The Spiritual Warrior: Life Without Armor

For most of the first half of my life I didn’t even know I was “Armored Up.” What I mean by that is early in my life I developed coping tools and defenses I believed I needed in order to protect me from any painful reality—or perceived painful reality. In fact, this psychological armor did help me survive significant trauma and problems in my early life. I mistakenly believed this armor was keeping me safe, while in fact, it was really keeping me trapped.

I’m sharing my story of hope and discovery with you in order to help you determine whether or not you have any armor that you might be better off without. My journey has been progressive but not perfection for sure. My old armor still pops up even after almost 35 years of being on my personal Spiritual Warrior Journey. The difference is today I can catch it much quicker and do damage control—make proactive amends—for any harm I may have caused while armored up.

My armor did not develop overnight. It took many years to get a full titanium suite of armor built. Also, in many ways it did serve me well and it was very challenging to learn to take it off. In order to take it off I first had to understand how it developed, what useful purposes it was serving and most importantly learning a healthier way of protecting myself.
I am sharing my experience, strength and hope with you in my story below because I believe that in our culture there are too many men “Armored Up” and not experiencing the extraordinary quality of life that is possible.

I have learned to replace my armor and offensive weapons of anger and violence with my new Spiritual Warrior values, principles and practices—and so can you!