Ego of the Warrior

By Rob Sirstins

From rejection and utter self-hate to empowerment with self-love and unbelievable confidence. This is the story of a man’s journey that almost killed him, to that of sharing his story with thousands around the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Jul 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9781982259839

Rob Sirstins

Rob Sirstins was born in Phoenix, Arizona to a teenage mother with addictions that prevented her from caring for him and his sister. A loving family in Utah adopted him and gave him care and stability his mother couldn’t. Even as his life was changed forever by joining this new family, Rob couldn’t help but realize that he was different. Rob didn’t look the same as his peers in school and that led to his being bullied and physically assaulted. Searching for a safe haven, Rob found his outlet in playing sports. He excelled and competed well, but this was only a distraction from the larger issues of pain and anger, which he didn’t fully understand. When he was signed to play football with a Division One university, he believed this was the life change he’d been looking for. Unfortunately, just two years into this opportunity an accident ended his football career. Once again, life taught Rob that disappointment and pain were always just around the corner. Soon, Rob met and married a wonderful woman, but his unresolved trauma and its associated rage and anger followed him into his marriage. After just four years, his marriage ended. Despite this, Rob and his ex-wife chose to maintain a positive relationship to continue to parent their beautiful daughter. Rob’s daughter is a joy to him, and he sees her nearly every day. In the years following his divorce, Rob fell into a deeper and darker depression as loss and pain became an ever-present companion. In the span of 30 days, he lost a dear friend to suicide, lost his job, his home, his dog, and had his heart broken by his first serious partner following his divorce. He had to try to piece his life back together. He accepted jobs below his experience and education, but this made him feel like he was stuck in limbo and couldn’t see a way out. As years passed, the darkness and anger inside grew. He continued to struggle in his career and personal relationships. He felt he’d lost everything. As his life experiences pushed him deeper into despair, his sense of hopelessness and pain brought him to a crossroads: he could continue to sick to the point of destruction or make the decision to heal. The realization that the pain in his life wasn’t inevitable but may be creating opportunity for him to grow. He made the decision to heal and let go of the past. He worked to move away from trauma and failure and that allowed him to see his experiences as vital life lessons. Life’s struggles gave him empathy and the understanding that the greatest obstacle to happiness is often oneself. Rob believes it’s up to each of us to change the narrative we’ve created and start on our path to reach our potential. We can achieve all we need in life if we’re willing to put in the work.

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Copyright © 2020 Rob Sirstins.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-9822-5981-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9822-5982-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9822-5983-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020923688

Balboa Press rev. date: 12/10/2021

CONTENTS

Introduction

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

Closing Remarks

Appreciation

References

Ego Of The Warrior

INTRODUCTION

There is a magical power deep within you, found only if you are willing to search and uncover your truth. Perhaps it has been calcified under immense pain, confusion, and heartbreak, and the thought of venturing once again to rediscover what is buried deep may seem frightening. Very few take this journey. However, you picked this book up, so that isn’t you. You are ready to keep moving forward, to change, to become. You are ready to heal that which was once broken and to strengthen that which was once weak.

Once this power is discovered and attained, one must step into it with all their might without hesitation, embarrassment, or fear to honor the gifts that have been bestowed upon you.

You will then uphold this power unapologetically, fearlessly, and without shame. For this is your power, specific to you only. To be willing to shine and bring forth into the world your light and your story. Then to help others see what is wrought within themselves. Only if you are willing to do the work and take the path of shedding off the old and stepping into who you truly are will you become a warrior. The path of the Warrior is the conscious, physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual fight to heal, find center, and become your true divine self. It is a battle. It is a war of attrition we fight against ourselves, our stories, and our minds. It is more challenging than anything else we can possibly face in this life.

Although I attribute this process to that of a Warrior, the goal is not to become resistant but to gain acceptance, allowance, and faith.

This process enables us to accept our past, regardless of what has happened, because nothing can be done back there, but only here and now.

