Weapons or Tools
It is another morning where I can sense that the world is shifting and changing. The energy feels chaotic and frenetic. I sit down to meditate, and I offer up the heaviness I feel in exchange for some sort of operating system, some process to follow when times are tough.
The guides tell me, “You only have two hands; decide what you want to carry, weapons or tools.”
It’s easy to fall apart when things fall apart, and we’re usually good when things are good. But the real work, the kind of work we speak of when we say we're “doing our work,” occurs when life doesn’t go as planned and we find a way to stay whole anyway. These unplanned moments of our lives come in all forms, shapes, and sizes, from not getting our usual spot in yoga class to hitting unexpected traffic to going through a divorce or receiving a diagnosis.
If we move through life requiring everything to go well in order for us to feel joy, be generous, or offer compassion to others, we’ll spend most of our time trying to control our environment searching for comfort. Our well-being becomes a hostage to circumstances that could change at any moment. It keeps us in a continuous cycle, which becomes a weapon that we use on ourselves.
So who are we when things fall apart? That’s the question that matters. Not who we are when life is easy, but who we choose to be when life is hard. And the way we figure that out isn’t through thinking or overanalyzing—it’s through feeling.
I’ve spent years trying to think my way through this, mulling over whether my joy and kindness were authentic or just a programmed act so others would recognize it as “good and worthy.” I climbed the long and winding staircase of philosophical questions trying to figure out if my higher self was merely circumstantial. But all this ruminating and overthinking was an act of carrying weapons, shields of protection that prevented me from my greatest tool of all—feeling. Because here’s what I am learning: there’s only one question that matters.
How do I feel?
That simple question is how we know what we are carrying. It’s the method. When I am gripped by anger, frustration, resistance, or fear, I feel heavy, tense, stifled, and stuck—at war with what is. When I feel connected, open, and accepting, I know I’m using tools that will guide and build.
The answer isn't always what we want to hear. Sometimes the right action is the hard one. But we never get excused from our higher selves when things go wrong—we never separate from it, though we can forget that it’s there.
When we reach for weapons, we reach for force, control, resistance, anger, fear, and despondency. We go to war. We draw a line where we are on one side and the tough time is on the other. We separate. And we can feel that tense, stifled, stuck feeling of being in battle with life itself. When we reach for tools, we reach for acceptance, allowing, love, compassion, and peace. We don’t bypass the hard times—we grow and build with them. And we feel that too—opening up instead of closing down, growing and building instead of fighting.
This morning the guides say, “You only have two hands; decide what you want to carry, weapons or tools. Don’t worry about what everyone else is doing until you are clear about what you want to carry. If you meet someone who wants to carry weapons, offer your tools. If they do not want them, offer them compassion and move on to find others who are carrying tools.”
Whether we like it or not, we’ve all experienced what it’s like to carry weapons, to feel the need to defend and protect ourselves, and to wear our armor to keep us in the ready position to fight if need be. We need not judge others doing the same since we ultimately know what that feels like. But as the wise sages say, “Once you know something, it can’t be unknown.” And now we know we have a choice. Weapons or Tools.
Our higher self always and only wants to use tools rather than weapons. And this isn’t just a spiritual concept but one that directly impacts our physical and mental health, our well-being, and our capacity for joy. Being connected to our higher self doesn’t mean that we transcend our humanity or stop having the full experience. We will still have strong emotions and tough experiences; do the work and take hard action. The difference is that we won’t do it with weapons. We won’t turn our own lives into a war zone. This is a powerful choice for us to make, not just about how we feel, but about how we live in this very short lifetime.
In the toughest times, your hardest moments, that’s the time to find your higher self.
Hi, I’m Sara Rose.
Explore my blog to uncover the extraordinary transformations hidden in everyday moments.
