How to Become a Centered Warrior

Being centered offers one of the biggest leaps forward with dating, self, and life. There’s no easy way to it – it comes from enduring pain and trial.

The protagonist walks toward the camera, face emotionless, calm. Then suddenly an explosion erupts behind him. Does he flinch away from it. Does surprise touch his face. No. He stays calm as the world is blown to bits – and he’s seemingly untouched from it all as he nonchalantly walks toward the camera.

You have probably seen countless versions of this scene in quite a few movies, and it has probably sent goose bumps creeping up your arms as a side effect. What is it about this scene that puts us in such a state of awe?

Why is something like this so inspiring – and duplicated so many times over? Many of us would like to not just see this as a protagonist on the screen, but a hopeful reflection of ourselves. We want to be the guy who cannot be affected by the world no matter how chaotic it is. We want what we see on the television to be the reflection we see in the mirror. We want to be grounded just like that figure so often portrayed.

The concept of being grounded has always been the hardest for me to explain, let alone teach. It is one of those things I cannot show on a boot camp or fix over the course of days or even weeks. It is something you have to choose to do in your heart. Because, as cheesy as it sounds, only once you decide you are going to do what it takes to deepen this part of you, only then can you achieve it.

Firstly, what is being grounded – what makes a centered warrior? Think of waves crashing on rocks. Are the rocks strong and resolute, or are they weak and brittle? Do they stand for ages, or do they quickly become dislodged or shattered like obsidian? Or maybe it is a tree in a storm, standing tall and unbroken, maybe bending under the torrent of wind or outright being broken in half. The idea is that no matter what is thrown at you, you are always at ease, completely in control of your emotions.

When you talk to a stranger, this is one of the first things they may notice about your character, either consciously or subconsciously – not by what you do, but by what you don’t do. It is as simple as displaying a warm tone despite receiving anything but. A steady gaze. Lack of fidgeting. Being grounded is being unaffected when the surroundings get testy. When a guy is drunkenly belligerent and tries to push your buttons, do you let him? When a girl calls you ugly, do you care?

Why Being Unshakable Is Sexy as All Hell

Being a centered man is one of the sexiest things there is. Girls will actively test you to see how grounded you are. A centered man can handle the world and keep her, her reputation, and her potential children safe. If you are a man who can keep his head, you are also someone of certainty – a leader – a man who has suffered the worst the world has to offer, and came out on top.

You stand head tall like a noble king instead of low like a whipped dog. When she looks into your eyes, she sees the unsettling quiet of someone who does not need anything from the world, or her. This is extremely hot to women, and if you are more grounded than the other 99 percent of the male population, you will have your choice of women. But how can you become centered if you are not? What has to be done to develop a steely emotional core?

Break and Build

If you want to become this man, you have to change your paradigm. Society says that something in your life that made you feel negative emotions is bad. Right? Wrong. Experiencing things less than ideal is what you need to build your emotional immune system. If you never had anything unexpected happen, you would become emotionally weak in regards to adversity and be terrible at handling it when it came about. Think of rich, spoiled kids who have everything handed to them. How do they hold up when faced with a situation less than ideal?

When you find out your new grad school only has a Costa Coffee and not a Starbucks.

I want you to reframe everything in your life that you see as making you a victim – into an opportunity for growth. You are broke and on the verge of being homeless? This is no longer a bad thing, but an experience where you learn to live without and spend less, all the while learning to keep your head under the mounting stress.

A girl treats you like crap in a bar? You survive it and realize how little others’ opinions of you matter on a deep level. The more it hurts, the stronger you become, and the more turmoil you’ll be able to handle in the future. In the same way you work out muscle, it has to hurt for it to grow back stronger. Not to be cliché... but if you don’t feel the pain, you don’t get the gain. Reframe every supposedly bad thing in your life as a good thing – a weight that breaks the fibers of your being to grow back thicker.

