Roots of the warrior - part 2

continued from Roots of the Warrior - part 1

I mentioned in part 1 there are many kinds of warriors, but what is the actual purpose of a warrior in life?

A warrior’s placement is to challenge the growth process, to keep moving the currents of life so that the death of stagnation does not set in. It is to fire up natural conflict in every cell until absolute balance is attained. Warrior energy is to promote growth and expansion so the source can truly know itself.

The warrior’s purpose and place is to promote necessary change where the fear of change and the will of stagnation dwells. The warrior challenges life to breech the comfort zone and the trap of complacency.

Does that mean that everyone who challenges their comfort zones are warriors? No. Many people who on occasion challenge their comfort zones or stand up for something in the face of certain opposition many not be in themselves warriors, but rather acting upon the impulse sparked by the actions of a warrior they were or are influenced by. If this meant to be a derogatory statement – absolutely not.

Every energy has its place and purpose. Not everyone is a poet, but perhaps someone who read some poetry was inspired to try their hand at it, if only for a short while. Is that person now a poet – no, but they touched a bit of the poets energy and existence. The poet helped bring enrichment to another’s life through a variation of perspective. That is a form of growth and exploration. Was it prompted by a warrior – no, it was inspired by a poet energy and is no more or less than a prompt of a warrior’s energy, it’s just different.

Everything has a place and purpose, the warrior is simply one, but one that is very misunderstood in today’s modern bias views.

Every year I have a handful of people contact me on Veteran’s Day and thank me for my sacrifice and past service. They understand what I am and they understand that even though partly it was forced service, it had a purpose in life and I fulfilled that small level of purpose at great cost to self and those close to me. So even though it was dark and “ugly”, it had its place and purpose. Predators have as much a placement as prey; disease has as much purpose as health and night has as much a place as day.

Most of you know by now that all my symptoms over the last decade have been due to the damage to my spleen from being poisoned 11 years back. This damage caused an imbalance between spleen, liver, kidneys and lungs; the main trio consists of the lungs, spleen and kidneys in the upper, middle and lower energy sectors of the body. Chronic stasis of blood and energy ensued and generated dozens and dozens of ongoing symptoms. So what does this have to do with this warrior series? Let me show you.

Here is a layout of the progression of stasis complications in my life:

Liver and Spleen Stasis Foundation

• Angry mother during pregnancy = stress hormones while organs forming
• Very late birth – built toxins = stressed liver
• Anger and violence in childhood = stressed liver
• Anger and violence in adolescence and early adulthood = stressed liver – but moving through, not getting stuck since anger and violence wasn’t held in but vented regularly
• Extreme trauma; physical, emotional and mental ongoing = causes tension and blockages in system
• Poisoning in 2005 – severely damaged spleen, stomach and small intestine = stressed kidneys, liver and lungs
• Severe lack of activity for months while initial healing took place – stagnation in liver and spleen began
• Inability to vent aggression or anger and frustration = stagnation in liver
• Stagnation of spleen and liver = depletion of blood & depletion of blood is weak blood and blood unable to circulate freely
• Over time this depletion became chronic
• Energy and blood stasis also became chronic
• Lungs weakened with rising heat from liver and lack of energy from spleen
• Stasis and deep trauma to spleen gave rise to all my symptoms through the years and the weakness triangle of lung, spleen and kidney

The emotional level of stasis

• Being told my anger is no good – stop feeling it
• Being told my aggressive nature is unacceptable to society, change
• Being told I should not enjoy fighting – change my ways
• Being told I should just be peaceful and sit around being something I’m not
• Being told I have to have a happy face always for the world
• Being told to forget the darkness and only focus on the light and happy energy
• Being told to avoid a great many things (foods, events, activities) that I enjoy
• Basically being told to be someone and something I am not and falling into the trap of believing something was wrong with me and trying for years to be something else = all adds to stasis
• In my case none of the emotional aspects caused the stasis and associate issues, but they have not helped the stasis that was created by the traumas of the past

We need to accept who and what we are in this life, and where we are. No matter what society accepts or does not accept, we need to be who we are or suffer the consequences connected by suppressing our very nature. I am a warrior through and through and have been my whole life. Trying to suppress that fact and pretend to be something else is futile and simply dangerous to the entirety of my wellbeing.

