepared. So before the conversation, you do what you heard me suggesting earlier, which is pre digest your own emotions around it. Get really clear on what you need or what you prefer, what you're asking for and why you're asking for it. And you can say what, what you feel, but get to a place where you don't have to act out anger or rage or terror, but you instead can say, I feel sad that, or I feel angry when you do this, or whatever you're feeling, but you're reporting rather than acting out. And make sure you're painting a vision of what you'd like them to be able to do. The more behavioral you can make the request that you're making, the less likely you are to engender defensiveness. So you've done your pre digestion work, you've set up the conversation with your intention, and now you're starting with what you want to have happen and you're sharing when you do this, I feel this way. I'd love it if you would do that. And as you're communicating, a lot of times, especially if it's a charged topic, we want to just kind of go at our partner like a fire hose and throw out the things that we're thinking and feeling and sometimes even rush through it and not pause to gauge their reaction, to clarify, to meet them where they are. But those are in fact important pieces to do. You know, be in a relaxed space. Make sure that as you've set up the conversation, the two of you start out in a good place. Nobody's tired or hungry or stressed. You're in a good space and you've both agreed. Now's a good time. So those are absolute prerequisites. And then watch your partner for signs that they're feeling defensive. Those signs probably reveal themselves before your partner begins to say or do things that are defensive. They'll start to indicate, like, their eyes might widen or their breath might change in a way that says, whoa, this is landing in a way that's triggering some defensiveness in them. So if you start to see those physiological signs, and you might even make a list of them beforehand, you know, what do I know about my partner? What are their tells that tell me that that defensiveness or feeling attacked is brewing inside of them? And when I notice those, how can I pause, slow down, back up, clarify, maybe reassure, and keep the conversation on a mutually constructive wavelength. So let's imagine that you are seeing defensiveness arising in your partner, or they've even already started to tell you, well, I only did that because of this, or, well, that's your fault. Flip it around on you. So at that point, you want to say, oh, let's slow it down. Do not counter defend. Do not counter attack. Do not accuse them of being defensive. Recognize, oh, this conversation is evocative. Their reaction is intense because what I just said and how I said it and how it landed for them are intense. And if I still want to have a productive conversation, which was certainly the intent I started with, I need to slow it down now. And in a minute, we'll talk about what we can do when we're feeling attacked. But right now, I'm just talking to you, the person who's trying to bring up a topic. So given that I want to help you take unilateral responsibility for the healthiness of this conversation. So given that whereas people tend to when their partner gets defensive, say, you're not hearing me right, or, you know, don't get defensive. Just hear what I said feedback to me, what I said, what I invite you to do. If you feel your partner getting defensive and if you have the skill and the capacity to stay with yourself, remember what you were endeavoring to get across and to pause and switch tracks and to say, oh, something looks like it just pinged inside of you. Let's pause what I'm talking about and let me hear you out. What's coming up for you, what feelings are coming up? So invite them to frame their reaction in a constructive way. Rather than defending against what you said, tearing down what you said, or flipping it around, just invite them to talk about their feelings. So you can say, can you share with me the bodily Sensations that are arising. How's this landing for you? And you can absolutely set a limit on any behaviors that are like accusations of you or turning it around and pathologizing you, or explaining away why they did what they did, or justifying. Just invite your partner to come back down to the level of like, oops, this feels not so safe for me right now. I'm feeling attacked or I'm feeling unfairly accused or whatever's coming up. And if you have the skill, and I know this is a tall order, I'm asking you to employ some ninja level skills here, but if you can navigate with empathy for what it's like for them to hear what you're saying, and you can invite them to share with more precision what that is that they're feeling, then you can get the conversation onto a more productive track again. So let's imagine that you've taken that opportunity. They've shared with you what was arising for them. You, you've helped them feel really heard. Then you can ask, okay, so you know, I've got empathy for that feeling in a better space with that. Is it okay if now I try again to convey what I was wanting to let you know? And they may be available for that, or they may be triggered enough that now's not the right time and the best thing we can do if their lid is flipped, if they're too emotional to hear you, it's really healthy to recognize, oh yeah, no more good is going