Dispatch #3 | Soul Ain’t Soft, and Neither Are You
7 Laws of Unbreakable Spirituality (For Those Done with the Sugar-Coated Social Media Version)
8 -9 min read / 27 min audio
“Who sold everyone the line that spirituality is supposed to be soft?” I smirk at the rhetorical question banging around in my head while scrolling through my social media feed.
On a side note, I love that it’s called a ”feed” - because that’s exactly what it does, it feeds you. It fattens you up like a pig and stuffs you full of curated content, color schemes, fast-fade trends, propaganda, aspirations, and fears, mostly of your own creation. It’s a modern day industrial factory farm fattening you up with whatever gruel they desire so they can slaughter you on the kill floor with your own emotions (which have been weaponized against you). Oink piggy, Oink! Feed piggy, feed!
Well, today I’ve had almost all I can take. As I doom scroll through social media and parooze the modern spiritual self-help book aisles, I notice that all the covers seem to be littered with some combination of soft pink sunsets, bleached white toothy smiles from self-proclaimed gurus, yoga silhouettes, and a head-spinning, nauseating amount of beige, vanilla, pink, gold, moss, lavender, and cream.
As I scan through pages upon pages of regurgitated surface-level insight, I realize there is no deep, profound, or truly digestible truth here. Just $5.99 wisdom repackaged and sold under a more flashy label.
“Ugh, I can’t take any more of this soft spirituality. This is all a fucking TED Talk for toddlers.” I announce in disgust to no one in particular. “Real spirituality tastes like sweat and blood, not just frothy lavender tea.”
With the broadway theatrics of an angsty teenager, I simultaneously throw my phone across the couch and my head back on the cushion in visceral horror. My body feels as if it’s going to rip apart from the primal scream welling up inside of me.
“WHERE IS THE RAWNESS OF IT ALL?!”
“WHERE IS THE GODDAMN PRIMAL SCREAM?!”
“WHERE IS THE FURY?!”
“WHERE IS THE BRUTAL BRILLIANCE OF UNFOLDING?!”
WHERE IS THE FUCKING MADNESS THAT BREAKS YOU OPEN, BLEEDS YOU OUT, AND BUILDS YOU BACK STRONGER?!” I internally scream.
At what point did spirituality become more about hugs and song circles instead of the relentless pursuit of truth? When did we become so afraid of facing reality that we decided to hide behind bleached-out-vanilla-surface-level wisdom and fragility flags?
When did we collectively decide that the road to wholeness was paved in pastels, Lululemon, green drinks, and trigger warnings? My god, it’s like we became so disconnected, numb, and fearful of the world, that we tranced out while driving and forgot that the road to wholeness isn’t paved at all.
In my experience spiritual transformation resembles nothing of Rodeo Dr, paved streets, or beautiful back country byways. If anything, I’d liken it to a make-shift deer path winding through a dark mysterious forest, straight up the screaming slide cliffs of a 14,000 ft. mountain. There’s no distinguishable trail, steep drop offs on both sides, and you better have packed a machete for cutting back the foliage obscuring the route (and for fighting unseen predators lurking all around, salivating to make you prey.)
No, the road to wholeness isn’t hidden in five-cent wisdom, a strict regimen of sun salutations, or another nuanced take from a person who goes by the name of @spiritualkittyguru1111.
The road home to your Self is wild, savage, and unpredictable, and it’s time you learn that fast.
It’s filled with dark nights of driving through unfamiliar terrain with a screaming blood-thirsty storm nippin’ at your heels, threatening to swallow you alive. There’s no off ramps or #triggerwarnings in these parts. You don’t get to shelter your fragile little ego in a perfectly curated “safe place” – because the storm doesn’t give a shit about what makes you feel warm, cozy, or safe…it will come for you until you turn around and face it. And if you don’t, you’ll be forever running.
You’ll wake up one day and find yourself passed out in a ditch after making a series of bad decisions at 3 am with your new BFF ‘Mo.
You’ll find yourself in an unfulfilling relationship…
a soul-sucking career…
in the back of a cop car…
or at the bottom of another glass of whiskey wondering when the false security of your cozy “safe space” blanket wore off.
Contrary to current trends, green-lit spiritual messaging, and flowy wellness aesthetics, spiritual healing isn’t a trip to the day spa. It’s not a pastel-filtered Instagram post with a soft-focus lens and a bowl of aesthetically pleasing acai.
Healing is brutal – it’s ripping out your own stitches with your teeth.
