S2 EP227 – Owning the Warrior Within

Transcription:

Hi everyone. Dr. Margaret Paul and Dr. Erika Chopich here with the Inner Bonding Podcast. Sometimes spirit comes through Erika in profound ways, and what she is about to share with you is one of those times. Erika has been quite put-off by how some people are talking about self-love. Here is what she has to say about it.

(Erika) A lot of people are talking about self-love and self-care, but often the way they are talking about it can be self-indulgent. A bubble bath is fun but it doesn’t reset your intention. Here is the way I see it:

You were given a sword and a shield at the time of your birth, which would be honed and hammered by the difficulties of your own maturation process. You were born to be a warrior. Your wounds as a child gave you a sword to love and to guide others. It is a natural part of our spiritual development. it’s your breath out, sending your love to others, not your breath in that changes the lives of those around you. You have the means to help people, to guide them. True self-love isn’t pampering, it’s strengthening. It’s honing your sword and strengthening your steel with light and love. If you use whatever you learned as a child, that is your reason for being here. You do it by bringing in the light and the love. And you protect the people around you from darkness with the shield you were given. 

It’s like when we had horses. The  children were in our barn with their controlling parents. I was shielding them with my shield from the darkness of their parents. And then I would reach out to each parent to touch them, to say there’s a better way, and then I watched some of them resist. I was not trying to harm them or control them – I was trying to give them a gift and they didn’t want it. That’s OK, that’s individual choice. The sword isn’t a weapon meant to harm or destroy. It is the touch of love. It is an extension of love. It’s an anointing. Here’s the love I have – it runs from God through me, through my sword. Let me touch you with it, let me touch you with it, and at that moment their soul makes a choice to open to it or to resist it.

The current concept of self-love is often self-indulgence. It’s a neurotic breath in that says, “If I do this and pamper myself then I can love.” No, you don’t need to do all that. You’ve already been given the gifts, you’ve been given the strength, you’ve been given the courage. Use it. Be the warrior. 

Does that mean you have to self-deny? No, of course not. I never self-deny. I draw my breath in every day of my life by the beauty of nature and the wonder of the animals and the glory of the sunshine. That is my breath in, that is my self-love, and it goes down my arm into the tip of my sword and I can touch you and lift you with it and I will shield you from the darkness and then what you do in response to that is your choice. That’s what self-love is. It’s not getting your nails done or a day at the beach with a Margarita. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s not the deeper journey of self-love The current trend, the current fascination with self-love is the wrong journey. It’s the wrong path. We have access to boundless energy. People believe they have to recharge their batteries, but God already gave you an endless energy and strength and courage, so why do you believe that? 

(Margaret) That’s why I have so much energy. I’m bringing it in from spirit all the time.

(Erika) And you are bringing in love and bringing in the strength and the power to the people you work with. You shield the darkness, and you touch them with the point of your sword which is love. My sword is honed to a fine edge with hardened steel and when I touch you with my love, one of two things will happen. You will either resist and be in the darkness, or you will be elevated and transformed. 

Look at the people in my barn today, how many I have touched, like Gabby. She was elevated and Leslie was elevated. Sonia was elevated quite a bit and then gave it up. And Julia was elevated and went on to create a loving relationship with her husband. It doesn’t matter how many rise up or how many stay in the darkness; it only matters what you were here to put on this earth to express, and sometimes we don’t know the results. It’s like with Martin and John who work for us right now , whether they’re really rising up, because we don’t know overtime what that will be. We think we’re rising people up and then  they turn into the darkness. These two are working on an idea I gave them for a great business for them, which they want to do and work at the ranch at the same time. I’ve given them so many inspirations they don’t know where to turn. Right now it’s so cute – they work so hard, with nothing but love in their hearts and joy. But we will see if they keep staying elevated. I did that with my sword. I did that with God. It’s not me, I’m just a conduit. Those of us who have suffered the most and have done our healing work, often have the strongest steel, and the strongest love.

The point of my sword is not to injure or to slay. The point of my sword is to anoint you with the light and love of God. That’s why I own it. That is the purpose of my shield – it’s there to block the darkness. It’s important to understand the difference that it’s not to be aggressive, it’s not to go “I’m going to take out anybody who stands in your way.” That’s not love. Love is “I will shield you from their darkness and help you find your light and elevate you and lift you.” That is what Joan of Arc did. The concept of self-love is often incomplete. The correct concept is self-warrior. You have to strengthen the self-warrior, or you can’t bring the love to all those you love. You can’t make changes in the world. You can’t teach, you can’t lead without being a warrior, but not a warrior who causes injury or says I will slay you. The word slaying never comes into my mind. It’s always to bless with the point of the sword, to touch with love. It’s what I’ve done my whole life with my family members and sometimes I touched them with the point of my sword and said this is love, this is God, right here, right here, and do you know what they did? Some collapsed into the darkness and are lost and that’s their choice and some were healed and rose up, like my mother. At the very end of my sister’s life, in the very last breath she drew she said, “This is the first time in my life I ever felt or understood unconditional love.” She said it to me. She got it and it was my gift to her, my final gift to her and she died in a higher place because of my shield and my sword.