I began to shy away from these aspects of who I am because I was told they just aggravate the traumatic memories and enhance cptsd issues. I found out quite the opposite! The suppression of the warrior aspects of me simply flared up the trauma and caused it to stagnate within, unresolved, unmoving, and without hope of further understanding. Slowly bringing these warrior aspects of myself back into the forefront of my life, and once again embracing and honoring them has actually helped subdue and even transform large areas of trauma into more productive energies.

There are people who I am sure will say this is all just programming garbage, but they know nothing, especially not of me. I began to realize this last year which is why I began to bring back Survival Combat camps and training into my school, because it is a large aspect of me and what I do. Suppressing that is like pretending I do not need to breathe or eat. I knew it was the correct course of action not only because of how teaching it makes me feel, but also because the people who came for the entire length of the camps loved it.

Bravery – to fully be yourself, even in the face of opposition.

When we speak of warrior energy and a warrior path through this physical life, there comes a point where we must ponder something very important, essential to a warrior’s path. Earlier in the series I spoke of the warrior and conflict and how the two are inseparable and for good reason. But this leads to the question of dealing.

As a warrior how do we deal with conflict? How do we walk as warriors and remain balanced and neutral within the cause of our own hearts and minds? How do we avoid filling our hearts with hate and how do we continue on with wounds and scars? How do we surpass that which we survive?

I think you will agree how important the answers to those questions are to a warrior’s path.

The answers come down to:

• Ideals
• Morals
• Codes of Conduct

These are all foundations in our hearts and minds dictated by what we have chosen and agreed upon. They are not based upon “right” and “wrong”, even balance and imbalance. They all come from the intentions of our mind’s energies. 

No matter if others agree or disagree with our ideals, morals and personal codes of conduct; these are vital to the path of the warrior, to the very roots of a warrior. Without them the path is just dark and pointless. Any path needs purpose and that purpose comes down to personal agreements. A warrior’s path is especially bound to those three personal agreed upon beliefs and structures.

So then what keeps the mind in check? The heart of course. And what keeps the heart in check? Well the mind does. The mind and heart form a bond and one cannot travel far in a balanced state without the other’s input. Both are kept in-check through self awareness and hold nothing.

Samurai were known to meditate for hours and day to try holding personal balance and focus; to let go of all they had seen and done in war. Their lives were dedicated to practices highly refined and strict in attempts to turn every moment into a moment of perfection in order to hold their focus stable. Of course perfection is a personal bias, but can be a useful tool for some in order to gage progress of time through physical life. It can also be a ball and chain that drags one into the grave.

Some Native American tribes would have a line of women available to comfort, through hugs and song, the warriors as they returned from combat to help them let go of the inner pains and trauma that goes along with a warrior’s path.

It all comes down to release, but for release to work there must be grounding and that requires 100% focus of and in the moment. Not long ago I wrote an article on the Complications of Release Work you may wish to review.

All great warriors have come to the understanding that their greatest power in conflict comes from being as empty as possible in the moment and rely upon their earned roots, gained and formed by a life of dedication and training.

Without morals, codes of conduct, ideals and the understanding that releasing experiences is vital to the path of a warrior, a warrior will not stand long. Experience and the built energies of extreme conflict will eventually crush the heart and mind as they fail to communicate and empty themselves of that which is not necessary. It comes down to Survival.