It’s tearing out your own insides, inspecting them, and deciding what stays and what burns. It’s looking at your reflection when it’s smeared in the grime of your own excuses, lies, trauma, and conditioning — and summoning the gall to clean it up, no matter how long it takes.
And nobody is doing you any favors by shielding you from the truth or putting a gag order on your growth with spiritual disclaimers camouflaged as #triggerwarnings glued to the top of every social media post. Ya know, people spend so much time and energy worrying about being sued, shunned, publicly attacked, ridiculed, or cancelled, that they OVERLY cater to emotional fragility and try to gift wrap life. What they fail to realize is that the universe doesn’t do disclaimers.
And spoiler alert: no matter how hard you try you can’t perfectly package the trials, obstacles, and raw reality of the human condition for mass consumption. Life doesn’t manufacture spiritual lessons according to “trauma informed” specs. So get used to it.
In my opinion, attempting to gift wrap life or save someone from their own emotions and reactions is a severe disservice to the person and to society. When we try to shield others from their own pain, we subliminally send the message that they are not strong enough to handle the situation, obstacle, nuance, or truth. This message isn’t empowering, it's disempowering.
You can be caring without coddling – this ain’t preschool and you aren’t made of glass.
Fragility is a lie that we sell ourselves to stay cozy in our own cages.
You can acknowledge pain and trauma without bowing down to it.
You can be kind and still be direct.
You can be gentle while being honest.
You can be soft and strong.
You can hold compassion in one hand and a sword in the other— that’s true spiritual balance. And if you want to truly heal yourself and the world, you must learn how to strike this balance.
As a former senior federal investigator and wilderness guide I always say, “the best way to love someone is to prepare them”...and I guess that mantra found its way into my spiritual practice too.
Life isn’t about bowing out of hard situations, refusing to get into the ring, or hiding from your emotions behind self-growth caution labels. It’s not packing yourself in bubble wrap and hoping the universe will take it easy on you.
The truth is, spirituality IS a trigger warning.
(Now let that sink in. Take a long breath, or hell, a long drag if that’s your thing. Because once you get this point, there’s no going back.)
It’s stepping into the arena with dust on your boots and blood on your knuckles. It’s taking a blow to the face and being on your hands and knees, spitting out your own teeth, but refusing to back down.
Spirituality is not a hand-holding exercise. It’s a bull fight. It’s a personal reckoning by fire. And contrary to the spoon-fed mindfulness guidance of the day,
Soul ain’t soft and neither are you.
You are a spiritual warrior and the battlefield isn’t some distant war zone—it’s right here, inside of you. You wake up in it every damn day, with your past on one side and your future on the other, both waiting to see if you’re gonna rise or retreat. You are a soldier, battling against every story that has ever tried to cage you. You’re a survivor. A shapeshifter. The ultimate creator. An artist of fire, transformation, and light.
You’ll find no trigger warnings here because I don’t believe you are fragile and I refuse to treat you like you are.
You’re not weak, you’re forged in fire. You’re the comeback story that hasn’t hit its climax yet, and you’re not the sum of the things that have happened to you. You are far more than ANY of that.
You’re not how many times you’ve fallen off the wagon.
You’re not how many times you’ve hid alone crying in a closet.
You’re not how many times you’ve failed at your “big idea” or entrepreneurial endeavor.
You’re not defined by your divorces, messy break ups, one night stands, or awkward romantic encounters.
You’re not how many times you’ve stayed awake at night wondering when the pain will end or replaying the past heartbreaks of your life.
Those all may be parts of your story, but they’re sure as hell NOT your FULL story.
You’re more than your highlight reel of pain.
You may be in the arena right now, takin’ blows in the belly of the universal beast. You may be caught in a loop of your own pain, fear, and confusion. It all might be heavy, raw and painstakingly alive in your mind and body. It may seem like there is no other voice than the one of heartbreak or devastation. It may take up a lot of space and ferociously demand more screen-time in the live-action movie of your life. In fact, it may try to steamroll the entire production, (like an egotistical diva), but try as it may, it doesn’t get to determine the entire plot of your story.
Pain is NOT your autobiography – just a dogeared chapter. Victimhood is not the story you came here to live, give, write, and sign off on. And the more you allow yourself to be seen (internally and externally) as fragile, the more you start to believe that you are. The more you give your power away to past pain, the more you outsource your divine opportunity to pull yourself up, transform, and take your rightful place as the hero of your life.
Sure, we all need a little help along the way, we are pack animals after all, but what I am here to tell you is that your soul isn’t soft, it’s unyieldingly strong — and so are you.