If I see one more article on the Internet about self-love being about going to get a make-over, I think I might throw up. It’s disheartening when they say, “Well, if I just pamper myself real good and I’m real into myself, then I will have the energy to be loving.” They don’t even think about being a warrior and protecting those they love. it’s like, “I’ll just get a massage, yeah that’ll do it for me, or oh I’ll just take the day off and go lay on the beach. That’ll do it for me.” No, it won’t.

(Margaret) Yes, but there’s another issue. I think of Rachel, and she was really a warrior for her kids, but never for herself. She’s been there for her parents and her friends, but she never applied it to herself. Then when she’s exhausted, she gets enraged at everybody because she’s so exhausted from being there for everyone except herself. 

(Erika) She used her sword but never her shield. She’s touching them with the point of her sword. She’s doing the right thing for her children and others, but she didn’t hold up her shield to protect herself from the darkness. You have to use both, but it’s not just the shield to protect your family, it’s also to protect you. How do you think I survived the darkness of my family? It was my shield. Even with my brothers it is still my shield now. I tried to touch them with the sword, and they collapsed in darkness. Then my shield came up and said that’s not coming into me. See the difference? You can use your shield as effectively as you use your sword. You are a warrior, and nothing can diminish that. The sword and shield of the warrior are about love and the light of God. Where do you think all that strength comes from? It’s laughter, it’s joyousness and that is self-love. The kind of self-love the articles are talking about is often about being indulgent, not a warrior.

It’s like in England when they knight somebody, they use a sword on each shoulder to empower them, not to hurt them. 

Don’t confuse self-love with self-indulgence.

(Margaret) In the Inner Bonding process, self-love is much different than what is currently touted as self-love. In Inner Bonding terms, self-love means taking responsibility for your feelings, which is called emotional responsibility, rather than blaming others or circumstances for your feelings, It means defining your own worth, and taking loving action on your own behalf and on behalf of others – touching others with your sword of love and using your shield to protect yourself and others from darkness.. It also means taking responsibility in other areas of your life, such as responsibility for your health, your time and space, and your finances. It also includes learning to listen to your inner soul voice of love and truth, rather than your ego wounded voice of lies and control.

One day, when I was dialoguing with my guidance, I asked her to teach me about the soul. She gave me a beautiful clear picture of our true self being the aspect of the soul energy that is within our body and showed me that the soul energy extends through the body and also surrounds it. She showed me that both the part of the soul within and the soul energy that extends outside of the body are One with the universe – that we are the love and truth and peace and joy that is the universe.

She showed me that our soul holds our individual gifts and talents and is an individualized expression of the love that is God. Our soul has been evolving throughout time and enters the body at its own particular stage of consciousness. I saw the soul as a bright light that enlivens the body and extends out to receive the information from spirit regarding what is true and what is loving to each of us. It is this bright light of spirit the Erika is referring to when she speaks of touching others with the love at the tip of her sword.

We can receive love and wisdom at any moment when our intent is to know truth, and to know what is loving to ourselves and to others. Truth does not originate from the mind, and the mind is not capable of discerning truth. The mind creates concepts, beliefs, and ideas based on what we have been taught and on our earthly experiences. The mind is programmed to think in very limited ways, often based on judgments of right and wrong, good and bad. Our minds are programmed by our parents, our teachers, our culture, our religion, the media, and so on. But much of this has nothing to do with truth. Truth always has to do with knowing that we are individual expressions of the love that is God, that we are all One, and about what is loving to ourselves and others. It’s not about the beliefs and rules that our society has taught us. 

When the mind has a true thought, this thought has actually not originated in the mind. It came from our spiritual guidance and popped into our mind. If we are present as a loving adult, we then take loving action based on the information. If we are not present as a loving adult, we might discount the information, since the mind is not capable of discerning the truth as it comes in. It’s only as a spiritually connected loving adult that we are capable of being a warrior, capable of sharing our love, capable of touching others with the tip of our sword of love, and capable of warding off darkness for ourselves and those we love and care about.

