Laying Down the Sword - A Reflection on Healing

I have spent many years addressing various forms of obstruction and adversity, both physical and psychological, and over the past 20+ years, I have explored and experienced a wide range of healing modalities.

From my experience, I have developed a good sense of what works and what doesn’t when it comes to helping people create more lasting change in their emotional patterns. Beyond the tools that can help address the physical body or psyche, what I have come to see over and over again is that what is happening in our lives can often reflect the inner battle we are experiencing.

By “inner battle,” I am referring to the conflict between our hearts and minds - what our soul knows and desires versus what our ego has learned to do and be in order to protect us from painful experiences. This dynamic can arise when core wounds remain unresolved, leaving us caught in protective patterns that nervous system regulation alone may not fully transform.

Healing is always a journey, an arc that you are weaving through the movements of your life and your choices. Your soul has the map, but it can sometimes have difficulty being heard over the loud, fearful voice of the ego. Your healing journey will encompass the spiritual lessons that life offers us as well - whether we are dealing with physical illness, psychological wounds, or the patterns that shape our relationships.

For me, there is always an opportunity to ask: What am I being shown? What am I being asked to learn?

And ultimately, what will be my GPS in life - the guidance of my soul or the protective demands of my ego?

In my own life, I have seen year after year that when I failed to listen to my inner guidance and continued to go against the lessons before me, the destination I was striving for remained out of reach. I kept hurting, and my anger and sense of loss only grew.

What really started to shift my own healing journey was my willingness to forgive myself for all the “stuff” I was carrying that did not belong to me, and to look humbly and honestly at what had happened. That process required a clear acknowledgment of what I had experienced, along with a great deal of grace for myself and others. For me, extending grace or forgiveness to those who have hurt me does not mean tolerating further harm or maintaining contact - it means cleanly releasing myself from the events and from the people involved, while honoring the boundaries I need to move forward.

Personally, acknowledging others came more easily, as my mother taught me to do that from a very young age. But having been the eldest child and a protector of my family, being vulnerable was very difficult for me. My unwillingness to be vulnerable blocked me from being open to receiving support from others and from expressing my own needs. For a time, this felt deeply out of alignment with my feminine side, and it was during this period that I began experiencing health problems.

I can still smile when I remember the words of this beautiful healer who told me, “Lay down your sword and let your feminine essence come out and play again.”

I grew up with both Buddhist principles and Christian teachings in my family. Regardless of your religion or spiritual beliefs, I believe there is a Universal Law that we all have the right to protect ourselves from harm. Our inner child may carry layers of emotional armor - self-defense mechanisms and the justifications behind them - that became deeply ingrained in our nervous system as ways of keeping us safe.

But there comes a time, as the healer told me, when you have to lay down your sword if you want to stop fighting and start healing.

The ego has done a marvellous job of protecting you, helping you develop protective adaptations that came to be your attachment patterns. But now, as an adult, you can safely look at your emotional history and decide to stop carrying the heavy baggage of the past. When we are caught in protective or survival patterns, our ability to access creativity, openness, and new possibilities can become restricted. In these states, even our capacity to receive and engage with the deeper healing of the body and mind can become limited.

In integrative attachment theory, what I have come to understand is that a person has to be willing to move beyond blame and look honestly at their own “stuff” in order to heal. We have to be able to look at the beliefs that arise from our core wounds and ask ourselves, “Is this true today?”

And one of the most important steps in healing is through the doorway of vulnerability.

Not the kind of vulnerability people may associate with being a victim or exposing what we perceive as weakness.

It actually takes immense courage to be truly vulnerable. It takes the willingness to remain open even after experiencing hurt, to acknowledge all that is happening within ourselves and with others, and to move beyond the ego’s judgments. It takes courage to stand our ground as we face the work of healing and the uncomfortable nervous system responses that can arise along the way.

It takes considerable agency to do this work.

But what is on the other side of that difficult task of facing our emotional triggers and working through them in honor of our healing?

When you learn to embody this kind of self-reflection and stay present through the discomfort of true vulnerability, you cultivate a kind of inner strength and connection with yourself that becomes an unshakable foundation within.

It is upon this formidable foundation that your life and relationships can be built - not on the distorted imprints we developed through our early adverse relational experiences.

In my earlier years of studying acting, I remember watching my teacher, a well-known acting coach in Los Angeles, answer questions on a popular morning television show about why she loved working with actors and how she chose her “leading man” or “leading woman” - the hero or heroine.

She explained that what she loved about an actor, and what made an actor powerful, was the coexistence of authentic vulnerability and fearlessness. That interplay gives the actor’s emotional instrument the profound power to move an audience.

What we often lose sight of is that bravery is an integral aspect of vulnerability and that, when we experience an emotion like shame, it may be because somewhere within us, we also carry a blueprint for honor. Beyond superficial characterizations of these fundamental virtues, if we lacked an embodied sense of honor, we would have no inner compass to recognize when we have acted out of alignment with it - and therefore no capacity to experience the shame that signals that misalignment. In the same vein, seemingly opposing energies can coexist and reveal something about who we really are: vulnerability requires profound strength, and within that kind of surrender lies the potential and grace for healing.

I believe healing begins when we can acknowledge and forgive ourselves for the painful things we have experienced, while grieving the losses and recognizing how we may have allowed certain patterns to continue. Perhaps the next step is learning to listen to our hearts and lay down the armor - not because we are weary, but because we finally feel strong enough to be vulnerable.