No matter what style warrior, there must first be survival before one can evolve to surpass. What does survival require? It requires the following:

• skills/training
• strength
• diligence
• resolve
• fortitude
• aggression
• patience
• intelligence
• dedication
• attitude
• ego
• grounding
• common sense

 
A warrior never willingly undertakes a battle of any kind when they know the odds are stacked against them. Only when forced should they jump into battle that holds poor odds for a survival outcome. Soldiers on the other hand and simplistic fighters will embrace any old conflict just to try proving themselves or placing the meaning of their lives within the bidding of others wills.

The warrior must be intelligent as well as patient and able to see many angles and outcomes dependent on various choices. If you view the list above, and ponder each word, you can begin to see the dynamics in-which the warrior’s attitude towards survival and cause flow dynamically within one another. With a warrior you cannot have focus for one without the other.

Though what is survival for if not to surpass current experiences through growth processes? Therefore beyond survival is the ability to surpass. To surpass experience requires:

• patience
• grounding
• centering
• releasing
• forgiving
• understanding
• strength
• flexibility
• acceptance
• thankfulness
• healing
• focus
• fortitude
• endurance
• sense of purpose
• shielding
• trust
• love

 
You may at first think some of those words are contradictory, but truly they are not. For instance we have Shielding and Trust. How can we express trust if we are shielded? First we must understand the word Trust. Trust does not always mean trusting others. Before we can learn to trust others we must first learn to trust self. Without self trust we have no core strength, no internal substance. However, as we learn self trust we must also shield the self from external harm. For a fire to burn brightly it must first start from a spark and that spark must be shielded from all that would snuff it.

To surpass an experience a warrior understands that they must first shield themselves from the trauma so they can start gaining perspective through self trust. Once this is built, trust can begin to expand into life itself in-which the warrior sees themselves an integral aspect of. Trauma can then be dissolved since the strength of self trust and trust that all things have a place and purpose in life, and therefore self is a reality. With that level of self trust the warrior can transform the original shielding into personal understanding that they are experienced enough to handle life without hiding behind a shield.

Go ahead if you will and take it upon yourselves to analyze the words in the above two lists and see through your own inner depths how they all relate and work together, even if they at first appear contradictory. Next I will present the challenges, the pitfalls or imbalances a warrior must face along the path.

All forms of a warrior in any level of life is prone to imbalance just like anyone else. Imbalance is the constant challenge of life in this world. None are exempt. A very important piece of wisdom for all of us in all areas of life in-which we exist to embrace is understanding the imbalance we are prone to.

For the path of a warrior the major pitfalls of imbalance dwell within the following:

• Ego
• Guilt
• Shame
• Self Punishment
• Abandonment
• Hate
• Sadism
• Revenge
• Glory Seeking
• Needless Fight
• Dominion or seeking to rule
• Seeking to follow the will of others
• Anxiety

 
Of course as with any list you could always add to it, but those are some of the major imbalances a warrior path can expect to encounter along the way. For myself I have run into many of those on many occasions. It just happens to be life, and with the path I have walked and continue to walk, those are energies that set within shadows as well as in the light.

None of us are perfect and imbalance touches each of us. The most important thing we can remember is that to dwell upon the times we trip and fall into the imbalance snare does us no benefit. Rather that focus drags on us soul deep and hinders our progression of self learning.

Awareness, acceptance forgiveness and the will to strive to attain a more complete sense of balance within is all we can hope for along the path of constant challenge. We can acknowledge when we stumbled and set our focus of heart and mind to the task of standing back up and continuing on, knowing full well that we will stumble again because that is life.

Striving to learn what we may with each stumble helps us understand that the next time we stumble it will be upon another snag and not the same one that tripped us before.

The trick of the game is that the more a person upon a warrior’s path suffers, the more prone they become to the pitfalls of imbalance, and all true warriors who walk a warrior’s path suffer. It happens with many different paths in life that people tread. It’s one of those “catch 22’s” of life we must deal with. The further along you go, the higher the stakes and the further the fall. Focus on attaining as much balance as possible becomes essential.

As with any path of challenge laced with potential pitfalls we must address yet another connected topic – Endurance.

