The Sacred Mechanics of Change: When the Wound Becomes the Warrior’s Way

By Christina Alexa, ETJ Co-Founder

Change does not always arrive as a thunderclap, as a jarring shock. Often it is a culmination of “slight, edge action”, born of showing up with daily commitment to personal guidance. We forget sometimes that we are willing participants in change. Somewhere along the way we made choices through decisions or non-decisions that influenced direction in our lives. These promptings are carried out by the third chakra in concert with all other chakras. The third, or Manipura chakra, is the energy center governing our sense of empowerment and capacity to engage will.

Kate Lemay’s chakra painting called Will says, “Apply steady and consistent slight-edge action, and one day you will stand back in awe of what you have created.” The painting depicts the gold and yellow color of the third chakra, in layers. “Like water forming the Grand Canyon over time, stead energy (in varying degrees) in the same direction can create wonders in our world.” This is how I visualize the type of change we arrive at through consistent awareness.

The mantra for the painting Will is, “I engage my energy.” Change is this simple, an effortless effort. A slight edge action, a gentle engagement. A choice.

Will alone can become a force but will braided with heart becomes devotion. The Manipura chakra gives us the fire to act, but the heart gives us the direction in which to move. Without the heart, change becomes performance. With the heart, change becomes liberation. The heart softens the edges of will, reminding us that the purpose of empowerment is not dominance, but alignment with the sacred truth of who we are.

And while talking about the Manipura chakra is not my original intention in this article, it is impossible to discuss change without referring to this magnificent energy, this masculine (yang) principle that supports us in moving forward in the world in right (or wrong) relationship to our power. Right relationship to power is based on how willing we are to face the core wounds we bring into this life – the ones we came here to get to know and to heal for ourselves and for our ancestors – for our line. When we bury the wound, it does not cease to be operational. Instead, our wounds become motivators of the unconscious, because they need a voice. Like all of us, our wounds want to be seen, heard and felt with compassion. This is how perspective arrives and healing happens.

Disowning the wound leads to distortion, but this is not a judgement. Imagine standing outside of a building, trying to see in through a window that is obscured with layers of dust; perhaps the window is broken and covered with plastic to keep the heat in and weather out, or perhaps the window is bordered shut. We might be able to see something in the house, through the plastic or cracks in the boards, but what we see would be difficult to discern without a clear view, distorted by the protective layers covering the window. Would you judge the plastic or the shutters, or recognize that they are there for a practical reason? Just as in this example, we also instinctively protect the wound until the condition of the house is such that we can repair the windows, sometimes even restructuring the foundation to support renovation. The conditions must be right, the priorities aligned. What does this look like?

• We must be present in our “house” – in this case the metaphor is to be present in the vessel of this body, in this life.
• We must take a good look around and face the state of things. What works? What doesn’t? Sometimes we need an expert to come in to help with these assessments. But ultimately, we are in charge of the repairs.
• We must check our inner reserves. Is there enough “money in the bank” to support this work? Or do we need to take a deep breath and a further step back, to put the repairs on hold until we have enough energy, strength, fortitude, support to make these changes? This can look like taking care of basic survival needs first: health, finance, career, identity, building a healthy ego in order to transcend and do the work of dissolving what no longer serves us…clearing the dust off the windows.

The heart is the one part of us that can approach the wound without fear. It is the mind that governs fear; the heart knows how to hold pain without becoming it. When we finally face the wound, it is the heart that does the seeing, the hearing, the feeling. The mind analyzes the wound, but the heart befriends it. And only what is befriended can be healed.

Facing the wound does not mean we go on a scavenger hunt, looking for it when all feels well in our lives. The work is always in the moment, when we experience a reaction for instance that feels out of proportion to the situation at hand. Reaction is also not something to be judged or suppressed. Reaction holds the key to the door that leads to the hallway (or the laundry chute) that leads to the “button” that lives at the bottom of the reaction. It is easy to say no one has the power to make us feel anything: unhappy, angry, etc. This is true in a sense, but engagement with the world can press the growth buttons in us that need to rise to the light of consciousness. You are not responsible for my happiness, but interaction with you might press buttons in me that are mine, and my power lives there.

In my own weird way, I think of my inner buttons as notes on a scale. Each one, when pressed, contributes sound to melody. Sometimes I ask myself, what song am I playing at this time in my life? What genre of music?

When I have a reaction, I know it is based on the past, always. If it wasn’t I would walk around in a state of consistent neutrality. While I might aim for this, it is not realistic. I am here to grow and learn and evolve. Therefore, I celebrate the moment when a reaction arises, becomes and dissolves, because I look to embrace the insight that follows when I do not interfere with that process.

