The Armour Knows How to Protect, But It Doesn’t Know How to Let Go
Your armour wants to know that it is safe—for you, yes you—to let go.
Your armour is an expert at protection. It has spent years, maybe decades, perfecting the art of the shield when the world felt “unsafe”. But here is the truth: Your armour knows how to protect you, but it doesn’t know how to let go.
Your armour is loyal to you.. you may feel:
That troubled heart.
The clenched jaw.
Those tight and tense muscles.
That tight gut and the rigid abdominal walls.
They all knew, once upon a time, that they needed to armour up. They built walls against the emotions that were not allowed—emotions that were simply once not safe to be felt.
The Voice of the Guard
Your armour speaks to you in a language of sensations and survival, through your autonomic functions. It says: “We need to be in control, or you’ll lose it.” “If we feel this, we lose it... we lose control. And if we lose control, we will be dead.” Yes. To your nervous system, it feels that life-or-death.
The armour is skeptical. It looks at you and says: “I am not sure you are ready for me to go.”
The armour needs to know, and you need to tell it.
But you don’t tell it with words alone. You tell it by going into the sensations—by feeling exactly what you couldn’t feel at that time.
The armour needs to trust that you are better off without it. Are you? It’s the real question we will have to negotiation and re-negotiate. To move through this, you need to recognise that you are safe. But more importantly, the armour must recognise that you are safe.
The armour in your autonomic nervous system and your brainstem needs to feel the safety in the room right now.
The Language of the Body:
The armour speaks to you through sensations, postures, pain, symptoms and syndromes —do you listen?
It speaks in the tremor of your skin, the twitch of your muscles, and the density of your tissues. That tremor and tingling is the way out. It is the very thing that will pull you out of your guarded survival posture and back into the present.
But you cannot force it. You cannot rip the armour off. You have to speak to it and listen to it deeply.
How would you speak to yours?
A Somatic Inquiry To Work with the Armour:
Next time you feel that “clench”—that familiar tightening in your gut or jaw—don’t try to fix it. Instead, try this:
Resource: having in mind a pet or a time in nature you felt supported and nourished.
Connect with the Guard: Put a hand on the area that feels armoured.
Listen to it: what is it trying to protect you from?
Speak directly to it: Say, either out loud or internally: “I see you. I know you’re trying to keep us in control. Thank you for the protection.”
Wait for the Response: Notice if the armour stays rigid, or if there is a tiny shift—a breath, a sigh, or a tremor. That is the armour listening back.
I’d love to hear from you in the comments: what is your armour saying to you today? reach out to arrange a discovery call if you want support working one to one.
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