This thought started to come up to me often when I noticed a pattern with my partner at the time that resembled a lot of familiarities to my childhood ‘home’ feeling.

Raised in a house where constant arguments and fighting were the norm, as an adult I found myself resorting to attracting similar conflict in my relationships. But somewhere beneath the surface I could feel a wisdom I couldn’t gain access to.
When my sister introduced me to the Wel-Systems body of work the fighter in me lost power again.
I’m re-learning that our “fights” aren’t really ours. Parts of our beings, trapped in time, hosting repressed emotions are emerging.

The five year old who was burdened with too much for their age will become good at repressing. The nine year old who was being abused emotionally will stay small or abuse substances in order to escape. The twelve year old who couldn’t be his true self will continue to play his ‘role’ in order to blend in. These youngest parts of us hold the most pain from our past.

There are also our protectors, which in kundalini yoga are considered part of our negative mind— those protectors are there to save our current self from the pain our younger self would’ve felt in moments of conflict.

And it’s those protectors who are fighting.
These parts of us need to be viewed with great compassion and curiosity in order to determine which behaviours are helpful to our emerging future, and which can be released to allow us to live a life of choice.

Now, when I find myself in conflict, I observe. I stop, breathe, drop the mind and enter into my body to allow its intellect to guide and inform my being. By returning to breath I am able to move past that little kid in me who still feels inadequate and afraid, that protector that shows up defensive, judgmental, even plain mean at times, in order to keep uncomfortable sensations repressed away.

That protector is the one who’s been fighting all this time. Now that this aspect of my habitual behaviours is evident to me, I’m choosing to set us both free.