We learn to allow what is to come, rather than stress continuously of controlling that which cannot be controlled.

We grow in faith that we can and will heal from our past and become empowered more than we can imagine for our present and our future.

Throughout this book, I will challenge you to look at yourself, your patterns, and your stories through a different lens. I will show you a close and personal view of my failures, as well as my self-incriminating way of thinking. I will also show you how I decided to be a victim of my circumstances no longer, to no longer live on my knees from an indoctrinated belief system I fell into long before I could walk.

I will challenge you to step out of the darkness with the power and strength needed to see your true, higher self.

It is time to put down the facades dictated by insecurities and trauma. It is time to rise and become the sole operator of your fragile life.

Every person put on this earth has a higher purpose of fulfilling the potential of being who they are meant to be, but too many people never realize their purpose because they are too afraid.

Before I go on, I want you to understand as the reader that I’m talking with you as if you were sitting next to me. That when I say we, I know that you picked up my book because we share something in common.

Sometimes, we find ourselves being triggered and spiraling down dark holes for reasons we don’t yet understand. All we know is that we have pain, we’ve held on to emotional memories, and some of us are carrying weight that exceeds our breaking point. Some of us have found an escape, a way to temper the pain, such as physical activity, creative arts, or meditation. But for those of us dealing with something much deeper, darker, more painful, that is all those outlets do—temper.

I would like you to come on a close and personal journey with me as I share the most traumatic and life-altering situations I’ve experienced. How I moved from being a victim of abandonment and racism to a man of humble power and understanding. From being a casualty of the whirlwind of emotions inside me, and the irrational decisions I made because of them, to creating a masterpiece from my chaos and pain.

I hope to do more than motivate you by moving you into action and help you create a path to find your own divine power and calling. I hope to help you change your perspective and your toxic way of thinking.

I’ll take you through the process I went through to find myself for the first time. For some, it may be for a second or third time as this process is meant to expand us into becoming who we truly are meant to be, and that takes time. Through my philosophies, I hope to help give you a different opportunity to move into yourself while removing old and damaging expectations, and helping you to realize you are the creator of every one of your limitations.

I realize this path is not for everyone, nor do I claim this is the be all, cure-all. This book is about the path of my journey, my pain, my darkness and how I came out on the other side, rather than another statistic of suicide.

If you are looking for another way to heal or just another perspective, take a look at my life and the toxic thinking I was committed to for so long.

I am not a psychologist or therapist. I am simply a battle-riddled man who found his power through the journey you are about to embark on.

I

Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.

Aristotle

In early October of 1981, I was born to a 17-year-old girl in the Maricopa Hospital in Phoenix, Arizona. My mother was young in her years and badly affected with personal and emotional problems. I was told she battled drug addiction, promiscuity, and severe mental challenges.

In my short three months with my biological mother, my four-year-old sister and I had a small taste of her chaotic world.

I never knew anything about my biological father. I assume that he was a larger man, as my mother stood at only five feet. I believe their relationship was a one-time occurrence since there is no real record of him, which invigorates my ongoing search of where I come from, trying to answer the forever question plaguing so many who have been wards of the state, growing up in foster care, or lucky enough to be adopted as I was.

My sister had obviously a much better recollection than I did during those few months before we were given up to foster care then quickly adopted.

I was told our mother would leave us for days at a time, in a one-room apartment with only my very young sister to care for me. There was no food left in the fridge, nor ready breast milk in a bottle, or clean clothes nicely folded for us to change into. She would vanish with no comforting words of when she would return.

My sister took on the role of the mother the best she could, caring for me and consoling me to the best of her four-year-old capabilities.

Before I was born, my mother would take my sister to the local grocery stores and taught her to distract the grocery store clerk so my mother could steal food. Because of this, my sister was able to sneak into the local grocery store every now and then to gather the food that she and I needed when our mother was absent.

