For many, the most difficult part of the personal journey into remembering, or Spiritual Enlightenment, is self acceptance.

The Warrior Path of Self Acceptance

Self acceptance is something that I personally have difficulty with and it is something that many others in my groups are expressing as a difficulty for them.

• Making realization of the Self real
• Pain of holding on
• Permission to learn to crawl again
• Understanding 

Physical Symptoms for the Spiritual Warrior

As the thrust of this work is making self realisation real in the physical body, I have found that the deeper I go into the acceptance of myself, the more real I make it .. (or rather the more I am prepared to admit to myself), the more kinaesthetic reactions I find coming from my body.

Making the realization on the Self, real

As I talk to myself, as I dictate into this computer answers to questions I have been asked, I find that I am experience tingling, shivering, shaking, aches and pains in the sacral area, blurred vision, goodly headaches .. etc. etc.
When I stand up stretch, there are explosive cracks from my back as control starts to let go and my spine finds a new stability in a different position within the pelvic girdle. As the spine moves, so nerves that have been pinched are suddenly freed and the organs served by those nerves function in a manner different to what I have previously experienced.

And yet I know these physical body experiences are appropriate for the path.

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The pain of holding on

My physical body that sits here in this chair is the manifestation of thoughts, feelings, emotions and the unrecognised thoughts projected onto me by others .. holding patterns taken on as patterns of shock and buried below a level of self denial for 50 odd years of this lifetime in this body.

The symptoms that I'm experiencing I know are the release of these various patterns of shock and trauma, memories from the past. The pain that I'm experiencing is actually the release of the pain of holding on.

With this philosophy I am able to welcome with joy the episodes of physical discomfort, at the same time recognising that the thoughts feelings and emotions that I am experiencing are, in fact, the release of previous patterns. These are manifestations of the lifeforce energy of my Self .. which some call Kundalini.

When I feel the need to cry and find that I hesitate to do so, I know that these are the hesitations of the child who used to be disciplined for expressing his tears. The fear I experience in this moment is the fear that I will be disciplined .. and the hesitation stems from that fear. In allowing the tears, I am accepting of the child who was taught denial and another level of that denial is brought to consciousness for reconciliation.

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The permission to learn to crawl again 

There are still times that I have to remind myself that it is ok for me to experience what am experiencing. It's a little like learning to walk. First you have to learn to crawl, then you start to stand up, then, very carefully holding onto someone or something you explore the possibility of putting one foot very gingerly in front of the other. As confidence grows, you're able to let go of the support of start to walk, falteringly, for yourself. Very soon, you find out that you can run. 

In this work, we are taking a journey back into the realms of the child who was learning to crawl. Most of the patterns of shock that are in our bodies stem from the events that happened to us after that time. 

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Understanding 

The difference is that now, through self acceptance, I have the knowledge and understanding of my life so far. What I have to do is to tell my body that its OK to run with this new knowledge. To do that I have to learn to crawl, to stand up, to take those few first faltering steps, and very soon, maybe, I will be able to run.

Then, and only then, will I have made Enlightenment fully real in this physical body. In the meantime I return to the consciousness, the essence, the trust, a knowing of the Innocent child that if I just persist with that knowing walking and running will come. 

These are new processes, a new understanding and outlook on life, which my body has to understand. It's got to understand that it is safe to be at one with my head, for in the past, for its survival, the head has had to make rules of behaviour which have been unsafe or uncomfortable for the body. 

So I will allow that what I am feeling at this moment is ok, that I will not make it wrong. I will give my body permission to feel what is feeling, I will allow it to let go of the holding patterns, the denial, the pain that it has been holding onto for so long. 

My knowing, my wisdom knows the validity and the truth in what I am doing. There is a resonance within my being. This resonance is what is triggering for me, the letting go. 

The essence of the spiritual warrior is to maintain, through use of will, an unshakeable conviction in the truth of whom he really is.

"Self Acceptance - The Path of the Spiritual Warrior" was written, produced and © by Christopher Wynter and Transpersonal LifeStreams®, Tasmania, Australia.

The URL's of this page are http://www.anunda.com/autobiography/warrior.htm  and http://www.lifestreams.com.au/autobiography/warrior.htm. This site was last updated onApril 28, 2004