Denton’s Life Up to This Point

This was a struggle for me at first. Every new trial seemed like the end of the world. Lost my first love: oh no, I will never find another. Was arrested under false charges and nearly imprisoned for a decade (do not worry, was proven innocent): if ten years of my life is gone living behind bars, how will I ever be successful? Was on the verge of going homeless chasing my dreams: all my friends who have been rooting for me will think of me as a failure and an example of what not to do. I’ve lost many jobs because of lack of enthusiasm or work experience.

You know what I learned from experiencing all of this? I can have many loves and the freedom to leave a girl if things no longer suit me. I now want success instead of need it – big difference. And if I ever lose a job, it is not the end of the world. I have a wide range of skills to fall back on. If I do fail, who cares? This is all for me, not others. I could have taken all of these in the moment as bad things. Instead, you know what I told myself? If this hurts this much in the moment, imagine who I will be once the storm has passed.

No Alcohol

I am probably the biggest culprit of trying to medicate myself from the pain of the world. My family has a history of alcoholism, and as soon as I reached 21, my first major setback in life sent me in a downward spiral of drinking and drugs. Thank God I had a great group of friends to help me out of it at the time, but if there is one thing I can tell you, drugs and alcohol will not help. When you drug yourself to hide from worry and negative emotions, you are merely distancing yourself from it momentarily and gaining an addiction in the process.

Using alcohol/drugs to pick up women, for example, just numbs the pain you’re supposed to feel that would otherwise build your success with women. If a girl rejects you, and you are too dull-headed to experience it, you won’t build the resilience to handle rejection when you are sober, and will thus learn to depend on being dull-headed more and more, not knowing that you are merely masking the core problem, which is not to hide from your issues – but to outgrow them.

This is something many of you will not be able to fully understand at first, but the use of alcohol greatly slows your progress in learned success with women. The quicker you can do off with it, the faster your progress will be. Lean willingly into the pain, and know that it is the heat you are going to use to forge your edge.

Walking Dangerous Roads

This is something that may or may not piss off your parents – but live life dangerously (though of course, be street smart). There, I said it. Screw the one-size-fits-all approach. If you choose the same path as everyone else, it may fit, but it will not be as form-fitting as a life of your own choosing – one you fight for. It will be akin to a dirty hand-me-down that was worn by many before you. Do you want that, or do you want a well-tailored suit?

The less-trod path is harder, but contains far more to find along it.

If you take the well-trodden path, you may choose the route that is seemingly safe, but you also choose the life of a boy in the body of a man, and you may regret it for the entirety of your life. What you will find along the way is that the path itself is more rewarding than any treasure at the end of it. Do what you want. Be the king of your life, and do not be cowed into complacency by fear of failure, because if that is the frame you take, you will fail anyways.

Love Lost, Self Love Gained

I am not saying to go around loving women to just break it off with them, but a little taste of a broken heart is a quick way to harden yourself. When you are on your path toward learned success with women, you are going to naturally outgrow relationships and sabotage them. I have done this too many times and have grown twice as strong for it. Just like everything else on this list, do not become a victim to love lost. Understand it is, instead, a lesson in being good with being by yourself. This was one of the greatest lessons I have ever learned. For years I used women to try to keep from being all by my lonesome, but the second that was ripped away from me, it was sink or swim.

Just know this: if you are going through a bad breakup, it is not the end of the world, but the creation of a new one. Nothing lasts forever, and if you grow from it properly, your next significant other will always be better than the last.

Slay a Dragon or Two

Live dangerously. Chase adventures that might not necessarily have good resolutions. Slay dragons. Save damsels. Walk thorny paths. Never be afraid to take on a journey that seems difficult, because the best rewards are found along the journey, not at the end. Too many people nowadays hide from the world, afraid that it will destroy them, not realizing that failing to live it out to its fullest will be thrice as destructive.

Anyways... as always, peace out!

Denton