...Swinging the Hatchet... The Warrior Within by Carole Anzolletti
Finding the Spirit
The Spirit of the Warrior lays within us all. There is not one of us that doesn't have the inclination to want to fight for what is ours, or what is right for us. There is a lot of work involved in standing up for ourselves, no matter who is watching. The fact is that we need to be watching out for ourselves first because giving away our power without being mindful of the consequences diminishes, if not totally destroys, the power to even begin to seek the Spirit that will free us to be who we truly want and need to be.
The Spirit of the Warrior comes in the night, when you are staring out the window at the moon before closing your eyes and running through how your day went. All of the things that happened, or didn't happen. All of the things you regret and the things that made you happy. The phone calls and appointments you put off and the shirt that lays in the corner of the room waiting to be sewn.
When are you ready to meet this Warrior? When you are angry, frustrated, sad, beaten down and betrayed are a few good times when you entertain the thought of becoming stronger than you presently are. You get good and mad and say you will Never Let This Happen Again...and firmly resolve to stop whatever it is that has gotten you to the point of such emotion that you make such a promise.
The light of day comes, harshly on your eyes and on your life. Everything that seemed possible in the shadows of the dark night has all vanished into dusty corners. Everything stays there and waits for you to come back with that same ferocity that brought you there in the first place. It sits and waits, as does the Warrior within. You are being watched, by another aspect of yourself waiting to be called forward. You Sleep through Life a little longer.
Waking the Spirit
The Spirit of the Warrior waits until the time is precisely right to catch up with you. There may be only a thread of a moment when it comes back around, but it will. You will have yet again given away another vital part of who you are. You have yet again pacified another human being by giving something you should have kept for yourself.
The Spirit of the Warrior comes forward and you are quiet. You are ready to listen now because you are tired of feeling like you have let yourself down. You are tired of destroying options for opening new ways for yourself by building bridges for others - which is fine if you also can do it for yourself in the process. The Spirit of the Warrior yearns to have kindred spirits on this battlefield we call Life.
Move toward the Fear you feel about how you will wake the Spirit. Rush toward it with the intention of meeting it head on and wrestling it to the ground. Feel the force of your decision lessen the pain of the encounter. Feel pride in the fact that although you have been waiting for more glorious and perfect conditions to arrive, that it is completely unnecessary to put it off any longer. The Warrior IS already IN you, part of YOUR Spirit. It is becoming quiet and hearing the call of this Spirit that you can very easily connect to it and leave behind that which you no longer care to support.
One of the best ways to do this is to start writing. It can be a paragraph, a sentence or just one word. But whatever it is - start it. The Spirit comes through this way, the clearest and most cleanest way that it can - so honest that it may cause you fear and shame but truly, you must own this if you want to truly fight for yourself to be free from addiction, compulsion and misery.
Swinging the Hatchet
I understand if you are unconvinced. I myself even have to keep putting the pen to the page every single day to talk myself out of things and talk myself into things. I talk myself running 6 + miles and as I sweat I know that when its over, I am proud and thankful I made myself honor that Warrior Spirit - that training that I need to support the rest of the life I am living. It may only be a small part, just a little over an hour - but it does in fact cause a cycle of momentum to build and now I can't stop.
One of the first things we learned to do was to be instinctively programmed to depend on our parent(s) or caregivers. The first five years of our lives pretty much set the stage for the majority of the first two decades with habits and cycles and trust. Now we can realize the importance of understanding why we are the way we are and not blame but observe...the writing can heal us and help us to identify that which blocks the way of the Warrior Spirit from appearing.
Swinging the Hatchet as a metaphorical image in your mind is my way of helping you envision what I must do, and what you must do if you want to change the way you think about things and your attitude about them. Swinging the Hatchet chops down the trees of illusion and the branches of impatience, negativity and judgement that have cropped up and are no longer meant to live in your Forest of Memories.
You don't have to take my word for it. You can only know it's true when you witness it for yourself. This, to me, is one of the greatest powers in the world - being able to know yourself because you write about what you know best...and if you don't already know who you are - isn't it time that you did?
