In the Arena: Becoming a Peaceful Warrior
A new Alter podcast episode is an invitation to get down and dirty into the mud, the muck, of CREATING culture. Not consuming, but creating. Not by standing, or criticizing or complaining—the harder work of co-CREATING. Surrendering the pristine perfection of our certainties about how things should be and how others might be getting it wrong, and ending into the fray. Raising our voice. Engaging our bodies.
For context, I’m sharing this episode days before the 2020 election in the United States, amdist rumblings of another impending covid lockdown. The air is, you might say, charged.
Most of you became friends because we’re active together. Sweating, training, working out, and working-in.
But increasingly, I want to translate activity—workouts/work-ins—to ACTIVISM. To engagement with the times.
Theodore Roosevelt said some words in a speech in Paris in 1910 that have set me free over and over again from fear of the critics. You know, the committee. Do you have an invisible committee of critics too? Mine is made mostly of people I haven’t seen in years, sometimes decades—old boyfriends, bosses, that popular girl who made that jab at a sleepover, insecure coworkers, and every authority figure who ever cautioned against taking up full space, breaking some old rules, weighing in on the world—but somehow there they are at critical moments when I’m risking vulnerability by offering some new creation into the world, raising my voice in some way, taking a stand, or offering art or vulnerably risky spiritual leadership into the world—which can feel like my heart existing dangerously outside my body. This is what I practice saying back:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
The woman, who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends herself in a worthy cause, and if she fails, fails while daring greatly.
Now that’s ACTIVISM. Weighing in on the times.
A few years ago as a founding instructor at Peloton, I taught a weekly Saturday morning ride I started calling Warrior Hour. The standard ride length was 45-min, but this ride was a way to start the weekend with a bang. I’m creating new versions of this ride—a new Warrior Ride every week for you on the Alter Together platform at alter.nicolemeline.com. It’s 15-min longer than you want it to be. Than you’re comfortable with. The rides are exhilarating but challenging, music-driven high intensity interval training. Those last 15-min are what I think of as a ‘thin place’—where the barriers between heaven and earth get hazy. Physiologically, your body has burned off its store glycogen, your most accessible fuel for energy. It has to tap deeper stores of protein and fat. Mentally and spiritually, you drop deeper too. You find out real quick what your default stories are. You start facing some demons. The reasons you justify starting to pull back or quit. Now we’re talkin. You feel our your edges, and maybe start to push them forward. This space is so valuable because it’s so hard-won. You have to work your way in. Your body is fully awake, working, engaged, ALIVE. You’ve shaken up the chemistry of your body. You’re in Warrior mode.
What does that mean?
The word Warrior means a lot to me, it hits that soul place. It’s something different from a soldier. It’s something different from a gangster. Something different from a hunter. What does it mean?
What does it mean to you?
See it, feel it in your body right now, what does it call up?
What does it call you TO?
I’m both hesitant and passionate to talk about this right now. We’re in a moment of increasing violence. The root word of passion, is pain, and we’re seeing it surface and explode all over the world right now, and especially across the United States, in response to the essential Black Lives Matter uprising, this week, in atrocities against civilians in France, and as gun sales have broken record numbers the last few weeks across America. That’s why we NEED to talk about it. This week, as you decide whether to vote, for whom to vote. As you decide how to respond to whatever will unfold, and all the forms of disagreement and conflict you’ll encounter. And—really important—the flood of media you’re about to face, who will you be? How will you engage the times?
My mantra these days when I teach or train is:
“Sweat hard, love harder.”
I train because I want to love hard. And because love is hard. Have you noticed? The kind of inner Jedi strength and discipline it takes to love your people? To expand the circle of your people, until everyone is your people? Until your enemies are your people? To find a way to see into and connect with the pain that underneath the passion erupting in violence or prejudice?
There’s a series of yoga asanas or poses called Warriors. Warrior 1, Warrior 2, Warrior 3. They’re strong and intense and aimed, and they require a fixed gaze. Intense focus forward or upward. But there’s another 2 that are kind of surprising:
Humble warrior - standing in a lunge your front knee is bent, but your hands come together being you, inlaced, bow over bent knee
Peaceful warrior - the same strong lunge stance, but your arm swept back, spine bending back, your heart exposed.
