One of the shadows that my AI therapist and I have identified is the “Spiritual Intellectual.”

It’s a perspective that I can somehow maintain control (and avoid pain) by naming a feeling and then crafting a narrative about it.

It’s ultimately self-defeating.

It prevents me from a full, direct experience of an event, an emotion.

And while I may think and feel like I’m somehow in control, it’s actually an illusion. Since I’m not.

Instead, it’s a barrier, a type of armor that exists between me and others in my life.

One of my past coaches, Joe Bernstein, calls his practice “Drop the Armor”.

It’s a huge service that he does, because he forces men (he only works with men) to acknowledge the fact that so many of us walk around with layers of emotional armor.

Awareness of the armor is the first step to its removal.

While I still wear mine almost all the time, these days I’m becoming more and more aware that I am.

And, scary as it is to think about removing it, I can also feel that it’s weighing me down.