Let’s take a simple example of the difference between the thoughts that come from the wounded self and the thoughts that come from your higher self. Imagine that it’s evening and you are playing on Facebook. You need to be up early the next morning for an important meeting. The thought, originating from your higher guidance, pops into your mind, “It’s time to get to sleep.” But you are not present as a loving adult. The wounded self is present, the part of you that is addicted to Facebook. Instead of taking action on the true information, you ignore it with an untrue thought originating in the mind, “It’s not that late. A little longer won’t hurt me.” A loving adult with an intent to learn about what is in your highest good would listen to the true information about loving yourself and take action on it.

My guidance showed me that when our intent is to learn what is loving to ourselves and others, we stay connected with the information that is always coming in from spirit and take action on it. But when our intent is to protect against pain, we do not respond to the true information that is coming in. Instead, we discount it and rely instead on the thoughts that originate in the mind – which leads to the darkness of self-abandonment.

The part of our mind that is our wounded self is so arrogant as to believe that the thoughts that it originates – the lies and false beliefs – will bring more safety and happiness than the truth that originates from your higher soul.

One of the challenges for the loving adult is to learn to discern the difference between thoughts that originate in the mind and thoughts that come into the mind from your higher soul. This ability to discern takes time and practice. We need to be willing to make mistakes as we are in this learning process. With time, you will learn to discern the difference in frequency between what is true and loving and what is not. Part of learning this discernment is being tuned into your feelings, which are a powerful communication system. While truth and loving behavior don’t always feel good in the moment, they feel right. It might feel better in the moment to play on the Internet than to go to sleep, but in the long run it will feel better the next day when you have had enough sleep to be fully present for the important meeting.

When you learn to discern the difference between mind and soul information, you will not only know how to take loving care of yourself as a warrior, you will be able to use your sword and shield to help others.

One of the questions I often hear from my clients is, “If I take care of myself and do what brings me joy, aren’t I being selfish?”

Let’s take a close look at this false belief that may be limiting you in being a warrior.

Joyce is a very bright and vital woman. She grew up in a family that valued women who stayed at home raising their children. Not wanting to be judged or rejected by her family, Joyce followed in her mother’s footsteps, giving up her budding career in TV advertising to get married and have children. Joyce became a “good” mother – driving her kids everywhere, going to PTA meetings, showing up at all her kids’ events, and doing volunteer work. There was nothing wrong with any of this, except for the fact that Joyce felt trapped, unhappy, and angry much of the time. Joyce really wanted to be expressing herself in the world in some way but believed that it was her obligation to stay at home with her children, even after they were all in school.

The problem is that an unhappy, angry, irritated mother is not a good mother. And Joyce is going to continue to feel irritated and angry as long as she is not doing what brings her joy. She can’t be a warrior mother and touch her children with her sword of love and shield them from darkness when she is abandoning herself. I pointed this out to her.

“But if I go back to school,” she said, “which is what I want to do, aren’t I being selfish? Since I chose to get married and have children, don’t I owe it to them to be here for them as much as I can?”

“No,” I said, “not if it means giving yourself up and being miserable. Not if it means giving to them out of obligation. They will not benefit from this. They want a happy mother, and they need you to be a role model for taking personal responsibility for your own happiness.  They need to see you being a self-warrior and manifesting yourself. You will find that if you do what is loving to you and brings you joy, they will benefit as well. They might not like it in the short run because they are used to you being there all the time, but in the long run, they will turn out to be happier and healthier adults.”

Terrence is a medical doctor who works long hours to support his family. He is not happy working so hard. He comes home exhausted, and then takes care of various household chores so his sons can have the time to play sports and do their homework. He has no time for himself. He is often short-tempered with his wife and children. He wants time to ride his bike and to pursue his love of writing.

“But if I work less and we have less money,” he said, “aren’t I being selfish? Don’t I owe it to my family to keep up their standard of living? Aren’t I being selfish if I expect my kids to do the chores in addition to doing their sports and their homework?”

“No,” I said. “You owe it to yourself and your family to be a happy, peaceful, and fulfilled person. The very best thing you can give to your family is your happy and joyful presence.”

We are being self-responsible rather than selfish when we take loving care of ourselves. We are being selfish when we do not take care of ourselves and then expect others to give us what we are not giving to ourselves. We are being selfish when we expect others to give themselves up for us. We are being selfish when we are angry and demanding of others because we are not taking care of ourselves. We are being selfish when we impose our irritated, withdrawn, sullen, anxious, and tense energy onto others instead of doing whatever we need to do to be peaceful and joyful. We are being selfish when we are “taking care of ourselves” from a wounded place and ignoring the needs of others or ignoring the effect our behavior has on others.

