To walk the warrior’s path is to wake up
The dragon sleeping within you.
It is to be invested in creating more consciousness.
It is to continue to strip away untruths;
To shed old skins, that may not even be yours.
It is to lose the familiar — people, places, things.
It is to win your Self over,
Again and again,
And be free.~ Payal
Sensitive souls experience life in a very different way than to the everyday reality that is sold to them.
Someone for the billionth time advised me to ‘toughen up’ recently. Although we cannot avoid the realities of life such as the conflicts that arise in relationships; the difficult people who often float our way because of our kind and porous natures, our open and delicate hearts, these pieces of misguided wisdom do not translate at all onto our kind.
Yet we crave to inhabit a kind of strength that we see through media and through the boring, I mean regular, every day type of people. We question: What do they do that’s different? How do they cope? Why do I get mentally and emotionally paralysed or overwhelmed so easily compared to them? Why don’t I have enough energy like these boring, I mean normal, every day kind of people … hahaha.
It’s time to stop asking these kind of questions and start embracing who we are. It’s time to start owning our sensitivity and begin to ask empowering questions like, what is my uniqueness? How do I use my sensitivity as my superpower? What are the gifts in my challenges? What is my purpose? How do I show up?
We admire the warrior archetype, because we know innately that we have an incredible resource within us — our intuition, our emotional body, our creativity — these are all aspects of Shakti, the primordial power and intelligence of the universe. Sounds bad ass doesn’t it? Well, it is. It’s life force energy itself. It’s the divine feminine.
I spent my Master’s degree studying the warrior archetype and produced a 16,000 word dissertation on it! It is my absolute passion — to integrate the yogin with the warrior.
The warrior embodies action and bravery, even amidst big fears and emotions — what we sensitive souls often feel. For the sensitive soul, the warrior’s path is one of compassion towards the Self and a commitment to dharma, serving the highest good.
The warrior is not the one with the outward appearance of confidence or the one who shows up in the world with independence and audacity or physical capacity. The warrior is the one who has the strength to feel and confront emotions, who has the awareness and compassion to listen to the waves of grief and pain, anger, rage, guilt and shame. The true warrior walks courageously through this dark landscape, standing bravely in these shadows, digesting them, owning them and transmuting them.
The warrior does not lash out and disown these parts, projecting them irresponsibly onto others, but uses this personal energy for a just cause — for the highest good, even if it means to use one’s voice powerfully, rage-fully and with strength for self-protection, self-honour and self-preservation. The warrior has compassion and humility with equal force — determination and power to stand by their truth, passion and purpose.
The one who cannot take responsibility for their emotions and energy can never be the warrior. It takes a certain depth of sensitivity, intuition, and authenticity to be inducted into the warrior’s way.
Those who aren’t highly sensitive will tell you to ‘let go,’ ‘don’t fixate,’ ‘don’t be so fragile,’ ‘be more confident’ — and the greatest pain in my ass — ‘toughen up!’ Really, what’s being asked of you here is to disconnect from your divine feminine energy and continue to experience the world from the masculine view. These people are terrified of emotional depth and facing their feelings. Yet training to be like the warrior is not about getting over our ‘stuff’ and ignoring our worries (the mental and emotional body) it’s about ‘DO’-ing things in spite of them.
Wherever there is too much masculine energy or toxic masculinity even, there is a lack of compassion and empathy. We are walking the embodied feminine path here. Our strength is our empathy and inner knowing. We are not in fact afraid at the prospect of change, as this birth/death/birth dynamic is the creative process — the main conflict is of managing relationships with others who do not understand our ‘prakṛti’ our nature.
Let me remind you of your strength:
You’re courageous because you wake up each day in your authenticity, in your pains and sometimes your smile, and you continue to show up in a reality that doesn’t entirely value the way you perceive the world. You have gifts, you have passions and you have a strong sense of purpose. You actually move towards self-transformation with ease as this is the divine feminine in action. However, there are still real challenges and blocks that need to be removed to embody your wholeness. You must claim your warrior’s power by continuing to confront the shadow; the challenges; the fears, the anxieties, the conflicts that you are still avoiding.
There is no running away from battle. When you become the warrior, you walk into it, like a proud lion. Be the king and queen of your inner landscape and the outer reality will begin to change form too.
Your courage and unique wisdom is needed and the warrior is calling on you to rise up and offer the world exactly what you are.
You can pick up your sword and cry at the same time.
You bet you fucking can.
You’ve just got to keep going.
This is warrior training for the sensitive soul.
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Highly Sensitive Soul ~
I’m here to support your warrior’s path, to help you trust your inner wisdom and awaken your powerful roar!
Join my 11 Day Writing Challenge: Enter the Dragon’s Cave: Awaken the Shero Within is a storytelling adventure that supports the transformation of your emotional body landscape. Transform your emotions so that they become a source of your strength instead of your weakness. BE THE WARRIOR — TAKE PART NOW.
Email: payal@pranaandpoetry.com
Payal 🌸✨
