I have a very clear vision for how I want my health to look and feel to me. I envision waking up every day feeling rested, recharged, mentally clear, happy to be alive and  living my beautiful life, brimming with creative energy, and ready to greet the day with excitement, enthusiasm and an expectation for magic…

Some days this is how I wake up, but if I’m completely transparent here, these kinds of days are very few and far between. And honestly, I haven’t had a day like this is quite some time.

My health journey continues, now with a focus on finding a deeper level of support for some significant body system imbalances – many of which were present for years before I became pregnant. Recently, I’ve had a string of days where I’ve felt simply awful. The things I love to do had to be put on hold, and I had to pare back on everything I was participating in.

Although I’m clear that this place I’m in is temporary, and I have lined up more support for myself that I feel very hopeful and good about, it was a really hard place to be in.

Something else emerged amidst all of this that took me by surprise, too.

I felt myself really close down inside of my heart, and I realized I had gone into a hyper-protection mode, as if I needed to defend against anything or anyone who was experiencing incredible health and vitality. I realized that the pain of envy was something that I really wanted to avoid, and that I had started living my life in a way that was more isolated, painful and small.

Living this way doesn’t feel good to me. It feels lonely. It feels cramped, and it feels like a struggle.

But somehow I had very unconsciously convinced myself that living this way was easier than really feeling how painful my state of health had become. Recognizing the subtle anxiety and worry that this was my new normal, allowing myself to be haunted by the hollow and overly judgmental hell of envy, and falling into the dead end trap of comparing myself to others just felt overwhelming to me.

So I slipped into a default mode instead, and I started to protect myself from everything I wanted to avoid feeling. The truth is that this isn’t how I want to live. I also realized that in the process of protecting myself, I had also slipped into pushing everything I wanted away from me.

What I’ve come to realize since this pattern became apparent to me, is that all of us go into a place of protecting ourselves – to one degree or another – when we feel that we might not get to have or experience or enjoy what we really want.

Maybe you protect by telling yourself that your dreams aren’t that important, or that your goals don’t matter that much, or that there are more important things in the world, and in your life, than having a baby, finding love, starting that business, taking voice lessons, writing that book, moving to someplace that feels like “home” to you, or being vulnerable in a relationship.

Perhaps you protect by always having a clear “out” – as in, if your dream or goal starts to go south, you have your escape planned out so that you’ll be okay when it all goes to hell. Or maybe you protect by never even trying, taking a risk, or putting yourself in a vulnerable position.

Some women protect by blaming something or someone when things fall apart, or don’t go the way they wanted them to. And others protect by trying to plan their retaliation or their defense in advance, just in case they need it.

I used to protect by planning, planning and planning some more. Looking like I didn’t know what I was doing, that I wasn’t in control, or that I wasn’t’ perfect was a terrifying idea to me. And so I did all that I could to over prepare and always appear to have it all together.

I’m certain you can guess how that turned out for me… LOL!

I think it’s natural to want to protect from something that feels painful – so painful that it feels like if you really feel it, it will consume and destroy you. It’s also probably a good plan to create some kind of a defense against the things in your life that truly are causing you harm.

But when we protect ourselves from our dreams because we are so scared that they won’t happen for us, or that they won’t come true… that’s an entirely different scenario.

The ways that you are protecting yourself from the fear of not receiving your desires are also keeping you in a place where you will have to continue to struggle, fight and battle life. This kind of protection is actually keeping you more separate from your dreams and desires. Either way, you win at protecting yourself, but you lose at living a life you love.

Protection like this shuts down your ability to receive what you really want. When you’re so focused on keeping the “bad stuff” out, you’ll also close all of the doors that would allow the good stuff to come in.

If you find yourself in a challenging place in your life right now, and if everything is feeling like a struggle, I invite you to ask yourself, “What am I protecting myself from?” and keep asking and answering this question until you find that place inside of yourself that gasps “OH MY! I had no idea that was going on in there…” Because this is the place inside of you where you’re resisting your dreams and desires just as much as you’re protecting yourself from being hurt, disappointed, and heartbroken.

If you’re ready to clear some of this protective clutter from your life, and you want get clear on what you really want instead, there is a way that you can receive the support you require to open up to receiving your dreams and your Soul-Luxe life. Click here to learn more about the Soul-Luxe Living Assessment Review, and how you can open up the doors to start allowing your dreams and desires into your life.