You can handle the inevitable face off with whatever you’re fleeing, fighting, freezing, or fawning over in your life. You can handle your shadows. You can handle letting go. You can handle complexity. You can handle changing your reactions. You can handle your emotions. You can handle reality…and in fact you must.
If you refuse to stand and face the storm, your mind, body, and quality of life will suffer the consequences. You will find yourself running from a mysterious predator your entire life. The storm will never stop chasing you. You will be constantly at the whim of external forces. You will be easy to manipulate, play, and tame. You won’t be the hero of your story, you’ll be the victim and the villain – torturing yourself while you hold yourself hostage for a ransom you refuse to pay.
Ya know, if you’ve been running for so long it feels like your feet and soul are bleeding out, like you’ve been chased by spiritual ghosts down a desert highway at midnight, and dodging demons by driving yourself to rock bottom at 100 miles per hour—you’re not alone. But today I’m offering you a choice. Today is the day you get to decide to start a new story…
take a new trail…
try out a new way of being…
or turn around and face the storm.
Today is the day you give yourself permission to stand in the fullness of your pain AND power. You get to reclaim the role you were destined to play, the hero or heroine of your life.
This isn’t about developing supernatural powers or transcending your humanity — it’s about embodying every fucking part of it.
Your wounds don’t make you unworthy. Your darkness isn’t a problem to fix, it's something to be acknowledged, heard, seen, and integrated. You don’t need a fucking TED talk for toddlers, a spiritual security blanket, or another green latte, you need to gather your grit for your sundown standoff with reality.
Ya know what happens when you trade in your grit, rage, resiliency, fortitude, and faith for spoon-fed social media wisdom? You go nowhere. You stay in place. You stand still. You begin to think that NOTHING will work and you eventually give up.
What nobody will tell you is that modern spirituality and fragility culture have inadvertently leashed your soul—making it tame, weak, docile, and palatable…something that needs to be saved by an outside source or a #triggerwarning of sorts.
I call bullsh*t.
You don’t need a spiritual paraffin treatment, you need to grab a shovel and build some callouses.
Spirituality isn’t a lullaby. It’s a battle cry.
It’s the howl of a wolf at midnight, the crackle of your internal flame, refusing to die. It’s the raw, untamed anthem of a soul that was never meant to be domesticated or coddled by social safe nets.
🔥 This Is Your Call to Arms 🔥
The world doesn’t need more spoon-fed wisdom or fragile spirituality wrapped in a soft-focus lens. It needs warriors—people willing to walk into the storm, carve their own path, and claim the raw, unfiltered truth of their soul.
So here’s the deal: you can keep waiting for a savior, a sign, or a perfectly curated spiritual path that never asks too much of you…or you can stand up, turn around, and face the storm yourself — in fact, you can become it.
No trigger warnings. No coddling. No escape hatch. Just you and the untamed, feral truth of who you are.
🔥 Here are the 7 Laws of Unbreakable Spirituality (For Those Done with the Sugar-Coated Social Media Version)
1. Growth is Brutal. (Embrace it.)
Real healing doesn’t feel like a warm hug, it feels like a back alley brawl with your past. It’s the equivalent of being chewed up, spit out, and shanked by the Universe. Its brilliance lies in its brutality, because sometimes brutality is what it takes to break down the layers of conditioning. So stop expecting healing to look and feel good.
Your nervous system will revolt.
Your ego will panic.
Your old self will fight like hell to stay alive.
Good. That means you’re doing it right. Stop looking for a shortcut or for someone to save you. Start looking at what’s clawing at your throat and demanding to be seen, heard, and felt. Learn new skills and tools to help you navigate the uncomfortableness of this new terrain.
Reflect and Contemplate: What old stories am I still afraid to brawl with?
2. The Void is Your Friend. (It’s Time to Get Comfy With it.)
Most people quit healing when it gets dark. When it gets lonely. When the floor disappears or when the blanket of security has been unceremoniously pulled out from beneath them. That’s because they never learned how to make peace with the void.
Sit in your uncertainty and marinate in it.
Sit in the uncomfortableness.
Stare down your own contradictions.
Stop running to the next distraction.
Nothing will derail your progress faster than refusing to be alone with yourself.
Reflect + Contemplate: What uncomfortableness or internal contradictions am I too afraid to sit with?
