Have you ever felt like everything on the outside looked great, but on the inside you felt empty? Like you’d lost a sense of who you are?
To get through it all, so many of us armour up. In this video I share how to recognize the armour you’re wearing, why wearing it too long costs more than we realize, and three simple steps to begin setting it down, even for a little while.
When Everything Looked Great, but I Had Lost Myself
The first time I really experienced this was when my husband and I had just bought our business. We moved our young family 800 kilometres away from everyone we knew: family, friends, our entire support system.
From the outside, everything looked great. The business was growing and everyone around us was excited about what we were building. Inside, I had lost a sense of who I was. I was showing up every day, doing what needed to be done and being strong for everyone around me. What I learned is this: the armour you’re wearing saved you, but it was never meant to stay on forever.
The Armour Was Never the Problem
We develop armour when life gets hard: stress, responsibility, grief, pressure. It’s a protective way of coping. Your body and brain are trying to keep you safe, and the armour helps you survive.
But when we keep pushing our emotions down, we don’t only turn down the sadness and stress. We turn down joy, curiosity, excitement and connection too. That’s often why women tell me, “I just don’t feel like myself anymore.” Everything has been turned down. Over time, the armour creates distance, a loss of joy, and a feeling of moving through life on autopilot.
Do you see yourself in this? Do you see someone you love?
Three Steps to Loosen Your Armour
The good news is the armour can come off. Not all at once, but piece by piece.
1. Notice it. Simply recognizing the armour you’ve been wearing is the first step. Then start with one small piece. Maybe you loosen the armour on your arms so you can feel a loved one’s hug more deeply. Maybe you loosen it around your chest so you can feel compassion and love again. When life gets hard and you need that protection, you can put it back on. You just practise loosening it, one piece at a time.
2. Lean on the 4 Cs. Emotional reconnection often begins with four simple elements I call the 4 Cs:
- Curiosity about what could go right instead of what could go wrong, so you begin to see possibilities that were hidden before.
- Courage, because curiosity breeds courage. When you can see possibility, you feel brave enough to move toward it.
- Compassion for yourself and for others, which helps you trust yourself again.
- Choice, one small step forward and one small choice at a time.
3. Feel the release and the relief. You don’t have to rip the armour off. Each time you loosen it, you feel a little more release. Over time, those moments grow, the stretches without armour get longer, and you may find you don’t need it as often at all. That relief gives you space to live more fully again.
You’re Not Broken
This might sound simple, maybe too simple. But sometimes the things that help us most are the things we make too complicated.
If you’ve been feeling disconnected, exhausted or like you’ve lost yourself along the way, you’re not broken. You may simply be wearing armour that has stayed on too long. Are you ready to take off just one piece?
If this resonated with you, subscribe to At the Heart of It All with Pierrette on YouTube for more conversations like this. Because at the heart of it all, you matter, and you are loved.