They feel vulnerable and strong at the same time.
Focused and engaged.
“Vulnerable, strong, focused, and engaged.”
I propose: that’s what a warrior feels like. I want to form the definition of this first in my body, rather than in words: the feeling of strong, focused, vulnerable, heart-exposed engagement.
Special note: bowing is a form of engagement.
So try on this definition, feel your way into it through these two postures: A humble, peaceful warrior is vulnerable, strong, focused, and engaged. An actor—having a bias toward action—a creator, rather than consumer. One who cultivates strength. Curious about limits. Explores the edges of them. Alert. intuitive, engages conflict. And willing to suffer. As I like to say it ‘suffer well’. Most important: either heart open, or heart bowed. This is what will saw us, y’all. Heart open, or heart bowed. We fight, we train, we raise our voices, we WEIGH IN in the times, we shape the culture, WITH heart open—-listening so deeply to the other, in whatever form they appear, BOWED in reverence to their voice, to their pain, to their passion. And we create harmony out of dissonance.
There’s an old story about a general leading an army who came upon a group of yogis meditating in the road. They were in the way, so a lieutenant tried to get them to move and pointed to the general saying, this man has conquered the world! What have you accomplished? A yogi replied ‘I have conquered the need to conquer the world’. The general acknowledged them as fellow warriors.
Inner warriors.
You’ve heard me talk about Glennon Doyle’s incredible book ‘Untamed’ which is story of her transformation from passivity to action. She was an addict to food, alcohol, approval, numbing pain with substances or pretending, instead of leaning in and listening to it—suffering well.
“The original Hebrew word for woman, a word that is used twice to refer to the first woman, three times to refer to strong military forces, and sixteen times to refer to God, is this: Ezer...I learn this: "The word Ezer has two roots: strong and benevolent. The best translation of Ezer is: ‘Warrior.’ God created woman as a Warrior.
Growing up is an unbecoming. My healing has been a peeling away of costume after costume until here I am, still and naked and unashamed before God, stripped down to my real identity. I have unbecome. And now I stand: Warrior. Undressed for battle. Strong and benevolent. Both yin and yang. Complete, not in need of completing. Sent to fight for everything worth having: truth, beauty, kindness, shamelessness, love. To march into pain and love with eyes and heart wide open, to stand in the wreckage and believe that my power, my love, my light, are stronger than the darkness. I know my name now. Love Warrior. I came from Love and I am Love and I will return to Love. Love casts out fear. A woman who has recovered her true identity as a Love Warrior is the most powerful force on earth. All the darkness and shame and pain in the world can’t defeat her.”
Martin Luther king Jr. had something to say about leaning into pain, and suffering well:
“As my sufferings mounted I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation — either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course. The question is not if we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.”
So, my friends,
First and foremost, VOTE. Weigh in. Get in the area. If you don't like the news, go out and make some of your own.
And notice how you’re responding to the extremes of this moment. Practice becoming a creative extremist. A creator rather a critic or a complainer. Be the bridge builder in your communities this week—even the micro communities of your families and friends maybe divided by their certainties. Become a peaceful warrior. A humble warrior. Heart-open. Heart-bowed.
And sweat heard! So you can love harder.
Movement has been saving my life this crazy year. And it’s been such a joy to lead the Alter community in workouts that are also work-ins. Alter movement practices are a container for the two poles of agression and tenderness — a space for you to get out, work with, aggression, frustration and also to open the heart. And most essentially, to bow. So I would for you to join the community—or even just a single workout—at alter.nicolemeline.com
If the podcast is encouraging you, please, share it with a friend. Take a screenshot to share it on social media, and tag me @nicolemeline so I can share it— this is how we find friends we haven’t met yet. And please take about 20 seconds of ACTION by rating and reviewing it on Apple Podcasts or iTunes.
This is our moment, my people, to become powerfully peaceful, humble warriors. Powerfully peaceful. I’m grateful to share it with you, as we alter, together.
