Dr. Adam Sheck on how you need Warrior and Lover energy in many situations, but especially in a relationship.
While assisting a recent Tantra workshop, I experienced the strong difference in my body between when I embody the Warrior and when I embody the Lover archetypes.
It was so pronounced and uncomfortable a difference, I felt the need to write more about it and share how it might impact us all in our relationships and in our lives.
If you are unfamiliar with these terms, I give a very basic explanation of the four masculine archetypes in my post, King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Four Mature Masculine Archetypes.
Of course, during a Tantra workshop I expected to open up my heart, be fully in my body and to activate the Lover archetype. I felt open, loving, spiritual, connected, soft, vulnerable and available.
However, as a workshop assistant, I also had responsibilities to see that a safe environment was set for the participants. Unfortunately, there were a few logistics snafus at our ocean view hotel. To take care of these issues, I had to put on my Warrior armor. ”This is Doctor Sheck, I’d like to speak to the hotel manager.”
Immediately I could feel a different energy move through me. My voice became firm, my jaw set, my head tilted a certain way. Instead of loose hands, I had fists that pounded at the air and on tables. I could feel my body tense and my sympathetic nervous system activate as I became ready for the “fight or flight” response.
I thought: ‘I’m at a Tantra workshop, I’m holding a loving space. I don’t want to feel this way right now. It’s wrong. I’m bad.”
Fortunately, I received positive feedback and encouragement from the assistants and workshop leader about my transformation and I let go of my critical voice. Yes, the Warrior was needed at that moment. Yes, he has a valuable contribution to make to the well being of the workshop participants. Yes the Warrior and the Lover can be here.
I found that I could switch back and forth as needed. It was a valuable insight for me as well as a priceless experience. I felt it in my body, which is where the majority of my learning begins. Eventually I can integrate it into my mind as well and embrace it all.
Both the Lover and Warrior archetypes are good, both are necessary. And those are just two out of the four!
And there are similarities in both Lover and Warrior that I discovered. The main one, is endurance. To be a great Lover, one must have staying power. To be a great Warrior, one needs that tenacity as well. Focus and single-mindedness are also key to both Lover and Warrior.
Dealing with the hotel and achieving a satisfactory result took more than a week. I have no doubt that on some level they were counting on the Warrior losing his hardness, losing his edge, losing his persistence.
I spoke with three hotel managers, a sales manager and finally a general manager before I got what I felt was a fair outcome. If I had given up before the job was done, nothing would have happened.
In this instance, I was able to balance Lover and Warrior, battling for a just cause for the workshop leader and for the participants. The Warrior led the battle, yet the Lover was the motivation for taking up the cause.
Balancing the Warrior and the Lover is a dance that challenges every relationship.
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Back to the title question, “Can We Balance Warrior and Lover In Relationships?” This battle, or this dance, occurs in every relationship. (I can only write from a male perspective, yet I welcome feedback from the female perspective.)
To me, the qualities that a man requires to be successful in the business world (generally the realm of the Warrior) are antithetical to the qualities necessary to be successful in an intimate relationship (the Lover). How do we create balance?
Part of the struggle for me as a man is rooted deep in our physiology. The typical life-threatening events that our prehistoric ancestors faced on a daily basis shaped our nervous system to respond powerfully when we perceived our survival to be at risk.
The Warrior is activated. In intimate relationships, we often experience unconsciously (ADAM: HOW ABOUT unconsciously INSTEAD?) that our survival is at risk. When our relationship is in jeopardy, our biological “caveman” instincts—which care deeply about the survival of our offspring—kick in.
What do we do with this? As a couples counselor with more than 20 years experience, my belief is that in relationship, conflict is inevitable, and this a good thing.
Once the honeymoon phase of a relationship has subsided, we move into the power struggle phase. It’s a natural progression to be embraced, not judged. The power struggle stage of relationship is necessary and an opportunity to work through many of our childhood wounds and issues. (To learn more, read my post, Three Stages of Relationship).
