Once More Unto The Breach

Once a warrior always a warrior, Hooah. It's pretty simple really. For some the Warrior is in their blood.

One of my closest buddies is a Vietnam Veteran. I remember having a conversation with him about a thought process I have almost every time I go to church.

"As I sit down in the pew, preparing for worship, I image a scenario where bad guys rush down the isle and take everyone hostage. What would I do, how would I help."

After I told him this fantasy he looked at me, smiled, and said he does the same thing.

The fact of the matter is that I will always try to help and protect others.

I have realized that in order to do this I must continue to hone my ability to go into the shadows.

Now I used to think that the only thing protecting me from the shadow side was my H&K USP .45

This makes perfect sense considering the emphasis my military training placed on weapons. But now, as a warrior living a civilian lifestyle, I understand that what I fear can't be diminished by a firearm. My opponent is much more subtle.

What I fear is not being good enough. What I fear is not having what it takes to get the job done, to be successful, to be a good husband or father. This fear has driven my life.

The worse part about this fear is that I can't blow its friggen head off without hurting myself. Therefore I must learn to live in harmony with it.

As you all know meditation is a tool I use for internal training. Well this week I've been studying a meditation protocol called iRest and through this training I have begun the practice of safely going into my deepest fear and harmonizing with it.

I will not go into detail here how the protocol works, but there came a point during the meditation in which I was holding my greatest fear and it's opposite in my awareness at the same time. It never occurred to me to use meditation to do this but after following the protocol it made perfect sense.

The fact that I managed to get to this place means that my shadow side is no longer off limits.

Bottom line: I was able to sit in the shadow side of my soul and return unscathed.

Tell me what's more Warrior than that.

This post was guided by the 60th stanza of the Art of Peace, a book written by Morihei Ueshiba
Armor Down has a website. Check it out.

If you like the AD Facebook page and I'll email you the PDF of a book called "Mindfulness in Plain English".



Thrive as a civilian.