Feeling Everything

The Mature Warrior feels everything. He doesn't discharge his emotions onto others or repress them. He responds instead of reacts, transforming feelings in his body and letting each run its course with honesty and presence.

The Bully offloads his emotions onto others. Anger makes him attack. Fear makes him intimidate. Sadness turns to rage. His emotions control him and harm everyone around him. He thinks venting equals strength, that unleashing pain brings relief. It leaves him isolated and brittle.

The Wimp represses his emotions. He pushes them down and pretends they don't exist, trying to be "nice" all the time. Those feelings fester—leading to depression, anxiety, and sudden outbursts. He wears a mask, hoping no one notices the turmoil within, yet it leaks out all the same.

The Mature Warrior feels emotions in his body but doesn't act them out. Anger moves through him, but he doesn't attack. Fear informs him, but doesn't paralyze. Sadness softens him, but doesn't collapse him. Joy fills him, but he stays centered, grounded in purpose no matter how strong the feeling.

This is the warrior's real edge: feeling everything without getting swept away. Emotions move through him like weather. They tell him things, but they don't run the show. He takes what's raw and turns it into something he can use.

Learning to feel everything makes a man hard to rattle. No emotion catches him off guard because he's stopped being afraid of what he feels. He doesn't need to manage other people's reactions because he can handle his own. He takes life as it comes, the whole range of it, without flinching or checking out.

The Warrior who learns this gets access to the full range of being alive. He stays grounded even when things get wild, and he can still think clearly when he's flooded. That's what makes people trust him when everything falls apart. His steadiness gives other people permission to feel their own stuff.

Most men have access to anger and lust and not much else. Everything else gets stuffed down or comes out sideways. The Warrior takes back every emotion. Grief makes him tender. Fear sharpens him. Joy makes him generous. When he actually lets himself feel something all the way through, it turns into something he can use.