Be a Warrior

Not just from here, but from my life. I haven’t felt well and have been overwhelmed, broke, worried about finding a new place to live, all sorts of things. I’ve been feeling a little sorry for myself, too, and have been using excuses about why I don’t… why I can’t… get back on the horse and take care of business.

But I have to take stock and say that this is my life and no one is going to swoop in and save me. Unless that swooper is me.

It’s time to step up and be a warrior—be the hero of my own story. I’m the one who decides the path. I’m the one who takes the steps to get to the end of the path. I’m the one who faces the fears and the monsters. I’m the one who reaps the rewards.

In a way, I think I wish I didn’t have to be the hero. I wish there was a prince in shining armor to take care of me, but even when I found a mate, I didn’t find someone to take me away from what I had to do for myself. All the issues I had before I met S are still there, and would be, even if he was the one who was good with money or organized or whatever…my issues would just be hiding in having someone else take care of them. So even though it’s hard, ultimately, I think it’s for the best.

I think that my life is not meant to be one where my problems are taken care of by someone else, whether that someone is my parents or my partner or the government, or just dumb luck. I think it’s my destiny to struggle with my own flaws and succeed or fail on my own merits.

It’s a scary thought to be responsible for your own fate. I remember when I taught high school, I watched the teenagers struggle with that idea. A lot of them didn’t want to work hard and be in charge of their lives. They wanted some deus ex machina to pop in and change their lives. Get discovered and be a rap star, miraculously become a doctor even though they couldn’t pass science, and never have to worry about money again because they were good people, pass their classes because they were sweet and smart, and they didn’t really have to do the work, did they? It was so easy to see them struggling with this, and so easy to see the path that would take them to real, lasting success… not fairy tale success, but grown up, living the life they chose success. It was a path of hard work and reality, but also of dreams and passion.

I’ve been indulging in my inner adolescent, poor me-ness. I think that’s okay. We all deserve the chance to step back and be sad. There might even be some benefit in that down time. But there comes a moment when you have to tell yourself to KNOCK IT OFF,stop playing the victim, and get back down to the business of being your own hero.

Here I am, standing on the edge, looking out over an unknown land, and instead of woe-is-meing myself into disaster, it’s time to jump. I’ve got to swoop in and save me from myself.

So time to center. Time to be a warrior. As Castaneda says;

A man goes to knowledge as he goes to war: wide-awake, with fear, with respect, and with absolute assurance. Going to knowledge or going to war in any other manner is a mistake, and whoever makes it might never live to regret it.

A warrior chooses a path with heart, any path with heart, and follows it; and then he rejoices and laughs. He knows because he sees that his life will be over altogether too soon. He sees that nothing is more important than anything else.

A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That’s control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That’s abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions.

_A warrior must cultivate the feeling that he has everything
needed for the extravagant journey that is his life. What counts for a warrior is being alive. Life in itself is sufficient, self-explanatory and complete. Therefore, one may say without being presumptuous that the experience of experiences is being alive._

THIS IS IMPORTANT for me to remember when I am losing it. When all I can see is how much I am not where I need to be. It’s okay to be afraid, that’s natural. But fear is just fear. It doesn’t need to stop me. I know what I’m doing. Just do it. And whatever results that come from that, I’ll deal with.

When to ease back.

A warrior needs to take charge of herself, be aware of what’s needed and necessary and take a break. Be kind to herself.

Breathing deeply is important. Caring for the self. Figure out what recharges and what depletes.

It will be clear when it’s time to charge forward again.

Choose a direction and go confidently down that path.

Do not stand about waffling, wondering should I shouldn’t I?

There are no wrong paths.

Aim yourself in the direction of your dreams and take the steps you need to get there.

Enjoy the journey.

Get started.

Don’t know what it is. Might be somesort of post partum thing—having a baby throws your hormones off kilter. Plus, the sleep deprivation and any number of personal challenges.

Looked at my list trying to find a goal where writing about this feeling would actually be relevant, and stumbled upon this, rarely thought about goal that I can never bear to take off the list—not when I read why I put it on here in the first place.

Being a warrior. Don’t get me wrong, I have spent much of my life being a pacifist. I am still relatively non-violent, I just believe in defending myself and my loved ones, even physically if I must, so I don’t consider myself a pacifist anymore. To me, this goal is about being a spiritual warrior. This is about strength and flow, focus, doing, faith and balance.

It’s about not letting this strange free floating anxiety to swell into something damaging, but just noticing it, accepting that it is there, and moving forward.

After reading my entries here, I think I would like to rewrite what it means to be a warrior for me, with thanks to Castaneda, of course, but personalized.

I know who I am inside. I always have. I also know that this person is not reflected in what I say, what I do, where I live, where I work, and who my friends are.
In my heart, I am a leader. I am a healer of minds and bodies. People follow me because I would give my life for them. They follow me because I am kind, wise, honest and brave. We fight only when we must. We fight for freedom, truth and love.
In order to become my true self, I must first hold my tounge. I must remember always that my words have power – that they can destroy and they can build. I must use my words only when necessary and choose them carefully.
Second, I must train my body and mind for combat. I need to become strong, fast and balanced. I must become a skilled fighter with or without weapons. I must be aware of my surroundings at all times. I must see a man’s strengths and weaknesses in a single glance. I must be so prepared that it is my very nature.
Third, I must learn the healing arts. I must study both ancient methods of healing and modern medical treatments for common injuries and ailments. I must become a student of the human heart and know when a person is in pain. I must know words that soothe and never patronize. I must show others truths which cause pain, and always face the truths of my own existence.
When I have acheived this, I will be ready to find my purpose. I will be physically and mentally prepared for the fight. I will do my part in the unseen war.

