The Path of The Spiritual Warrior

There is something intensely beautiful which beckons you. You have been led on a strange trajectory through your life and feel as if you are being carved out, refined and cracked-open in order to serve the greater good. The journey has been one of reflection, surrender, agony and serenity.

This is the path of the Spiritual Warrior and although no guidebook could ever articulate your individual experience, there are common themes.

Here are a few initiations you may be experiencing:

1. Know Your Seasons

During stressful times, do you create a bubble around yourself, blocking out all that disturbs you? Or do you keep your heart open, staying engaged and connected to the outside world? Perhaps it is a little of both.

We all have our seasons to cope and potentially thrive during chaos. Sometimes the greatest freedom fighter needs to disengage a little while to recalibrate to sanity. This is Fall and Winter: time for research and radical self care. Sometimes the most sensitive of us needs to come out of incubation to pour out the contents from his or her heart when the time is right. This is Spring and Summer: time for activity, manifestation and creativity.

It is all valued and none of it is meant to be judged. When coming from love, there is no wrong.

2. Honor Your Pain

The path of the spiritual warrior is one of the heart. It is to allow the heart to tenderly ache and feel discomfort, yet provide it with the space to strengthen in vulnerability. The spiritual warrior accepts pain and honors it as holy. The fight no longer becomes a fight, but a permission to feel.

3. Embody True Friendship

Through love we can heal ourselves and relinquish others from their turmoil by providing them safe, nonjudgemental space to process pain. The greatest gift we can give to others is to learn how to be our own best friend first. When we can provide ourselves with the compassion and acceptance to process our pain, we can extend that same sincere friendship outward.

On the path of the Spiritual Warrior, our standards of inner-circle friendship tend to shift. We notice that we spend less time engaging in superficial, judgmental and negative relationships and seek authentic, empowering ones instead. Boundaries become sacred and our social lives become a frontier of awakening possibility. We do not look down on others yet see ourselves in all. Everyone is a mirror, some are just more polished than others.

A mantra to repeat during these transformative shifts in our friendships is: "Because I love myself, I deserve to be loved." The vibe in which we carry ourselves truly determines our tribe.

4. Choose Wisely

The advanced spiritual warrior understands that pain is unavoidable but suffering is a decision. To be a victim is a choice. So is being a survivor. As is thriving.

External chaos and karmic scenarios can often influence who we perceive ourselves to be, and that is okay. Sometimes we need contrasting experiences to develop compassion, humility and equanimity. It is all part of a mysterious grand design, a divine process which the mind can not even begin to fathom.

However; there is something cathartic and necessary even in knowing we have the freedom to choose. Our minds are powerful instruments and truly can alter our realities. Why not choose the most elevating roles to assign ourselves?

In any moment you catch yourself in self-defeatism, fear or doubt, remember this: "I have a choice right now, and I choose to thrive."