What Walls Have You Built Around Yourself?
We build walls to shield ourselves from pain and rejection, but real healing begins when we start breaking those walls down.
As I reflect on where Natacha Pennycooke Psychotherapy is headed, and expand The Healing Shift Community (my weekly newsletter), I cannot help but think about the ways we sometimes hold ourselves back, often times without even realizing it. Reflection is not only about what is coming up next, but it is also about noticing what might be standing in the way.
So let me ask you a powerful question:
What walls have you built around yourself?
In my work with clients, I often use the analogy of “walls.” We all build walls, sometimes these walls are conscious and we know of them, but often sometimes we build these walls without even realizing it - as a way to protect ourselves.
These walls can be:
Emotional walls → These are the walls built around your heart. At one time, they kept you safe. They may have developed because at a time sharing your feelings once led to betrayal, criticism, or being dismissed or belittled.
So you learnt to lock your emotions inside. In the situations that followed, this wall protected you from hurt and pain. But over time, this emotional wall disconnected you. It disconnected you from yourself, from others, and from the depth of relationships and intimacy you long for.
Intellectual walls → This wall is built as a barrier separating your head from your chest, causing you to stay “in your head” because it feels safer than being “in your chest.” When you analyze, rationalize, and problem-solve, you “stay safe” and avoid the risk of becoming overwhelmed by your feelings.
This wall allows you to disconnect from emotions and gives you a sense of control when life feels uncertain. But the unfortunate reality is this wall might be cutting you off from your body’s innate wisdom… like the grief that needs to be acknowledged; the joy waiting to be felt; the fear that, once identified, named and acknowledged, can lose its power.
Relational walls → Relationships require vulnerability, and vulnerability always carries risk. The risk of rejection, judgment, disappointment and being hurt. To protect yourself, you may have built a wall that kept people at a safe distance. At the time, this wall shielded you from being hurt again; but now, that same wall may be creating loneliness. Leaving you longing for connection while never fully allowing others in.
Professional walls → In your career, maybe you use achievement as your armour. Titles, accolades, awards and productivity became the bricks you stacked up to prove your worth, and shield yourself from vulnerability. This wall might have helped you rise; but now it can limit your leadership. True leadership requires authenticity, and when the wall is too high, it blocks trust, collaboration, and real impact.
The truth is, every wall once had a purpose. It kept you safe when you needed safety most. But now the same wall that you once needed for protection, is the very same wall that is now holding you back. Protection has turned into the source of your limitation.
These walls:
Block intimacy and depth in your relationships.
Have convinced you that isolation is safer than connection.
Are keeping you from stepping fully into your leadership.
And this type of protection no longer aligns with your future goals.
As a psychotherapist, mental health consultant, and international speaker, I see this every day. Walls built for protection often become prisons, keeping people stuck in the past.
So the question is not whether you have built a wall.
The real question is: Are you ready to take it down?
Brick by brick, piece by piece, so you can finally give yourself permission to breathe, to heal, to lead and to step into your fullest self.
So, I’ll ask you once more:
What walls have you built around yourself?