But this writing is about change. And the wound. And what happens when we ignore the wound because it is too painful to face. While it is one thing to instinctually protect ourselves, particularly early in life when we have not yet developed conscious coping mechanisms, it is another to knowingly disown the wound. Our wound is the key to freedom and the power we seek. There is only one power and that is love. If, like me, you believe this, you know that in finding that power/love, we never feel alone again, we never feel unsupported again. We have gained something that even if we forget, we understand the pathway back to because we have walked it before.

When we ignore the wound, it does not die. On the contrary, it squirms in discomfort and loneliness – unheard, un-held, misunderstood. And we feel it, deep down, even though we want to pretend it does not exist. “I am beyond that,” we say…”I healed that a long time ago.” The buried feelings risk becoming unconscious motivators behind decisions and actions that shape our world. When we know something does not feel quite right in our lives, yet we can’t identify why, it might be time to reflect, engage in a practice that bypasses the ego mind and opens the door to something deeper.

Are we bad or wrong if we find ourselves in this space? Of course not. Recently I was guided to embark on a 28-day japa mantra journey. Those of you who joined me know it as Mantra Medicine – we have a Facebook Group where we check in, join weekly live Zoom meetings and review instructional and chanting videos. Largely though this is a very personal practice. Community is stronger than willpower, and by nature we benefit from connection, so we are doing this together. (You are welcome to join in anytime if you are called). Part of the reason I started this group was for myself, to continue facing the wound, both the old ones I brought here in this life, the new ones that life brings me. The practice is sacred and gorgeous and hard and honest. And I am strong enough to be with myself throughout.

Sometimes we think, “I need a change in my life.” We might think it is as simple as committing to some action that inspires a redirection. Is that direction reflecting the longing of your heart, or taking you further away from yourself? If the latter, what is the unconscious motivator behind taking that road? This is a worthy contemplation.

The heart is the compass that guides us through each stage of transformation. The journey of self-assessment I work with, and which I finally wrote down in a book called One Well (third draft, still in process and not published) is this:

• First Witness: Awakening the inner observer. Remembering the first time we experienced the neutrality of witness consciousness in our lives, naturally, unsolicited. What was happening around you, how old were you?
• The Body’s Truth: Becoming consciously aware of the innate intelligence of the body – the home of our intuitive wisdom in this lifetime. Listening to your body as you would a trusted oracle.
• Illusions: Gaining perspective on protective stories, seeing beyond them. Allowing life to shatter ideas and dreams that once served you but now serve you more in the breaking.
• The Dark Night: Bringing understanding and courage to the journey of the dark night of the soul, which inevitably follows that crushing of illusions. Learning that this journey is on purpose, and one the soul sometimes needs to arrive at authenticity, reclaiming the one power that is love.
• The Origin Wound: In the journey of the dark night, we stumble upon not just any wound, but the origin wound, the one that holds the greatest treasure. We hold the key.
• The Sacred Descent: Reframing this growth journey to the bottom as one guiding us to where our power lives, as a sacred privilege, as a choice.
• The Rise: Reclaiming our power and scarier yet, choosing to own it and never let it go again.
• The Return: Come fully home to self, soul, purpose in the seat of internal wisdom. The kind that affords us the desire to serve, to share with others, to hold space with others, to allow our cups to fill with the tears of the world because we know how to empty them again, only to refill them once more.

Every stage of the One Well arc is a movement of the heart, from witnessing, to listening, to breaking, to descending, to owning, to rising, to returning. The heart is the traveler, the guide, and the destination, the one part of us that can survive the descent and still choose love on the way back up.

Change begins in the heart, is carried by the heart, and ultimately returns us to the heart. If you feel inspired to deepen this journey through practice, devotion, through the sacred mechanics of your own transformation, I welcome you into the trainings ahead.
I will be offering two longer term training programs in 2027, that provide structure for growth and change, the kind that alters the trajectory of our lives.

1. 200 Hour Yoga Teacher Training: January – October 2027
2. One Well: The Arc of Healing – A step-by-step journey through each stage of the warrior’s journey for self-transformation.

Please let me know if you are called, and more information will follow.

In love,
Christina

Invitations:
Join us in Vermont!
Journey with Kate Lemay in exploration, “The The Direction of Your Attention”.
Join new ETJ Retreat Leader Jenny Warner in her article, Transforming Through the Heart!