9 aspects of emotional vs. physical protection

You are to be moved and yet immovable.

credit: Thao Lee on Unsplash

For men, physical strength isn't as valuable today compared to its value in past millennia. In eras past, upper body strength made a big difference. If one worked on a farm, the ability to sling bales of hay made a difference for the family. Upper body strength also affected one's ability to ward off attackers. None of those are big factors today. The net is there are far fewer opportunities today to use physical strength to help others.

What kind of fitness helps others? Emotional strength. Whether we like it or not, emotional fitness has greater value to others than physical fitness today. Just as men applied physical fitness to protect their loved ones in ages past, so too men can apply emotional fitness to protect others today. Emotional protection is the practice of developing resilience, honesty, and compassion in one's self and others. Here are nine aspects of what that might look like:

1. Emotional protection is the development of resilience, honesty, and compassion in one's self and others: Emotional protection means equipping others to navigate fear, sadness, guilt, shame, and loneliness. It means supporting emotional growth without enabling avoidance or dependency. Emotional protection fosters an environment that deepens relationships and builds trust. It is the cultivation of virtue in others.

2. Emotional self-awareness is the beginning of emotional protection: Situational awareness involves recognizing what’s happening in your environment, including physical surroundings, and identifying potential risks. It is knowing where the exits are in a crowded restaurant. Similarly, emotional self-awareness means identifying the potential risks of how one's own thoughts and feelings might impair one's judgment. The practice of self-awareness means pausing, evaluating, and choosing how to respond to emotions rather than being ruled by them.

3. Emotional self-regulation is an intermediate stage of emotional protection: Physically protecting one's self and others requires training, as any martial arts practitioner understands. Likewise, the act of emotional protection requires training and practice. And just as emotional self-control is vital in martial arts, it is the sina qua non of emotional protection. Developing emotional self-control requires resources and practice.

4. Emotional protection of others is an advanced stage: When my oldest son was about a year old, every time he put on his footie pajamas, he would cry and grimace in pain to the point he would avoid putting them on. I would get annoyed at what I perceived to be bedtime delaying tactics and forced them on. One day after laundry, I folded his pajama pants inside out and noticed there was a burr caught in the toe. The burr was the source of his discomfort. Practicing emotional self-regulation helps me be less reactive to my son's crying. Wisdom is the ability to observe and notice what is going with other person and look for clues for what might be causing someone distress. If I had been more attentive to his discomfort and less attentive to my own, I might have had the presence of mind to check the pajamas. Protecting others is an advanced skill that requires consistent practice and constant attention. Parenting is an arena where the opportunities for practice vastly outstrip one's abilities.

5. Emotional protection of others requires empathy: Helping others label their emotions is is the discernment to know when and how to intervene. Wisdom is required to recognize the best time to employ empathy and compassion for another. Emotional protection means emotional responsibility where one is attentive and engaged with another persons emotional state and at the same time, separate from the other person. My daughter can get overwhelmed by sadness and anger. In the moments where she struggles to articulate what she's feeling, I help her label her emotions and what value or need might be triggering the feelings. I make a guess and she'll respond whether I'm close.

6. Emotional protection means setting limits on behavior and responsibility: There are no unacceptable emotions rather only unacceptable responses to an emotion. Emotional protection means drawing lines around what is an emotional appropriate response and what is not. Striking someone as a response to anger is not acceptable. It also means owning when we have an unacceptable response. I've apologized many times for my outbursts and I will continue to. We may not be able to control what we feel but we are responsible for how we behave. Therefore, emotional protection also means delaying our and others' impulse for immediate emotional gratification. Sometimes empathy has to wait for the right time when we or the other person is ready. It's part of our limitations.

7. Emotional protection has a limited radius: In physical confrontations, you can only protect the people within striking distance of you. You are limited by your reach. In addition, there's numbers, size, strength, and skills. You are not John Wick. Similarly with emotional protection, you can only train those within your reach. It is important to recognize what's in your control and what isn't. Emotional training is intense work and requires close quarters interaction. We can only train and protect a limited number of people.

8. Emotional protection means allowing others to confront uncomfortable emotions: Emotional protection does not mean the protector becomes a shield from fear, sadness, and anger. Your job is not to prevent or fix uncomfortable emotions. That can seed narcissism, depression, and codependency. Rather, just as a martial arts master teaches his disciple to fight on his own, an emotional protector trains a loved one to navigate difficult emotions on their own. I remember my seminary professor told a story about when his daughter first started walking to school, he would secretly trail her in the car and make sure she got there safely. Emotional protection means trusting a loved one to walk by themself but not leave them alone. That's not an easy line to navigate.

9. Emotional protection means taking the blow: Emotional protection means the ability to engage the pain of another person without falling into despair. It means encountering a reactive person without engaging the fight, flight, or freeze reflex. One of the hardest things to do is act calmly in the presence of someone experiencing overwhelming grief. We may feel threatened and overwhelmed by the power of their feelings. But to protect this person, you must feel the full weight of the force and stand with them. You are to be moved and yet immovable. That's what it means to be present. You overcome the instinct to run away or become enmeshed. Rather, you can join with the person in its impact, bear the blow, and remain standing.