to come from this conversation. I just need to let them calm down before we try to communicate about this again. So that might be 20 minutes from now or two hours or the next day, but just get clear together on that, like, how long do you need to be emotionally available again to talk with me about this? And then when they are available again, start the whole process over. You know, make sure that you're clear on your intent. Do your best to clean up your side of the street so that what you're conveying is as grounded and factual and focused on what behavior change you're asking for as possible, and that you aren't putting in any judgments about their character or absolutes or blanket statements. So those are some of my best tips for making sure that in the conversation you're not eliciting defensiveness. And then overall inside the relationship, you know, owning your own stuff, keeping your side of the street as clean as you can, apologizing when you're wrong, being vulnerable and present and earnest in your own dealings. These are ways to make sure that your Partner is as non defensive as possible with you. When you do need to bring something up, that's a request of them or that's letting them know something you need to have be different. So with that, let's flip over and look at what happens when you feel unfairly attacked or you're the one who feels like you're being accused of something you're not doing or something you're not saying or thinking, and you're feeling really defensive in the face of how your partner's talking to you. So first, remember some of the things that I said contribute to defensiveness and just check out which of those are at play here. Is your defensiveness more about what's happening with you or how your partner is coming across to you? And as I was saying about making sure that you're not triggering defensiveness, is your partner starting a conversation with you at a time when you're already tired or stressed out or feeling disconnected from them? Because that may be the source of the defensiveness is simply that the conversation is poorly timed. So let's rule that idea out first. Is this just the wrong time to have this conversation? And if it is, you can just say that, say, I'm sorry, I'm starting to feel defensive here, and that's not how I want to respond to this. I know this conversation is important to you, and that means it's important to me too. Let's talk about it at a time when I can really hear you. And I think a time that might work would be. And let them know when that would be. And then as I was sharing earlier, if you recognize that it's something else inside you, like you feel guilty about it, about what they're talking about. Yeah, I know. I've been doing that. I hear you. That's real. Then just give it to them. Tell them, yeah, you're right, I've been doing that. And if on top of recognizing that they're right, that you're doing that, and you can see how that wouldn't work well for them, if on top of that, you're also seeing, like, I don't know how to do differently, you know, maybe even trying to do it differently or. Or it seems inevitable, you know, that when something else happens, you tend to just wind up doing that. I know that I've felt that way about, like during big program launches, I would overwork and I would wind up working into the evening, not communicating very well. And my family kind of felt dropped by me. And for a long time I didn't know how to do that differently. And then I just stopped doing things in that kind of launch style format because my, my system and launching like that just don't go well together. I don't have it to manage that well. And that helped my family a lot. So if you're in the place where you're not sure how to do it any differently, at least say that, you know, like, I care a lot about how you're feeling about this and I don't want to have the impact that I'm having on you. And I'm feeling a little defensive simply because I don't know how to do it differently. So just put that there between you and give it some space around it. You know, it's a cause for grief. You're in a question mark kind of place. And I think we often resist giving our partners answers like that because it's a non answer. Right? There's nothing definitive about it. And we want to have a solution to any problem that we see. And it's really painful to just have someone else name a problem, have you agree that it's a problem, and then to say, I don't know what to do. But that's also a place of power because only from admitting, yeah, this thing has me, do we then have a chance of being able to amass adequate resources to actually address it. And this is precisely what's coming up for a lot of people when someone asks for more emotional availability, for more sexual intimacy, for more assertiveness or more softness and receptivity. We don't know how to do it any differently than we're doing it. So we defend what we've been doing. And even though it's indefensible, even though we don't want it that way either, because it's so humiliating to just say, I know, I don't like it either. I don't know what to do. But I'm telling you, that's a powerful place to be. And that's a lot of times the place people are at when they come to me on something. I don't know how to communicate without getting really irate, or I don't know how to feel sad without like falling all the way apart. I don't know how