We cannot transform what we do not acknowledge. In Undefended Love by Jett Psaris and Marlena S. Lyons, and Breathing Underwater by Fr. Richard Rohr, we learn about our personality preoccupations and strategies, comprising what is called our defended personality. Simply, these are survival strategies that, without our conscious attention, become addictions.
The strategies include doing everything perfectly, taking care of everybody, working hard, searching for what's missing, withholding ourselves, avoidance, controlling, being constantly on guard, self-distraction through constant activity and open-endedness, working to create a just world, trying to put the world in order, etc.
If we try to change our ego with the help of our ego, we only end up with a better-disguised ego. We must be willing to go deeper. Having another good idea from the mind is not the answer. We must start incorporating the heart intelligence and the intuitive intelligence into our approach to life.
One of the challenges with spiritual practice is that it will move us into a state of Grace. Grace is always a humiliation for our ego. We need a vital spiritual experience---a spirituality that reaches to the hidden levels and a deeper and wider perspective, an openness, a willingness. To finally surrender ourselves to healing, three spaces must be opened up within us: our opinionated head, our closed-down heart, and our defensive and defended body.