A warrior chooses a path with heart, any path with heart, and follows it; and then he rejoices and laughs. He knows because he sees that his life will be over altogether too soon. He sees that nothing is more important than anything else.

by Carlos Castaneda

sanvea posted this. This entry is why I made this a goal, and I had to go back and look at it to decide if I should delete this goal, thinking that other goals had it covered.

If anything, I need to re read this quote from Castaneda every so often to get a self check. To remember that yes, I am warriorgirl. Maybe warriormama, now.

Don Juan says it best:

A man goes to knowledge as he goes to war: wide-awake, with fear, with respect, and with absolute assurance. Going to knowledge or going to war in any other manner is a mistake, and whoever makes it might never live to regret it.

A warrior chooses a path with heart, any path with heart, and follows it; and then he rejoices and laughs. He knows because he sees that his life will be over altogether too soon. He sees that nothing is more important than anything else.

A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That’s control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That’s abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions.

A warrior must cultivate the feeling that he has everything
needed for the extravagant journey that is his life. What counts for a warrior is being alive. Life in itself is sufficient, self-explanatory and complete. Therefore, one may say without being presumptuous that the experience of experiences is being alive.

A warrior lives by acting, not by thinking about acting, nor by thinking about what he will think when he has finished acting.

A warrior must learn to make every act count, since he is going to be here in this world for only a short while, in fact, too short for witnessing all the marvels of it.

Anything is one of a million paths. Therefore, a warrior must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if he feels that he should not follow it, he must not stay with it under any conditions. His decision to keep on that path or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition. He must look at every path closely and deliberately. There is a question that a warrior has to ask, mandatorily: ‘Does this path have a heart?’

Feeling important makes one heavy, clumsy and vain. To be a warrior one needs to be light and fluid.

If a warrior is to succeed at anything, the success must come gently, with a great deal of effort but with no stress or obsession.

Intent is not a thought, or an object, or a wish. Intent is what can make a man succeed when his thoughts tell him that he is defeated. It operates in spite of the warrior’s indulgence. Intent is what makes him invulnerable. Intent is what sends a shaman through a wall, through space, to infinity.

Only as a warrior can one withstand the path of knowledge. A warrior cannot complain or regret anything. His life is an endless challenge, and challenges cannot possibly be good or bad. Challenges are simply challenges. The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge, while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or a curse.

The humbleness of a warrior is not the humbleness of the beggar. The warrior lowers his head to no one, but at the same time, he doesn’t permit anyone to lower his head to him. The beggar, on the other hand, falls to his knees at the drop of a hat and scrapes the floor to anyone he deems to be higher; but at the same time, he demands that someone lower than him scrape the floor for him.

The most effective way to live is as a warrior. A warrior may worry and think before making any decision, but once he makes it, he goes his way, free from worries or thoughts; there will be a million other decisions still awaiting him. That’s the warrior’s way.

All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. However, a path without a heart is never enjoyable. On the other hand, a path with heart is easy—it does not make a warrior work at liking it; it makes for a joyful journey; as long as a man follows it, he is one with it.

Whenever a warrior decides to do something, he must go all the way, but he must take responsibility for what he does. No matter what he does, he must know first why he is doing it, and then he must proceed with his actions without having doubts or remorse about them.

An average man is too concerned with liking people or with being liked himself. A warrior likes, that’s all. He likes whatever or whomever he wants, for the hell of it.

The self-confidence of the warrior is not the self-confidence of the average man. The average man seeks certainty in the eyes of the onlooker and calls that self-confidence. The warrior seeks impeccability in his own eyes and calls that humbleness.

The warrior: silent in his struggle, undetainable because he has nothing to lose, functional and efficacious because he has everything to gain.

Warriors do not win victories by beating their heads against walls, but by overtaking the walls. Warriors jump over walls; they don’t demolish them.

If his spirit is distorted he should simply fix it—purge it, make it perfect —- because there is no other task in our entire lives which is more worthwhile… To seek the perfection of the warrior’s spirit is the only task worthy of our temporariness, our manhood.

I am a Garden Warrior. I kick the arse of those darn blasted weeds.

Here’s what I mean:

From “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz:

“The warrior has control. Not control over another human, but control over one’s own emotions, control over one’s own self. It is when we lose control that we repress the emotions, not when we are in control. The big difference between a warrior and a victim is that the victim represses, and the warrior refrains. Victims repress because they are afraid to show the emotions, afraid to say what they want to say. To refrain is not the same thing as repression. To refrain is to hold the emotions and to express them in the right moment, not before, not later. That is why warriors are impeccable. They have complete control over their own emotions and therefore over their own behavior.”