“As a spiritual warrior you have not set out to destroy or eliminate any evil and there is in no enemy. There is only what is unconscious, what is in need of your healing presence.”
I love the pairing of spiritual and warriorship. It inherently challenges our understanding of courage and action. In western culture our understanding of warriorship is often brutal and violent. It’s about taking aggressive and dominating actions in order to create so-called positive change. It’s about eliminating enemies by any means necessary to restore peace. Yet as a spiritual warrior the path only leads to surrender and the only mission is to love what is in most need of attention. As a spiritual warrior you have not set out to destroy or eliminate any evil and there is in no enemy. There is only what is unconscious, what is in need of your healing presence.
Spirituality is often misunderstood or misrepresented as purely a means to acquire peace, love, and bliss. When I first began the healing path, it was a bit of a rude awakening. It was absolute chaos. All of my most unwanted and unloved parts started coming up to the surface of consciousness. Past trauma, pain, fear, depression, everything that had been pushed away and avoided at all costs was knocking at my door. I remember going to a mentor in tears, overwhelmed by all the intense energies and emotions asking for help. She said, “Yea… transformation and healing look a lot nicer on paper.”
“When we bring awareness to what is most painful within us, we allow healing to occur. The alchemy of healing resides in our divine, unconditional presence.”
When you embark on a healing journey you find that it has nothing to do with acquiring or controlling or reaching some state of eternal grace. You begin to understand that you cannot acquire peace or love because that is who you are. The spiritual journey is offering your innately divine essence to what is in need of healing, now. You are asked to bring loving presence to what is hurting, confused, scared, and contracted in this moment. When painful emotions arise you go right into it, willingly. You offer your presence, vulnerability and deepest love. You open to what is often avoided. You sit with what is suppressed. You invite acceptance to what is unacceptable. When we bring awareness to what is most painful within us we allow healing to occur. Things begin to move and transmute. The alchemy of healing resides in our divine, unconditional presence.
When discomfort arises our go-to actions are to suppress, resist, avoid. We distract ourselves and push away what is asking for our immediate attention. We believe that this emotional pain is an indication that something is wrong, that this is bad, that we have failed because we are feeling something other than happy. Yet the truth is, when emotional discomfort arises we are being presented with an opportunity. We are offered a chance to be with and integrate what has been unconsciously ostracized and dismissed. When we seize this opportunity in the moment we open a door for transformation to occur. Awareness is the ground of healing.
“Please consider donating any amount you can to my GoFundMe campaign. Help me serve others through Reiki and song. My 30th birthday is on December 23rd and is quickly approaching. You can give me the greatest gift as I step into my next decade.” www.gofundme.com/allisoncaw
Navigating such intense and turbulent emotional waters is by no means easy or pleasant. That is why it is called spiritual warriorship. It asks you to bring forth your innate courage to open to what no one wishes to see and to what nobody wants to admit. It’s about being with truth, indiscriminately. It’s about allowing your self to be whole once again by congealing all your fragmented so-called broken parts with loving-kindness.
As spiritual warriors we are asked to be a champion of surrender, a soldier of peace, a bringer of love and acceptance. This is why I love Reiki and how it offers endless support on the path of spiritual warriorship. Reiki is universal life energy; it is the love from which life grows. Reiki is everywhere and in all things. As the practitioner I serve merely as a channel through which this energy can enter the body and activate our innate biological healing abilities. Essentially, through Reiki, we offer energetic presence to the body so that it may restore balance and wholeness. For me, Reiki is an essential companion on my spiritual path because it provides an expansive but safe container in which I can offer love to my most fearful and unloved parts.
“The truth is nothing is broken, I don’t have control and there is no enemy. Every time I offer Reiki I am reminded of this.”
As you can imagine the practice of Reiki can be challenging to the ego. We like to think that we have control and that we must force healing to occur by getting rid of or correcting what is bad . When we initially think of healers we think of someone doing something in order to make someone “better”. When I first began with Reiki and started my self-healing practice I often was under this impression. I confused healing with aggressive tactics such as correction and elimination. I thought if I could just make my mind shut-up, if I could get rid of this depression, if I could destroy my fear, then I will be healed, then I will have achieved spiritual warriorship.
Reiki subverts and challenges all of these misconceptions. If ever I go into a treatment, whether it’s for myself or another person, with an approach that something must be fixed or eliminated, Reiki keeps me in check. The truth is nothing is broken, I don’t have control and there is no enemy. Every time I offer Reiki I am reminded of this. We are simply here to give loving witness to what is suffering. We are simply here to offer ourselves as channels of unconditional presence. We are simply here to be with what is. When we do this, healing is given to the whole.
The past two and half years I have walked with Reiki and it has been the greatest gift as I’ve navigated my own healing journey. Now as a Second Degree practitioner of the Usui Tradition I am feeling called to offer myself to the community so that I may give back what Reiki has gifted me. I am starting my own Reiki practice. It is a big transition that I’ve realized needs and deserves support. In order to give I must also open myself to receive financial backing to help transform my home into an open Reiki practice and recording studio.
Please consider donating any amount you can to my GoFundMe campaign. My 30th birthday on December 23rd is quickly approaching. You can give me the greatest gift as I step into my next decade. Help me serve others through Reiki and song. Healing takes many forms and each of us are here to bring it forth in our own unique way. However for the benefit of all beings, we must always begin with ourselves. Thank you for being here on this planet in these challenging times. Thank you for what only you can bring into this world. Thank you. www.gofundme.com/allisoncaw
Photo credit: Sienna Pinney
Alli Caw 