5 ways to be an enlightened warrior for social change

Boundaries for the social conscious empath

Step one: Understanding collective trauma and grief.

Step two: Reframing selfishness

Step three: Preparing for battle (you are here)

Step four: Enlightened engagement with the opposition (coming soon!)

You are passionate about social change and yet feel restricted to do more due to COVID, whether it’s your mental, emotional, physical limitations.

With everything we are experiencing as a society, you feel a call to action. You feel that you cannot just sit back and be silent. You cannot be just a witness. You feel a need, a desire, a calling to create change. And yet, consciously being mindful of COVID and not wanting to be a carrier, and feeling responsible for infecting people or making the pandemic worse. You feel the tension, an inner conflict between what you want to do and being able to do it. You are aware of your limitations whether that is due to illness, disability or mental health. This feels like an excuse, an obstacle you are unwilling to accept.

Have you ever found yourself thinking any of the following?

I wish I could do more.
I am a horrible person. I didn’t go to the protest because I don’t want to spread COVID.
I can’t believe that my anxiety/depression/physical limitations/etc keeps me from showing up. All I want to do is be on the front lines, but I can’t.
I feel like a failure and that I am making excuses for not showing up and doing more.
I feel hopeless, if I can’t be on the front lines then what good am I?
Everything feels so much bigger than me and I feel so small.
The world is falling apart and I feel powerless.

You feel stuck, stagnate, and useless.

The voices in your head belittle and berate you, reminding you that you have a purpose, a job, you are here to make the world a better place. But, you know that there is a pandemic and don’t want to add to its power. Furthermore, you are mindful of your mental health and physical limitations that hinder your ability to be on the front lines. In all this, you feel like you are letting yourself, friends, loved ones, and your community down. The two feel like they are pulling you apart. How can you consciously fight the fight?

It’s time to define your super powers, not your weaknesses.

You understand the impact of collective trauma and grief. You have redefined selfishness so you can show up and be a badass. Now it’s time to learn the art of setting boundaries and knowing who you are so you can be an enlightened warrior to make the world a better place without comprising you.

Beating yourself up helps no one.

Berating yourself keeps you stuck and trapped. When you beat yourself, you stop yourself. You lose your optimism and ability to be rational. You have entered a cycle where you are looking for evidence on why you are not worthy, no good, essentially a loser. When you get to this point, you lose your momentum to move forward and to get involved to affect change. Your enemy has already won, because you have imprisoned yourself. When you know your strengths and limitations, you can show up and do your best work, uninhibited.

As a therapist with more than half a decade of experience, I witness people just like you, deep feeling empaths and millennials who have a drive to change the world and yet struggle on how to show up authentically and consciously.

So how can you be a warrior who shows up for the battle, without compromising yourself?

You become an enlightened warrior.

What is An Enlightened Warrior?

The enlightened warrior is when you have mastered the art of knowing yourself. You know when, where and how you can show up. Most importantly you understand the importance of boundaries.

As an enlightened warrior you will no longer feel responsible for someone else’s feelings when you set a boundary. You will no longer compromise yourself for others, understanding when you do so, you perform a disservice for you and the other person. You will show up authentically, in a position to do your best work.

Tools of the Enlightened Warrior

Know when you are triggered and coming from a place of hurt and pain.

Every warrior needs to be prepared for battle. We lose our judgment, clarity and open-mindedness when we come from a reactive space.

Signs you are triggered:

You reactive
Defensive
Righteous
Judgemental
Angry, frustrated, agitated or irritated
Justified
Hurt

When you come from a non-triggered state, you are open minded and curious. If you are neither of these you are coming from a triggered state. Can you remember a time that you were talking about a social change, perhaps racism, where you became frustrated, even angry with the other person, because the other person could not see your point of view. The more you tried, the more they resisted, until the conversation became heated and came to a stand still.

When we come from a reactive triggered state we lose our ability to come from a non reactive place, we are unable to reflect, process and understand with compassion and empathy the other person’s view. When you find yourself just responding often with anger, hurt and sometimes hate, you have lost your ability to see the other person.

Now is the time to take a step back. Pause. Breath. Allow yourself to come back to the conversation when you are in an open and curious state. When you can hold empathy and compassion for the other person.

When we are open and curious, we say things like, “tell me more,” “where did that idea come from.” “have you considered,” “I remember when I thought like that and what changed me was.”

Being open and curious also puts you in a place not to internalize and take what the other person says personally. It also allows you to see that some people are stuck and you are not the one who is going to change them. Remember, someone has to want to change in order to change.

Mantra: “It’s okay to pause. When I pause I show myself and others unconditional love.”

