Recognising the Protective Behaviours That Keep Returning

How naming the behaviours you already know can lead you toward the ones still hidden

This blog post is a part of my What to Do When You’re Triggered series. Sign up for future reflections in your inbox and get free access to Beyond Blame — a workshop on transforming conflict into connection.

If you’ve spent time in therapy, coaching, meditation, relational work, or simply years trying to understand yourself, you may already know some of the protective and reactive places you automatically go to in conflict.

Here are a few of my favourites..

I know that when things get heated, I can over-explain and defend myself. I can lose trust in my own perspective in order to keep the peace. I can leave the room when I feel overwhelmed. I can want reassurance badly and still struggle to ask for it clearly and make others responsible for it without realising...

Maybe you know some of yours too...?

Maybe you people-please. Maybe you shut down. Maybe you get sharp. Maybe you go into self-doubt. Maybe you quietly withdraw and then feel hurt that the other person didn’t notice...

For many of us, these behaviours are not new.

We’ve met them before. We may have cried through them. Journaled about them. Explored them in therapy. Tried really hard to understand them.

And still, they come back.

I want to stay with that last part, because I think the “coming back” can feel so disheartening.

Just because I can spot a protective behaviour more quickly now does not mean it has disappeared. It still comes. It still takes over sometimes. Yet something has changed in the seeing and accepting of it.

I can catch it sooner. I can take more responsibility for it relationally. I can repair more honestly. I can make different choices a little earlier than I once could.

Sometimes, many times and certainly not always..

And for me, that matters.

I don’t see these behaviours as random flaws. I see them as ways I learnt to protect myself from pain, shame, overwhelm, rejection, or disconnection.

And because they are protective, they don’t usually soften through force or further judgment.

They soften more when I am actually willing to see them. When I can name them. When I can bring some honesty and sweet care to the places in me that still believe they are needed.

I also notice that the first behaviours I tend to become aware of are often the ones I feel the pain of most directly myself.

The ones that hurt. The ones that leave me anxious, ashamed, collapsed, unseen, or alone.

Those can be easier to spot.

Not easy. But perhaps more available to catch and see in action..

So for today, I want to stay with those behaviours. The ones you may already know something about. The ones that keep returning. The ones you may already have some language for, even if they still feel hard to shift.

If you want to sit with that, here are a few questions I’d start with (I recommend thinking of real moments in past conflicts to make your answers more honest)***

• When I feel hurt, unseen, criticised, or overwhelmed, what do I tend to do or say?

• Which emotional reactions / feelings in me are already familiar?

• What do those behaviours and feelings help me avoid, manage, or protect?

• Which one do I most wish I had moved beyond by now? / Which one has a big cost to my relationships?

  
  

I’m not offering these questions as a test or expecting some defined answers that bring sudden clarity..

More as a pathway inwards..

Because sometimes being able to recognise again and again and again... ah… yes.. this is the familiar place I go is already a meaningful shift each and every time..

Next time, I want to explore the behaviours that can be harder for us to see in ourselves… the ones that stay more hidden in the shadows even when we self reflect, and often don’t want to be found so easily… lets see if we can uncover something of those behaviours together with compassion, honesty and deep respect for for their intended protection.

*** These reflections are here to support awareness, not to push you beyond what feels safe or manageable. Please move at your own pace, with self-responsibility and choice. If what arises feels too big to hold alone, I encourage you to explore it with the support of a trusted therapist, coach, or practitioner you trust. 

IF you would like to look at these parts of yourself with my support please book a FREE discovery call where we can meet and see if we are a good fit to work together