A Wall You Never Saw Before

Every so often, in the midst of ordinary life, a light goes on. Something in the way a person speaks to us—or doesn’t—reveals a wall that had been standing between us all along.

A client reached out to me because an email they’d received had left them feeling unsettled. The words weren’t overtly hostile, yet the tone carried an unspoken charge—an undercurrent of defensiveness mixed with self-consciousness. They found themselves reacting in kind: feeling an urge to pull away, to reject, even though that wasn’t their nature.

As we spoke, I recognized the terrain immediately. I’ve been in that very place myself, when someone’s activation seeps into the exchange, and my own nervous system starts to echo theirs. What I offered them is the same guidance I try to follow when I’m in a similar moment; a way to keep one’s footing while staying in relationship.

I’ve also been on the receiving end of this pattern in more sustained ways.

Years ago, I had a colleague whose presence often left me unsettled. The interactions were polite, often even warm, yet I found myself keeping a distance I couldn’t quite explain. A mutual friend once put words to what I was sensing by describing his reactions to this fellow. He said, “I just can’t feel him.” That absence of the felt connection—the guardedness, the way his energy stayed just out of reach—destabilized me and kept me guarded. Without realizing it, I began to mirror the distance, to match the unavailability. In retrospect, I can see how easy it is to get pulled into someone else’s defenses, to start playing a role in their unspoken drama, even if that role doesn’t fit who I want to be or who I am.

Sometimes such walls are built out of comparison. Sometimes it’s stacked from the bricks of imagined judgments. And sometimes it’s the quiet, almost imperceptible mortar of fear: Will they think less of me? Will they say no? Will they confirm what I already suspect about myself?

When someone approaches us in such a state, the energy is palpable. It can announce itself through an overlong preamble to, and in the apologetic caveats around, a request, in the hesitancy that stands next to ambition. And if we’re not careful, we’ll catch it.

Projections can be contagious.

When another person’s nervous system is activated in our presence, we can find ourselves feeling an echo of their discomfort. If their hidden fear is rejection, we might feel the strange pull to reject. If their unspoken belief is that we hold the power to affirm or diminish them, we may start to play that role without meaning to.

For the one on the receiving end, this can awaken its own shadows. We might feel the burden of someone else’s self-story pressing against us. If we’re tired or unguarded, shame can slip in—not the shame of being “less than,” but the shame of knowing we’re being invited to act out something that isn’t true to who we are.

As Richard Rohr reminds us in Falling Upward: “Shame is the lie someone told you about yourself.”

But it’s also the lie we can unwittingly affirm about someone else—if we accept the role their projections hand to us.

Whether you’re the one making the ask or the one receiving it, there’s a way to stay in the truth of yourself without reinforcing the untruth in the other.

Here’s a framework I return to in such moments:

• Name the split within yourself: “I’m feeling the pull to reject. This may be their fear, not my truth.”
• Remember what’s yours—and, more importantly, what’s not: “Their nervous system is activated; it’s theirs to work through.”
• Stay warm, brief, and neutral. Keep the tone human but uncluttered. Affirm clarity or self-awareness, not worthiness.
• Anchor in the actual purpose of the exchange. Bring the conversation back to the specific next step or decision.
• Exit cleanly. Whether you say yes or no, do so with kindness and without leaving doors half-open.

And afterward, reset. Shake off the energy and the projections. Take a breath. Let the wall that came up dissolve so you can open yourself to the encounters that nourish you.

Berry’s image of “a wall you never saw before” is a reminder that these moments can be gifts. The sudden light is uncomfortable, yes—but it reveals something we can now navigate with awareness.

Here’s a reflection and prompt that might be helpful: Think of a recent interaction where you felt an unexplained shift in yourself—a sudden defensiveness, a tightening in the gut, or an urge to pull away. What might have been projected onto you in that moment? How could you meet the projections without taking them on as your own?