From Knight to Ninja: De-weaponizing One’s Intellect

Kerry Jehanne-Guadalupe

Inner Flame

Years ago, I had an experience that clarified something essential for me—not through analysis, but through the body, the heart, and an inner knowing that rose before thought could organize itself. It was an encounter that revealed the difference between generosity and entitlement, between openness and intrusion, and between compassion and the quiet necessity of holding firm boundaries.

Two people with whom I had minimal relationship arrived at our home unannounced. When no one answered the front door, they opened the side gate, walked through the yard, pounded on the door of my office, where I was in a session, and then opened the door without invitation. In the brief moment it took me to rise from my seat and reach the doorway, something unmistakable activated within me. My inner flame came online—fierce, clear, and unwavering. Before my mind had registered who was standing there, my body already knew: the energy was invasive, intrusive, and disrespectful.

What struck me most was the precision of that knowing. A loud knock—even an urgent one—would not have stirred this response if someone had been lost, confused, or in need. This was different. My inner flame discerned the quality of the interaction before my cognitive mind could assemble the details. I did not raise my voice. I did not attack. Yet I was immovable in my stance. There was no aggression—only clarity.

When the intrusion was justified rather than acknowledged, I recognized how much had changed within me. In the past, I might have swallowed my discomfort, remained silent, and entered an internal emotional battle in the name of keeping peace. This time, silence was not an option. Feeling the steadiness of my inner flame, I spoke my truth: while I am a caring person who values generosity and welcome, my warmth does not grant permission for my boundaries to be crossed.

Upon their departure, I sensed intuitively that the encounter was not complete. Within days, I received an email that felt attacking and venomous—saturated with shaming, blaming, gaslighting, and scapegoating. There was no acknowledgment of the boundary violation, no reflection on their behavior. Instead, the underlying message was clear: I had no right to feel disturbed by the intrusion. The accusations escalated to an almost surreal degree, culminating in the claim that I was “contributing to all that is wrong in the world.”

I understand how deeply unprocessed emotional turmoil can distort perception, normalizing the act of attacking another as a form of self-protection. When pain remains unexamined, the mind can become a weapon—repurposing blame, projection, and moral certainty as a way to discharge what has never been integrated.

Yet my inner flame remained present and steady. As I read their email, it moved through me with discernment, meeting the words without allowing them to settle inside. In the past, I might have taken such messages into my heart, not yet knowing how to hold clear boundaries in the presence of toxicity. This time, there was a quiet but unmistakable difference. My inner flame recognized the gaslighting for what it was and dissolved it before it could take hold in my mind or body. As a dear friend once shared, “If people are going to play with gas, they need to be aware that fire burns.”

From that grounded place, an inner knowing rose with clarity: I remain devoted to prayer, compassion, and the healing of pain—but I will not become a scapegoat. I will not offer myself as a vessel for another’s unprocessed trauma. Holding this boundary felt not like rejection, but responsibility—an understanding that absorbing such projections would only perpetuate harm rather than contribute to true healing.

I believe that, as humans, we sometimes encounter familiar patterns from our past not to relive them, but to finally move beyond them. As a child, I believed I was the cause—that I was the problem—and that something in me provoked hardship in others. In this encounter, not a single part of me accepted the scapegoating or blame. While I could recognize and hold compassion for the pain reflected in their email, I knew with absolute clarity that I was not the source of their trauma.

The gifts of this experience were many. I held firm boundaries in the face of accusation. I recognized, without hesitation, that there is no space in my life for being gaslit or scapegoated. And I deepened my trust in my inner flame—my intuition, discernment, and knowing.

As humans, we are imperfect, but we are not always responsible for the pain others carry. Holding a boundary can sometimes activate unhealed wounds in those around us. While compassion may remain present, it is not our responsibility to become the vessel through which another’s unresolved pain seeks expression or release.

Weaponizing One’s Intellect

In the past, a familiar tendency of mine was to weaponize aspects of my intellect when navigating experiences like the one just described.

As humans, we can weaponize our intellect for both destructive and constructive purposes. On the destructive end, intellectual resources may be used for manipulation, coercion, or aggression. This can include information warfare—shaping narratives to control perception, distorting truth to influence opinion, or deploying strategic communication to destabilize others. Accusatory, shaming, and attacking emails are one example of this form of intellectual weaponry.

On the constructive end, intellect can be deliberately used to counter harm rather than to create it. It can serve as a tool for discernment—naming manipulation, debunking myths, exposing gaslighting, and interrupting narratives that perpetuate damage. In this way, intellect becomes a means of protection, clarity, and restoration rather than domination.