to open up more to my partner emotionally. I. I don't know how to be more present sexually. So admitting you don't know how to do it any better is a really powerful place. But let's say that your defensiveness is actually not so much happening inside you. It's happening because of your partner. You can recognize as you listen to what I'm talking about and you assess what's going on, they're using absolutes or they're talking about how bad you are as a person or as a spouse or as a parent or whatever. They're not talking about a particular behavior they're throwing in the kitchen sink. You know, everything is evidence of how terrible you are. Well, it makes sense that anyone would feel attacked and defensive if that's the kind of communication coming at them. So that's a great situation from which to invite your partner to listen to this episode with you, you know, just because maybe coming from me, they'll be able to hear it. As a spouse, you have many wonderful qualities. And in terms of this communication, your intense emotions are leading you to some logical fallacies, you know, to some gaps in reasoning that have you thinking in a way that's really all or nothing, really absolute, that throws everything into the same pot. And then when you communicate that to your partner, no good can come from that communication because it's too accusatory, it's not actionable. And to take it on, your partner has to kind of be at war with themselves. And anyone with a healthy sense of self doesn't want to do that, doesn't want to admit to being the bad guy. And man, in the past, I've had a not so healthy sense of self and really did do what I now think of as like being a shit sponge. You know, just being like, okay, you're right, I'm sorry, I'm so bad. And that's not healthy either. And it doesn't actually help anybody do better. It just means that they feel horrible about themselves. So it's good that your partner has asked you to listen to this with them because they're intending for you to have more fruitful conversations together. They really want to hear what your actual needs are and what your actual concrete action requests are. But they can't hear that through the absolutes and the big statements and the character assassinations. So we've got to slow it down and get clearer on what it is you really want and what you're asking for and how you're feeling so that they can respond to that instead of having to hear what a horrible person they are or how awful everything is or how it's always going to be like this or it's always been like this and how terrible that is. So at the essence of everything, I'm recommending whether you're the one feeling defensive or the one who's receiving defensiveness when you try to bring something up with your partner underneath. Everything I'm recommending is the skill set of what I call settling down or settling down together, you know, and we think of settling down together as like setting up a home together. But I think of it as learning to self soothe, learning to regulate ourselves in the moment of intensity. And boy, there's nothing more intense than emotional conversations or erotic situations with our partners. And so we could have a whole other episode that's just talking about giving feedback or asking for something different in the bedroom, right? Because that's one of the biggest places where defensiveness or feeling attacked can arise. It's such a sensitive topic, the way you're touching me or the energy you're bringing to this erotic encounter. I'd like it to be different. Can feel so personal, can feel so accusatory, can hit on all of our insecurities. And so the ability to stay grounded, to hold on to ourselves when we're getting that kind of feedback, when our partner is revealing something to us that's not entirely comfortable, is an invaluable skill. And my clients who strengthen this ability to ground themselves to recenter when they get thrown off center, to soothe themselves and be okay even amidst high sensation. The benefits of those skills flow out into every area of their lives. Their parenting, the way they relate to their pets, the way that they lead at work, how they handle economic ups and downs. Everything benefits from an increased skill at self regulation. Now, I've done entire episodes on self regulation, so I would refer you back to those, and there'll be links to those in the show notes because it's a big topic and it's worth talking about. But just in brief here, I'll say having the rule that we don't keep going unless we're both calm and grounded. You know, we can have emotions, but if we're uncentered, that's when we need to pause long enough to get centered. Then that's all. And ways that you can center in a conversation can include giving each other a hug, stroking your own arm, pausing the topic, but staying together and going out for a walk separately. A lot of times, Kurt and I tend to have intense conversations while going on a walk in the first place because we know that helps us stay more centered and helps us maintain both a pace of the conversation and also it's just sort of an affirmation. We're out walking around the block in our neighborhood, and we have a fairly short block. So it takes us maybe seven minutes to walk all the way from our house and around and back to our house again. So we can do two or three or four or seven loops, however long we need to to have the