The design/neuroscience of Defensiveness

Like my mentor keeps saying, start with the essential:

Efficiency >> Integrity — Physical and Conceptual.

our trigger > need for efficiency. absolutely everything boils down to it.

Lets start with the most controversial and important one for our physically non threatening context —

conceptual integrity has the purpose of filtering information so we are in sync with the highly changing context (known , unknown and poorly defined variables) of nowadays society.

Today’s neuroscience breaks it down into several branches > relatedness, status, fairness, autonomy and certainty. (the SCARF model)
but these are redundant, these are constructs that get you closer to the truth but add a gap of understanding that the untrained/unfit mind will struggle with. — reference to carnivore diet for optimal brain fc.

a triggered conceptual integrity is basically a conflict of information. what you hold vs what is presented.
everything is information !

S I have the idea / conviction that my status/intimacy is mediocre (6) in relation to this human. but he behaves as if my status is a high (10).
C I have the idea / conviction . redundant
A I have the idea / conviction that everyone is selfish and yet they are trying to influence me; that i am worthless if i dont win; that i should be able to win.
R I have the idea / conviction that my value system is good but others’ actions/words/emotions reflect a different value system. that what i feel is right, but others feel differently
F I have the idea / conviction that . redundant

There is that layer, then it’s the added meta layer, of people actually believing in those concepts. an added layer that keeps them locked in from the truth. —
- I have the concept/conviction that i have a need for [SCARF]. that [SCARF] is a biological need, that others / i must meet.

you can replace SCARF with any concept of NEED really. NVC is a great tool / strategy to fix intimacy problems, just take anything from their huge (redundant) list.

obs — emotional integrity is a derivative : I am feeling good, people are feeling bad. our intuition estimates the totality of the equation which is external information / context, and our estimation is in conflict with others.

physical integrity is pretty basic. we want our body fit, we dont want it hurt. Someone / thing threatening it (a valid threat) and/or paired with intuitive estimations of the risk will lead to the trigger.

The goal — to understand it’s all information. use the right variables to navigate it, and slowly stop relying on our emotional system for complex solutions, but simple (no triggers) solutions and as a notification system to switch to reason. — besides the fact that being emotional lowers our perspective/vision = logic + creativity.

Just like anything else, apply it enough times till your intuition integrates it. good luck