It is only in embracing and working through this stage that we can enter a more “conscious” relationship, which has an incredible richness.
It’s about creating balance. Even in my work as a psychotherapist, both the Warrior and the Lover are necessary to create change and growth. I’m definitely not one of those warm, fuzzy, “how does it make you feel” kind of therapists. I can be warm and sensitive and empathic, of course. The Lover takes over and helps create that space.
But the Warrior needs to be present as well. All of my clients must face their inner demons. My job is to point them in that direction and have my Warrior join theirs! Our swords of truth must be raised high together to cut away the personal lies and negative self talk that keep them frozen and paralyzed.
If I don’t confront, if I don’t challenge where necessary, I am doing them a disservice and colluding with their stuckness. That’s not my way, that’s not what I do. That’s not how I can best serve.
And yes, as we connect to the Warrior, the natural response in our bodies is to feel exhilarated, powerful, alive and ready to face the challenge. Perhaps an extreme of that physiology is what creates adrenaline junkies, yet we all have that in us. It is the Warrior.
How do we create this in our romantic relationships? Deliberately and consciously!
We can deliberately choose to activate the Warrior fearlessly and relentlessly facing our own inner wars and in battling our need to project our unresolved issues onto our partner. Otherwise, we make the situation about their issues, not ours.
We can consciously engage the Lover in engaging compassionately in our inner conflicts, in lovingly facing our inner critic, and in tenderly helping a partner with his or her own inner battle.
We can fight not against our partner in the power struggle, but fight alongside our partner to protect the sacredness of our relationship. This is how you can achieve balance between the Warrior and Lover.
As always, I welcome your thoughts and feelings about this topic of balancing the Warrior and Lover in relationship.
Read more by Dr. Sheck: In Search of the Magic Pussy
photo: Pascal flickr
I’m so fascinated by the opposition Warrior-Lover because to me they are the two “Doers” of the four archetypes, in the sense that King and Magician don’t really DO (if you think of their role as chooser/leader and knower/problem-solver) whereas the Warrior and Lover have to be brave enough to face battles of life and love in the outer world, in the world of action. I know I may be biased because of my own psychic configuration here, but it seems easier to me to be the decider and knower of things. You get to stay in your castle in… Read more »
Hi Adam English is not my first language. I do not alway understand the meaning in what I read correctly. But here is how I felt and thought: Some men are insecure sexually,physically,socially,intellectually and more. Maybe even insecure about sexual identity or sexual orientation. If a man expects that his parter can “cure” him by lots of sex,and lots of validation then he put the responsibility on her on refuse to solve his his own issues. Love heals,love is fantastic but sometimes men ( and women) have to do the hard job themselves instead of attacking their partner when they… Read more »
Iben,
Thanks for sharing, I’m curious on how that paragraph you quoted touched you or moved you or caused you to evaluate something?
Take care,
Adam
Hi Adam
Interesting what you write here:
“We can deliberately choose to activate the Warrior fearlessly and relentlessly facing our own inner
wars and in battling our need to project our unresolved issues onto our partner. Otherwise, we make
the situation about their issues, not ours.”
You said…,”I felt it in my body, which is where the majority of my learning begins. Eventually I can integrate it into my mind as well and embrace it all.” My experience is exactly the opposite — I learn something or get an idea in my mind so I have it intellectually, and then is takes a while to absorb into my body. However, I’m sure the opposite (your way) occurs, but I’ve been less aware of it… And now I’ll “retool” my thinking to incorporate both ways! Perhaps that will improve my learning all the way around. Good stuff!… Read more »
Burke, I believe we all respond to different modalities, part of it is our physiology, part our upbringing, so it makes sense that we might process differently in terms of mind to body or body to mind or other options. I used my intellect to protect from my strong body/feeling sensitivities for over half my life, which is probably why I’ve got four degrees. It’s taken me a long time to trust that my body knows way before my mind. That’s part of what I love about Tantra. Speaking for myself here though, we’re all different. Glad that the piece… Read more »