A Message From Our Editor, Issue #40 – Shifting From Warrior To Hero

Shifting from Warrior to Hero

On our path of self-discovery, as we shift from a mechanistic paradigm to a vitalistic one, there is a bit of warrior within each of us. As we’ve incorporated our new beliefs into our lives, we may have faced adversaries from every corner: health practitioners, the government, and even some family members and friends. The histories of chiropractic and most holistic models of care are fraught with these challenges. Many Pathways readers have been through similar battles. For survival, some have developed a defensive warrior persona. Hearing their stories, we can usually say, “Rightly so!”

There is a more productive model than warrior in the shift from mechanism to vitalism, however, because the warrior mode is based on fear. Power by fear begets fear, and does not honor the vitalistic paradigm. What we are faced with is a new path, one that transforms the warrior persona into the hero. We do this by honoring the quest—the principle the hero is striving for— not the fight.

A warrior is “a person engaged or experienced in warfare; a person engaged in some struggle or conflict.”

A warrior is someone who is trained to fight. Warriors are usually selected, willingly or not, to develop skills for battle—to engage in a struggle or conflict. They are instructed to take up the sword. They are trained to take the fear they will face and turn it into fear-based power toward their opponent. Therefore, they are using the very same fear-based tactics to fight the battle, as opposed to rising above the fear and transcending the experience. The important thing to note here is that very often, warriors are blinded by imposed righteousness. They are called to carry out a mission based on what they have been told is true. They are willing to destroy with fear and manipulation—all tactics which are counterintuitive to the vitalistic paradigm. Warriors are “resisting evil.” The resistance itself creates engagement with the very thing they are against.

A hero is “a person admired for his or her achievements and noble qualities. One who shows great courage.”

Unlike the warrior, a hero is someone who usually has not chosen this path. There is no formal training process. Rather, heroes are compelled from within to carry forth a truth, a torch of illumination for humanity. In focusing on this ideal and in the process of claiming this principle, heroes face their fears. They become empowered by courage, which comes from the root word cour, or “heart.” It is the ability to do something that you know is difficult or dangerous. People who rely on courage recognize that the state of fear is disempowering. They do not surrender their strength by participating in fear-based interactions.

Instead, heroes gain their courage by focusing on the essence of their principle—their mission toward truth, their virtuous cause. Their conscious attention to the truth they seek to embody allows them to draw deeper strength from within, fortified by integrity. This is leadership from Above-Down-Inside-Out.

With Pathways, we are seeing the hero in all of us. Heroes include the practitioner who has strived for years to embody the vitalistic principles in practice; the mother who turns from her family’s fear-based astonishment and chooses a natural birth; the parents who make conscious health choices for their children in spite of their pediatrician’s refusal to support them; and all the people who are facing their own personal, learned fears who need our support, respect and acceptance for their place on this paradigm-shifting path.

So yes, Pathways is more than a magazine, it is a movement. It unites heroes. It builds community. It honors our journey…for the raising of the consciousness.

Many, many blessings, Jeanne Ohm, D.C.