Most of us never really walk the path in life we expected or thought we might. We envision all kinds of paths as children, but the path that finds our feet and all it entails can never truly be anticipated, only lived and dealt with along the way.

In a warriors life there are inevitably demons. Some of the persons own making and some made long before who patiently wait for our shadow to pass by. For a warrior the act of ridding ourselves of those demons in life is counterproductive. The demons are there for our deepest benefit – survival, learning and surpassing. If we try to snuff them out we tear part of ourselves away and leave a gaping hole that something else will try to fill. No, we must keep them close and learn from them as we learn to control them so they do not control and dictate our path beyond our will.

Endurance becomes an essential aspect of the warrior path, and endurance requires:

• Grounding – being in the present
• The ability to smile to heart and self
• Staying active in body, mind and spirit
• Meditating – constructive silence
• Being creative
• Quality breathing
• Spending time outdoors
• Eating healthy
• Looking for beauty
• Releasing the heart
• Releasing the wounds and traumas
• Releasing the illusions
• Treating thyself well

 
Yes these actions can be carried over and utilized in a great many pathways of life, but since we are speaking on the warrior, these fit right in.

Grounding of course I have spoken and written a lot about. Staying present, paying attention to the senses and details of your body; your thoughts and feelings as well as details in your immediate surroundings and how you are interacting with them.

Smiling in care of the self is an essential and integral part of a healthy lifestyle. Basically giving gratitude to all aspects of the self and the body which carry you through life.

Staying active to stay healthy – obvious necessity to well being.

When we move down through the list most are quite obvious, simple and yet potently effective. Releasing the heart is one that takes a bit of time and focus and goes right along with release work, as does the release of wounds, trauma and illusions. Taking the time to focus on and let go of acute energies detrimentally affecting you is essential to health and balance within body, heart, mind and spirit. Of course trying to release specific non-beneficial energies/experiences within you that are connected to unresolved core issues can be counterproductive and extremely wearing. Just like I explained in my article Complications of Release Work.
Releasing the illusions might be one that is confusing to some of you. What this means is the process of letting go of the preconceived. As some examples:

• Illusions of right or wrong
• Illusions of guilt
• Illusions of needing punishment
• Illusions of good or bad
• Illusions of justice which is cold, unfeeling and frozen in time

 
We seek then to replace illusions with – Everyone is who they are and do what they at any given moment because they must be so to gain the experiences required for evolution. If you are part of the experience then you feel you need it for your own evolution and you must not judge yourself or others for it. Instead it is about learning from it and surpassing and moving past it all.

Judgment and punishment are not for us to deal in, even within and to ourselves. Our responsibility is to take responsibility for our every feeling, action and thought and not punish ourselves for them, but instead learn to surpass our own imbalances. This requires change and the courage to do so.

Like in all paths, a warrior’s path too also requires the diligence to focus on and evolve the core issues within our beings. It is simply an essential aspect of this physical life, one we all must face daily. Endurance is required along most pathways and though the type of endurance will vary, the necessity of the above actions in the list can be utilized by most people in my opinion.

Does conflict require combat – no not always. Does change require rashness, harshness, violent energy – no not always. There is a place for everything in variation and change is no different. A sunrise that brings day from night can happen with such lack of celebration from the elements that except for the light you would never know the difference between them. Other times can be very different. Some dawns, as the sun rises, stir up such thermals that create extreme winds and kick up severe and violent storms that rip the land to shreds. The onset of evening twilight can be equally as turbulent or easy.

Change is required by life in order that life continue, but change can come smooth and easy just as it can come harsh and violent and both have their place in the universe. There are various kinds of warriors and not all warriors walk the path where violent change occurs. Other kinds of warriors do stride violent paths connected to harsh and dramatic life changes and shifts. None is better or worse than the other; both are necessary and have their place.

Before I list a few different kinds of warriors and warrior paths in part 3, go ahead and take a little time to ponder it for yourself and see what you come up with.

continued in - Roots of the Warrior - part 3