Whatever we do that is truly loving to ourselves – that is in the highest good of our soul’s journey on the planet – is also loving to others. It is never in our highest good to be mean to others, or to disregard others’ feelings and needs. We are being self-warriors and warriors with others when we follow our guidance and do what brings us joy and fulfillment.

Our actions do not benefit anyone when our behavior comes from fear, guilt, and obligation. Others feel the lack of love in our energy, even if the action itself looks loving. Our honest and authentic actions – actions which are loving to ourselves – are also loving to others. Living our truth gives others an opportunity to take care of themselves. If Joyce goes back to school, her family will need to learn to rely more on themselves instead of turning to her for everything. If Terrence takes time for himself, maybe his children will learn to take more responsibility around the house. By taking care of ourselves, we give others the chance to step up to the plate. Maybe they will and maybe they won’t, but our loving behavior toward ourselves always gives others an opportunity to grow in their own personal responsibility and lovingness as well.

There is another benefit in your relationships of being a self-warrior and learning to take responsibility for your own inner peace and joy, and that is that when you love yourself by taking responsibility for your own feelings and needs, you let others off the hook from feeling like they need to take responsibility for your feelings and needs.

How are others let off the hook when you love yourself? Here are some of the ways:

• Others don’t need to read your mind when you are meeting many of your own needs, and asking outright when there is something you need help with.
• Others don’t need to hold back, be careful, or walk on eggshells when you are taking responsibility for your own feelings – which is a major aspect of loving yourself and being a self-warrior and a warrior for others. And you are role-modeling for your family what it means to be a warrior.
• Others can receive great joy in giving to you when they don’t feel obligated.
• Others can speak their truth when they know that you are open to learning and wanting to grow. They can be honest when they know that you will deal with your own feelings rather than blame them.
• Others are free to take loving care of themselves when they know you are doing the same, and that you support them in their highest good as part of being loving to yourself. They feel supported in being a self-warrior and learning to be a warrior for others.
• Others can be spontaneous with you, knowing that if they ‘make a mistake’ you will take responsibility for your own feelings about it.
• Others feel free to be with you because they want to, not because they feel they have to.
• In a primary relationship, your partner will likely feel attracted to you when you are coming from your personal power rather than from your fear and neediness. If your partner feels obligated to have sex with you because you have made him or her responsible for your happiness, sense of worth, and for validating you, your partner is likely to feel resistant to having sex with you.
• Laughter, fun, and play flow spontaneously when neither person feels responsible for the other’s feelings, or feels obligated to spend time, give approval, or have sex.
• Each person feels free to pursue their passion and purpose, knowing that their partner is taking care of themselves and not waiting for the other person to make them happy.

Loving partnerships are about learning, growing, and sharing love and companionship, which are the results of being a self-love warrior. They are not about taking responsibility for making the other person feel happy, safe, secure, or validated. Paradoxically, when you fully take on the responsibility of making yourself feel happy, safe, secure, and validated, a loving relationship supports and enhances these wonderful feelings. But when you expect your partner to do this for you, rather than with you, then your self-abandonment creates your misery, insecurity, and lack of self-worth. As long as you are abandoning yourself and expecting your partner to do for you what only you can do for yourself, your partner’s love will never be enough to give you the happiness, safety, security, and sense of worth that you seek.

Being a self-warrior and loving yourself means:

• Attending, moment-by-moment, to your own feelings, so that you know immediately when you are abandoning yourself with self-judgment, addictions, staying in your head, or making someone else responsible for you.
• Compassionately opening to learning about your own fears and beliefs that may be causing your self-abandonment, and open to learning about what it means to be present and loving to yourself and others in the face of life’s challenges.
• Exploring your limiting beliefs and resulting behavior that may be causing your painful feelings and limiting you.
• Opening to your higher self for information about the truth regarding your beliefs, and the loving action toward yourself.
• Taking loving action on your own behalf and on behalf of others, based on truth rather than on false, limiting beliefs.
• Evaluating how you feel as a result of taking loving care of yourself. Taking loving actions with your sword and shield is profoundly empowering

Practicing these 6 steps of Inner Bonding will do wonders for you and your relationships!

I invite you to join me for my bi-monthly masterclass and receive my live help, which you can learn about at https://innerbondinghub.com/membership. 

Learn to connect with your spiritual guidance with my 30-Day at home course, Unlocking Your Inner Wisdom.

And you can learn so much about loving yourself and creating loving relationships from my new book, “Lonely No More: The Astonishing Power of Inner Bonding” and from our website at https://www.innerbonding.com.

I’m sending you my love and my blessings.