3. Sometimes the Best Exit Plan is to Stay in the Spiritual Fire.
The reason most people plateau or give up on their personal progress is because they only commit to their healing when it's convenient, comfortable, or when it fits neatly into their curated, scheduled, time-blocked identity.
The Truth Is:
Your wounds don’t run your schedule and growth doesn’t wait for you to be in the mood.
Your pain doesn’t go away because you ran from it.
Your trauma isn’t healed by trigger warnings.
Your shadow doesn’t care if it’s "not the right time."
Your healing doesn’t give a damn about your schedule.
Do the work when it’s ugly. When it’s inconvenient. When you’d rather scroll, sleep, or numb yourself into oblivion. Remember: the moment you start making comfort a prerequisite for growth, you start losing.
Write the brutal truths. Have the gut-wrenching conversations. Make the decision that scares the hell out of you. The longer you wait, the weaker you become. And weakness is a slow, quiet death. Toughen up. Do it now. When you want to tap out, stay in the fire.
Reflect + Contemplate: Where am I still building ‘exit ramps’ instead of confronting my growth head-on?
4. The Universe Will Always Call You Out On Your Bullshit (so beat it to it).
If you don’t have the guts to call your own bullshit, the Universe will do it for you—and it won’t be written in gentle pastels or handed to you on a scented note alongside your overpriced green drink.
If you’re lying to yourself, admit it.
If you’re playing small, own it.
If you’re avoiding responsibility, face it.
Every time you gaslight yourself into thinking “it’s fine” when it isn’t, you set yourself up for a Universal smackdown.
Reflect + Contemplate: What bullshit is it time I called myself out on?
5. Your Rage Is Best Used as a Weapon, Not a Wound.
You don’t see franchised yoga studios overthrowing dictators for a reason. Societally anger is demonized because a fully unleashed human is dangerous as f*ck to the system. When your rage is fully integrated and wielded from a place of grounded power, it shatters the status quo—and the self-help industry isn’t in the business of manufacturing rebels.
Anger is not the enemy.
Rage is not a flaw.
They are tools. Harness them and use them.
Let them rip through stagnancy like a tornado in a trailer park. Let them set fire to your old stories. Let them be the fuel for your resurrection. The ones who master and wield their rage without suppressing it are the ones who actually change the world.
Reflect + Contemplate: What anger or rage has been burning inside me for far too long? Journal what it has to say and what it is trying to teach you.
6. You Are Your Own Guru.
It’s time to make peace with the fact that no guru, coach, healer, or leader is coming to save you. In fact they can’t. Healing is an internal job.
❌ Stop looking for a savior.
❌ Stop trying to be “chosen.”
❌ Stop handing your power over to someone just because they have a blue checkmark and an aesthetically pleasing brand.
If your spiritual evolution relies on external validation, you need to sincerely look at yourself in the mirror and reevaluate how you’re doing things. Rip the pedestal down and burn it. You’re the only one that can lead you through this.
Reflect + Contemplate: Where have I been relying on others to save me? What are two ways that I have been outsourcing my power?
7. Unfiltered Truth Is Always The Answer.
The reason most people don’t get where they want to go? They’re too afraid of the truth to face it head-on. If you actually want to transform, you need to make a contract with the truth and never break it. Remember: lies are lullabies and the truth is a 4 am siren wake up call.
Commit to telling yourself the truth, even when it shatters your illusions.
Seek truth, even when it burns through what you wanted to be true.
Live truth, even when it costs you everything.
Lies keep you small. Truth will break you open. And that’s exactly what you came here for.
Reflect + Contemplate: Where have I been sheltering myself from the truth? What lies or excuses am I choosing to believe to stay cozy and safe in my cage?
🔥 Final Warning: Spirituality IS a trigger warning. The whole thing. Every second of it is designed to wake you the hell up. You either develop the backbone to handle it, or you get stuck in the marshmallowy bog of personal transformation – where nothing ever actually changes. So stop shielding yourself from the muck.
If you want to be coddled, go buy yourself a self-help coloring book. If you want real, raw, and untamed? Buckle the f*ck up. I’ve got plenty more fire where this came from.
📩 If this lit something in you, share it. Pass the torch. And if you want more, subscribe—you won’t find this kind of raw, untamed truth anywhere else in the spiritual circles.
⚡ And until we meet again, remember: Soul ain’t soft and neither are you…and it’s time you start acting like it.
Thanks for bein’ here and thanks for reading “Dispatches from the Edge”.
“Compassion in one hand, a sword in the other.” YES!! You’re speaking to my soul, friend. Love it!
Happy to see you here my friend 😊.