Taking off your armor

​The more I speak and teach to audiences about the impacts of our childhood experiences, the more I come to know I am talking to many people who are armored up.

Brene' Brown says, "we all grew up and experienced to varying degrees trauma, disappointment, hell - and we armored up. And at some point, that armor no longer serves us. The weight of the armor is too heavy. And it's not protecting you, it's keeping you from becoming seen and known by others."

My mission in these conversations is to help people understand why many people they engage with are difficult to engage with. It's often not because they are bad or mean or unkind people, it's often because they are wearing some pretty heavy armor.

The difficulty in that mission is that before people understand just how heavy someone else's armor is, they are often exposed to the weight of their own armor. They often come to see that someone else is difficult to connect with because they themselves are ill-equipped to connect.

Or maybe, when it comes to the armor, they are over-equipped.

I get all of that, intimately.

It's the journey I'm on.

Stripping myself of armor.

I was listening to Notre Dame head football coach Marcus Freeman talk yesterday. It was the first day of football practice. He said this team may be as close to one another as any team he's been a part of.

He went on to say: "when you have that emotional bond, that's when great things are achieved."

I don't know that we often prioritize that - emotional bonds - when it comes to achieving great things.

I don't think it's prioritized in our places of work or worship or education. I don't think it's prioritized in our relationships; friends, parenting, marriages. In fact, often times these things are built, even if unknown, on circumventing emotional bonds.

That is certainly not always the case, but there's a lot of evidence that suggests it's much too often the case.

Social media has been a great experiment on how to mass produce connections without emotional bonds. For social media owners and developers, great things have been achieved. For social media users, well I think we may be more armored up than ever.

It's often hard leading a real-life presentation and seeing people's eyes fill with tears. It's often hard to watch them walk out and get some air. It's hard because I've been there.

It's hard because, like them, I still go there some days.

But I've also been here, here in this moment, here in the knowing the beauty beneath the armor. Here in the knowing the beauty of being seen and known. Here in the knowing that great things start to happen when the armor comes off.

If you feel like your armor is getting too heavy, chances are it is. I encourage you to talk to someone. To find someone you can trust. Someone open to hearing and listening.

Maybe it's a friend or family or a counselor.

Or maybe it's a pen and paper.

And you don't have to go all in on your trauma or disappointments or hell. You don't have to start there. You can just simply say I feel like my armor is getting to heavy.

I promise you that will be a start. A start to losing weight, the kind that will stay off. The kind that will put you on a path to the kind of bonds on which great things are achieved.

Because the armor is no longer protecting you. It's not. It's keeping you from being seen and known by others.

And we are all much too beautiful to be hidden.