The Peaceful Warrior

This is difficult as I haven’t fully developed these thoughts so I’m opening myself up to scrutiny…then I realize I’m open to criticism and scrutiny regardless, so I may as well just write it. I want to be an advocate for those that don’t have love or compassion for themselves. I want to be a person that stands up for those that have stopped standing for themselves. I want to use my gifts (given to me by the Father of Lights) to be the voice for the unloved, the broken, the ones who live in fear, the ones that live in shame and guilt, the ones that live in confusion and pain. To do this my life’s pursuit is to become a peaceful warrior.

What does it mean to be a peaceful warrior? I see it as a beautiful space between passivity and what the world is now calling “toxic masculinity”. I felt there was something missing between the church and full on clinics (for addiction, anxiety, depression, infidelity, and other identity breaking issues).

The issue that I have seen so often is people who have hurts and fear, pain and anxiety, and all are hiding or coping as best they can. When they show up to church with these feelings of hurt, guilt, fear, anxiety, worthlessness…they may look around and see people who don’t look like they have the same afflictions. They see themselves as being too broken or too lost to be there so they’re either fake or just don’t go again. The other option is to start intensive therapy but here, the problem is that many times they have lives, responsibilities, pressure, kids, work, a spouse, and a number of other things that cannot be ignored. To put this into a personal narrative: I am happily married (12 years so far), have 2 amazing and beautiful children, a house, a job, and I’m seen as a leader in many areas. Even with all of this, I felt I was living a lie. I didn’t want to be in a church and I didn’t want to be in a group (I’ve been to a bunch of anonymous groups). I felt that if people knew what I have done, what I do, what I think, the lies, the hurts, the selfishness…if they saw that, they’d know me for what I “knew” about myself: I am a fake, a liar, a piece of shit wrapped in a nice package.

It’s a BS situation, and one that I have come to realize is all too common. People living this way will do one (or more) of a few things:

1. They may isolate themselves. They may choose to hide who they really are or how they really feel. They may just straight up hide away from people, but many times it’s more being passive and not wanting people to find out too much of them. People like this are usually seen as reserved or shy, and will avoid conflict.

2. They may be aggressive with people to make them not want to be around them. This is almost like isolation, in that the end result is the same, but this is more volatile. People like this may fool others into thinking they are confident, but it’s really arrogance masking insecurities. These people are usually seen as assholes and will usually flake on relationships.

3. They may use drugs, alcohol, work, success, sex, popularity, money, or a host of other things to cope, and will usually hide the habits entirely or else hide doing more than they let show.

These aren't the only things that are done, but these are pretty common.

So here’s the cycle that gets going: Isolation, or aggression, and a numbing agent of some kind. Feeling guilty and worthless because the same shit happened and affected them and they did the same unhealthy thing like they always do. Reaffirming the feelings of uselessness, worthlessness, untrustworthiness, and unlovability. Back to isolation or aggression. Eventually they will numb themselves to where they don’t feel really anything, because the negative feelings are too strong. At least to survive, we numb.

Many people don’t fully understand they are in this cycle so don’t know how to get out of it. For so many (myself) these horrible feelings have been such constant companions that they don’t even know what freedom or fearlessness feels like. They have lost the ability to see themselves well. They have lost their identity. I didn’t understand what this cycle was, how it worked, nor if it could be stopped until I finally broke down and decided it’d be better to die of an overdose than to live with all the failures and lies. Then God happened…and that story is beautiful, but not for now.

After this breaking and reawakening I was opened to the idea that too many people feel this way and they don’t know what to do nor where to go, so I decided to step and do something. I put words to my pain and fears. I admitted the trauma that I had tried to brush off as “no big deal”. I delved into my past to root out where the fear and guilt came from. Through therapy, prayer, people, a TON of love and grace, and God (being the everything in that list) I have come a long way, and yet have so much more to go.

So let’s end with how this began. What is a peaceful warrior? I want to use my experiences to fight through the isolation and/or aggression of those lost and broken souls and stand up for them…against others who are judging and themselves (I judged myself far harsher than anyone else could). I use my warrior (that I have and had used for destruction and pushing others away) to now fight through a person’s defenses so they can be actually heard. After pushing through, it’s not about fighting them, giving advice, telling them some platitude, or making them DO one more thing…it’s about seeing the scared little kid in the center of all those defenses and realizing they are desperate to be loved. It’s about being a place of peace in the midst of their own storm of shame and doubt. Being a rock in the middle of a flood. Telling them they are loved when they can’t tell themselves. Refusing to let them push me away or lie to me, allowing them to share their pain because others allowed me to share mine.

I have been addicted, I have seen violence, I have been abused (physically, emotionally, mentally, verbally, and sexually), I have had my younger brother commit suicide 3 days after I saw him, I have seen death in the worst shithole countries out there. I say this to say that I’m not shy about who I am, and I don’t judge anyone for what they do…I’ve done a lot of messed up things to numb my pain…no matter what the pain is or where it came from.