I can see this pattern reflected throughout my own writing. I have used my intellectual capacity to call attention to the harmful misuse of spiritual aphorisms, to illuminate narcissistic dynamics, and to challenge cultural narratives that quietly wound. When I repeatedly heard the belief that there are “no good men,” I wrote about the profound impact such assumptions can have—particularly on young boys. When I encountered a man presenting himself as a shaman while operating as a sexual predator, I wrote an entire book. Much of my writing has been a kind of swordplay—an intentional engagement with cultural patterns I believe require exposure and recalibration.

Strategic thinking, rigorous analysis, and the ability to confront gaslighting or scapegoating have their place. There are times when clarity must be asserted, when distortion must be named, and when silence would be a form of self-abandonment. Yet even when used skillfully, intellect-as-defense can be reactive in nature.

What has shifted for me over time is a deeper reliance on presence as authority.

In the incident described, I did not need to engage my intellect as a defensive weapon. I did not need to dismantle arguments, expose inconsistencies, or establish my innocence through explanation. My authority did not come from being right; it came from being rooted. The clarity I felt did not arise from analysis—it arose from alignment. My boundaries did not need justification. They simply were.

Presence required far less effort than defense ever did. It did not argue with distortion; it made distortion irrelevant. It did not absorb accusation; it allowed it to pass by without lodging in my nervous system or identity. Where intellect once stood guard, presence now stood firm.

Only later, through writing, did I engage my intellect—not to defend myself, but to metabolize the experience as a chapter. Language became a vessel for integration rather than a weapon for survival. What emerged was not a rebuttal, but meaning—an alchemy that transformed the encounter into insight rather than residue.

This distinction feels essential: intellect can protect, but presence liberates. Intellect can counter harm, but presence dissolves the need for battle. What once required sharpness now requires steadiness. And in that steadiness, authority no longer needs to announce itself—it is simply felt.

Knights and Ninjas

This experience clarified something essential for me: when it comes to protection, I would rather be ninja-like than knight-like—because true authority does not come from armor, but from presence.

Metaphorically and symbolically, I think of knights as heavily armored warriors, encased in layers of metal and burdened by their own defenses. Their swords, lances, and maces are always visible—ready, yet weighty. To me, they move through the world prepared for impact, projecting protection outward. Their authority is declared through force, posture, and preparedness. Yet there is a cost: constant vigilance, restricted movement, and the exhaustion that comes from always being on guard.

Ninjas, in contrast, wear lightweight, flexible attire designed for agility rather than endurance. Their protection does not rely on constant defense, but on attunement. They sense environments rather than scanning for threats. They act when necessary, then return to stillness. They are alert, not hypervigilant. Responsive, not braced. Their authority is quiet and embodied—it does not announce itself, yet it is unmistakable. It arises not from intimidation or readiness to strike, but from presence.

This distinction mirrors the difference between intellect-as-defense and presence-as-authority.

Knight-like protection requires explanation, justification, and preparedness. Ninja-like protection requires alignment. When authority is rooted in presence, boundaries do not need to be argued for or enforced by force; they do not need to be justified to be valid. They are simply felt. They do not require explanation or permission to exist. Presence holds the line before words are ever spoken.

I do not need to walk through life with my sword unsheathed, anticipating intrusion or preparing for conflict. I do not need to remain tense to ensure safety—mine or anyone else’s. It is safe for me to keep my sword sheathed, because presence is already doing the work. My inner knowing signals when action is required, and until then, authority remains quiet, grounded, and intact.

Worst-case Scenarios

In the past, experiences like the one shared would have led my mind into rehearsing worst-case scenarios. It was not the email itself that triggered this response, but the underlying question it evoked: If someone is capable of writing something like this, what else might they be capable of? That line of thinking did not arise from fear alone, but from an attempt to anticipate a threat.

The tendency to imagine worst-case scenarios has deep evolutionary and psychological roots and can also be an extension of weaponized intellect. Throughout human evolution, heightened sensitivity to potential danger increased the likelihood of survival. Vigilance, scanning for threats, and mentally preparing for the worst helped early humans navigate unpredictable environments. Psychologically, this pattern can function as a coping mechanism—by envisioning possible outcomes, the mind attempts to establish control and preparedness in the face of uncertainty.

Yet I sense that as we continue to evolve—particularly as we become more heart-centered—this instinct may no longer need to dominate our inner landscape. What once served survival does not always serve presence. When the nervous system is regulated, and the heart is online, safety is no longer something to be strategized for—it is something to be inhabited.

I am discovering that true safety, for me, does not come from anticipating every possible threat, but from calming my mind and nervous system by resting in the intelligence of the heart. The more I trust my inner knowing, intuition, and inner flame, the less compelled I feel to overthink or to mobilize my intellect as a defensive weapon.

It is safe to de-weaponize my intellect.

It is safe to rest in my heart.

It is safe to remain soft in my being—and from that softness, to hold compassion for the pain others carry without absorbing it as my own.

More ninja. Less knight.