Upon my mother’s return, strung out from whatever her choice of drug was, she’d usually be accompanied by a man. They would have sex on the very same bed where my sister and I rested.

For the first three months of my life, this was my ordinary world. Chaos. Decades later, I finally came to the understanding of why those first few months played such an integral part of my life and how they affected me all the way until adulthood.

Why was I so fucking angry all the time? Pessimistic, distrusting, insecure, and anxious? I finally realized I had developed reactive attachment disorder, or RAD (Smith, 2018).

There are extensive cases that show children who fail to establish a strong bond with their mother or caretaker develop RAD. Cases range in severity, with symptoms including emotional instability, lack of self-confidence, anger, control issues, and trust. I battled with these symptoms, as well as feeling alone and unsafe.

I didn’t really relate to others as I grew up for many obvious and not so obvious reasons. This is common for children who are abused, live in and out of foster care, are taken away from their parents, or were abandoned (Smith, 2018).

I never connected with my birth mother or father or cemented a bond built of trust and confidence as other newborn babies do. This was just the start of my blundering young life.

Luckily, my sister and I were eventually given to wonderful foster parents who eventually adopted us. We became part of a loving family with three older siblings. Even though this new environment was accepting of us and gave us the life that we could have only dreamed of, the trauma didn’t stop there. Outside the walls of our home was a society that contrasted the nurturing space found within.

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We all have setbacks, heartbreaks, failures, defeats, and traumas. Some people put these memories in the loss section of the brain and do their best to move on the only way they know how, by shifting into survival mode to make it through each day. That’s what I did. I was not equipped with the knowledge or power to even know there were avenues that would allow me to grow and heal. Like so many of us, I just thought I had a permanent wound, left to scab over and get ripped back off from time to time.

What a fucking way to live. That was precisely how I lived my life well into my mid-30s. I lived the life of a man driven by anger, pain, confusion, and my closest friend, darkness.

I kept all of those yet unidentified emotions pent up inside me. But I was able to channel them all through my body, excelling in every sport I participated in. The fields and courts were the only places where I ever found solace growing up.

I was blessed with a pair of invisible wings that took me higher and faster than most any other kids around, but no amount of success I earned was enough to completely heal the void where my confidence was supposed to be or give me the ability to trust enough to be at peace with my surroundings. Playing sports was just a way to temper the pain, while my social reality outside of sports was where I never found happiness or freedom. I was a black boy with curly hair growing up in a very white society that had a very one-dimensional way of thinking.

In elementary school, I wasn’t accepted among my peers or their parents. I was bullied, beaten, and made fun of. Usually, I spent most of those days running around my mother’s daycare. The kids she tended to always accepted me more than the kids at school.

Because my peers at school didn’t include me, I probably should have not accepted them, right? Even though my parents tried their best to teach me to be understanding, these were the very conversations I had in my head. I was still so confused and not able to make sense of why I was dealing with all these horrible feelings of rejection and sadness all of the time.

I thought this way for a long time. These thoughts never became lighter, and my internal, mental self-persecution only became more rampant. The world hated me, so I loathed me.

Isn’t it amazing how impactful our early childhood years can be and the consequences that follow because of them? I spent most of my life searching for external validation to find self-love, acceptance, equality, and a desire to live.

I thwarted off any chance of believing in who I was and having the self-awareness of what I was most deserving. I became enthralled with a story and a program laid before me as soon as I could conceptualize my surroundings. I unwillingly chose to believe I was unworthy. That black would never be as good as white, and because of this belief, my limitations were outstanding.

It was as though a gray cloud would follow me around wherever I went, a constant reminder I was never good enough, attractive enough, or equal among those with white skin.

I heard the word nigger regularly, either directed ragefully towards me or under one’s breath as they sheepishly walked past me.

My story could be told in the sense of how, especially in my younger years, I created an immovable beast of a man that tore down and conquered each feat one by one, but this isn’t that type of story. I could go on to tell you how great of an athlete it made