conversation. But just like we're on a walk, all is well. We're talking about something that's emotional, but it's not the end of the world. Even though to part of me that panics, it might feel like it. So walking is a great way to maintain self regulation. And then, as I said in those other podcast episodes that talk about strengthening your vagus nerve and centering yourself, you'll find a lot more tools. There's a whole toolkit and there's a PDF that you can download about how to calm yourself down when you've gotten defensive or when your partner's getting defensive and then that's triggering you. But conversations die a thousand deaths and it's really a matter of us reviving them, recognizing, oh wait, this has gotten off track. As soon as we can, as soon as we can see, like, oops, this isn't working. Let's pause, let's slow it down, let's see where it got triggered and how we can identify what emotion that was, what stirred it up, and then address it in whatever way it needs to be addressed. Whether that's a clarification or a restatement of the thing that triggered the emotion or that person. Recognizing like, oh yeah, I feel really defensive about this because it's something I felt badly about already, or oh, we do need to talk about the facts of that, or just acknowledge like, oh, this is my interpretation and your interpretation is different. So okay, now that I recognize that was just your interpretation and mine is different and they're both equally valid, it's okay that we don't see that eye to eye. Oh, if I saw it how you see it, I might feel the same way you do. So it's okay that we have different interpretations of it. I can get on board with and empathize with how it feels to you, given the meaning that it has for you. So that's kind of the closing invitation I have for you. If defensiveness arises in your relationship, beef up on your skills at self regulation, both of you, so that you have greater capacity to withstand sensation without getting too far off course and you're able to respond to one another and stay grounded even as emotions may rise given a particular topic. So this is a longer than usual episode and I trust it's been worth your time. I'm really glad to get to share about it, because this topic is really worth looking at. Defensiveness is one of the things that gets in the way most of your erotic intimacy and emotional closeness for couples. And this toolkit that I've given you will give you the tools you need to be able to reduce the defensiveness and increase the authentic connection and the number of satisfying conversations in your relationship. So you'll do that by using what I've given you today. You'll set up your conversations in a way that they have a better chance of being successful. You'll look at the reasons your partner might get defensive before you start the conversation and preempt those. Then throughout the conversation, you'll do the things that help address defensiveness as it arises, rather than letting it derail the conversation entirely. And then when your partner's sharing with you, you'll look for the signs of your own defensiveness and the sources of them, and address those directly. So now, armed with those reasons, we get defensive ways we trigger our partner's defensiveness. You can now make the choice. Do you want to keep going around in defensive circles, ever more frustrated and distant? Or are you ready to drop the armor and really connect, knowing that you're safe? Let's practice Undefended Love in the next 30 days so that you can dig into even deeper pleasure and closeness, because this is what becomes available when you can get past this defensive drama. This is one of the areas that we address every month in my GPS system for navigating Lifelong Passion, the Relationship Transformation Program for high achieving couples. If you want more information about that, please go to my website@lizenberry.com or drop me a message on Facebook, Instagram or our private social network. On Mighty Networks, the Conscious Couples Circle. I would love to support you and your partner to kick defensiveness out and bring more closeness and intimacy in. I'd love to hear what you're taking away from this episode and what questions you have. Where do you feel this conversation in your body? My free Conscious Couples Circle is the place to continue our conversation. You can share your experiences, ask questions, and get more actionable ideas for creating the love and sex you deeply desire in ways that evolve you both. It's all happening@society.lizenberry.com that link is in the show Notes for you. You know, new listeners need to hear what you're taking away too. Podcast reviews are what really help others recognize how this podcast is different from other relationship and sex podcasts. So thank you in advance for leaving a review right now in your podcasting app while you're thinking of it, before you forget with just a few words about what this show gives you. And hey, have you subscribed to the podcast? You're going to want to, so you never miss an episode. Please go to the app where you listen, hit that subscribe button, and then you'll always get notifications of new episodes when they drop. Thank you so much for listening. I'm Michelle Lisenberry Christensen, and this has been Sex Love Power. I will see you on the next episode, and until then, may the light within you illuminate the world around you.