Guardians Raise Objections!

By Susan Mitchell

We gotta love the prickly Guardian parts of our soul/heart, but they can create strife when their protective objections conflict with our current goal or purpose. This often happens when my husband is chauffeuring me somewhere: I’m totally at ease playing on my iPhone, but my Guardian suddenly emerges to shriek, Watch out! about a “dangerous” shadow movement out of the corner of my eye. Then hubby’s Guardian comes out in response to being startled into, well, nearly wrecking the car. Or, on occasions when I have gone to meet with a group I know and love, some Guardian gets alerted and irritated for who knows what reason and simply won’t calm down. I might even get into an argument with someone if I don’t resolve the trigger, choose a non-reactive path, or remove myself. 

A few Sundays ago I was looking forward to peaceful time with my church. Worship for many of us is one place that is usually safe from triggers, so this is often easy since Guardians are often lulled into a sense of safety by music. The worship team began singing “How Great Is Our God,” a lovely anthem I’d heard many times. The word pictures (“wraps himself in light” and “time is in his hands”) ignited my imaginative awe and sparked actual conversation with the Lord (“my heart will sing”). The Function, Emotion, and True Self parts of my heart were wholly engaged in appreciating the Lord and allowing their joy capacity to expand.

At the moment my Guardian did not seem to be “up,” which is not surprising. They can go dormant for months or years. They do not sequence time, so they can be completely desynchronized from a person’s overall timeline, unaware of past encounters or experiences that occurred between their creation and their seemingly random awakening to take a guard shift.

But on this occasion, when we hit the line “the Lion and the Lamb,” my Guardian woke up to declare the equivalent of, “Danger! Untrue! Words found nowhere in Scripture! Misquote of Isaiah 11:6, 'And the wolf will dwell with the lamb….’”

Guardians can really wreck a party, but my Function considered the artifact of the song and the accusation carefully and came up with a logical narrative counterpoint: “This song is about the reach, span, and range of God: age to age, beginning to end, Lion apex predator to slaughtered Lamb. He is great in encompassing it all, and Jesus stands in these two faces of himself in Revelation 5:5-6. It’s legit.”

Guardian, appreciating the logic, bought it and relaxed, letting the gate swing wide open for the rest of my heart to re-engage in the adoration of our great and glorious God. Whew.

A few takeaways —  

• Music is a good way to keep Guardians at peace. I believe King Saul used David’s harp-playing to keep the scary, loud evil spirits that were attached to his Guardian at bay.

• If a Guardian shows up unexpectedly, take some time to reply kindly with facts and with logic to suggest another way to view things. 

• If they keep intruding (not all Guardians are as compliant as mine was), it’s often helpful to affirm them: “Guardian, you are an important part of me, and I appreciate your help. However, I, Susan, could really use this time to soak and relax from the stresses of the last week. Is it okay if we continue this conversation later?”

• Of course, if this is a Guardian that simply will not be mollified, it might be time to schedule an appointment to do look deeper at the cause, so Jesus can be brought in to resolve and heal the underlying issue: www.estuarycourts.com/book