2. Accept where you are

We struggle to accept where we are. We expect ourselves to do more and be more. Accepting where you are is not a weakness. It is valuable and an act of love. When you accept where you are, you can do what is needed. If you have a flat tire and refuse to accept it, you are going to damage your car. You are also not going to get where you want to go. There is nothing wrong with pulling over, putting on the spare, driving to the nearest tire shop to fix the tire so you can get back on the road.

Knowing when you can step in and step up, when to be present and when to tend to you. We are complex beings. There are days when we are ready to be boots on the ground on the front lines and there are days when just being an ear for someone is what we have to offer. Neither is good or bad or too much or not enough. It is honest and vulnerable when you honor where you are and what you can offer. It inspires others to be honest with themselves and provide what they can. Going back to showing up for a cause you are passionate about. You know the issue, you know what needs to be done. You also know where you are. There is nothing wrong with where you are. When you accept this, you are able to stay or move.

Remember, when you know where you are, you are in a place to:

ask for more information before you commit

say maybe, I don’t know, I will get back to you.

When you accept where you are, you free yourself to put your energy where it matters most to you.

Check in with yourself where are you today? How can you best be a support? Attend a meeting? Go to a protest? Support someone else by listening to them? Post on social media? Repost something that moved you? Take for time yourself?

Matra: “I accept where I am right now.”

3. STOP JUDGING YOURSELF

This is a hard one. Our inner critics can be loud and even louder when we feel passionate about something, like saving the world. Our inner critic feels we are never doing enough and believe it or not comes from a place of love. Deep down our inner critics are afraid and come from a place of hurt. Your inner critic is trying to protect you from pain and hurt that you have experienced before. If you do more, better, etc, you won’t be hurt or feel pain. Take time to acknowledge your fear of failure, pain, success, attention, rejection, whatever drives your inner critic. Let your inner critic know you appreciate them. Thank them, they are working hard to make sure you are okay.

Take a moment to get to know your inner critic. Do they have a gender, a shape, texture, sound? How do you know when they are around? What do they fear? What is their intention?

When you step up to champion your cause, take a moment, to check in with your inner critic, what is stopping them? What do they fear? You might have to comprise with them. Perhaps your inner critic is worried about your mental or physical health is you go to a rally, what is the comprise?

Matras:

I’m okay.
I am where I need to be.
Everything is perfect in this moment.
I am doing my best right now

4. Creating loving boundaries

You are at the airport, luggage in hand with your best friend. When they ask, can you carry my bag? You agree. Then they ask if you can carry another and you agree. Until you are carrying all the luggage, weighted down and exhausted. You look ahead and see your friend skipping and laughing, having the time of their life and looking at you and asking why you aren’t having fun. Because you care. You say, you’re fine and keep struggling. It is okay to say, “No, I cannot carry your 20 bags, or I can help with this one bag.” It’s okay to give back the bag you have offered to carry. When you don’t carry someone else’s bags or give them back, they are learning how to tend to themselves and manage their own stuff. This is a gift of love. You might fear that if you don’t carry their stuff, they will reject you, hate you, be angry with you. Oftentimes this is enough to carry the bags. STOP! It is on the other person to be responsible for their stuff. Not you. You do yourself and the other person a disservice when you own their stuff. When being a champion for a cause, remember to get to own your stuff, not the other persons. You can acknowledge it, see it, validate it, it is not yours to carry. If you can and are in a place to can offer to support them in carrying their stuff, how can they lighten their load? What do they need for support?

Check in with yourself. How can you help? What can you carry or hold?

Mantra: “I do myself and others a disservice with I own and carry their stuff.”

5. Do your work

Change starts with you, the individual. When you do your work, you inspire others to do their work. (if you need ideas, check out 4 Ways to Tend Your Collective Wounds or 5 Ways to be a Warrior While Tending to You).

Doing your work might involve reading a self-help book. You might decide to take the brave step of starting counseling.

Need a therapist? Ask your friends if they have any recommendations. You can also check out these places:

Goodtherapy

Inclusive therapist

Theravive

Low cost:

Look into your community mental health agencies

Better Help

Open Path Collective

For the social change warriors, doing your work also includes knowing your family’s cultural and ethnic story.

How did your family get to the United States? What were their celebrations, beliefs, stories, folklore? Hardships? Entitlements? Where they colonized or colonizers? We carry our ancestors with us. When we do our work, we profoundly heal ourselves so that we can be our best selves and do the work to make the world a better place.

You are a key member of this planet, this world, this society

We need you. We need your magic. Your gifts. Your voice. In order for you to honor us with you, you have to know yourself. When you practice knowing yourself, acceptance, boundaries, and do your own work. You are in a place to show up as a fierce badass enlightened warrior, ready for battle.

As you plot your next more, repeat the mantra,