If I were to ask you, “How did Bruce Lee become Bruce Lee?”, chances are at least part of your answer would be that he worked at it. He trained hard. He trained relentlessly. He trained for years and years to become the best.

Now, if I were to ask you, “How did Mother Teresa become Mother Teresa?”, chances are you’d wax poetic about how she was born with this amazing heart and inner dedication to service. You’d say how she had a nearly mythical level of compassion. And, while that may be true, you’d be ignoring one of the most impressive things that made Mother Teresa who she was: she worked at it. Every day, even days when her bones were weary and her spirit tired, even days when she doubted there was a God, she got up and she served people. She kept showing up. She trained, for years and years, to be a compassionate, open-hearted person. And the world is better for it.

Here’s my theory: I have a sneaking suspicion that when we think about what it means to be centered and wise, compassionate and kind, peaceful and joyful, we act as if we’re either blessed with these gifts at birth, or not. We treat these traits like they’re magical fairy gifts, bestowed at random to some people while the rest of us are resigned to go without. We know Bruce Lee had to train for decades, but we assume Mother Teresa was just born that way.*

And yet, every spiritual master across traditions and time will tell you the key is practice. It’s about showing up and working on it, day after day. The truth is, being a soulful, centered person has always required being intentional about how we live our lives, what we value, and where we put our focus.

Inner harmony is never going to happen naturally in the chaos of our modern, frantic lives. It’s not going to arrive via express delivery to your porch. You don’t become someone who keeps cool during a heated argument magically overnight, any more than you leave all anxiety behind forever after just one nature hike. Being human doesn’t work that way. And being a centered human is the result of practice, setbacks, perseverance, mistakes, hit-and-miss intuition, and plain old tick-tock time.

So here’s the crazy conviction behind Soul Ninja: it’s possible for us to become better humans. That’s it. That’s the whole idea. With practice, we can become a better, truer version of ourselves. And when we do, we will feel more fully alive and more fully at peace. And when we feel more alive and at peace, we bring that gift to everyone and everything around us, and the world becomes a better place, too.

If you’re wondering what any of this has to do with the ninja, you may be surprised to learn that the word ninja literally means “one who endures.” In Japanese, nin is illustrated as the symbol for blade placed above the symbol for heart. “Heart” here means far more than your emotions; it’s the center of your life-force, your soul, your innermost essence. So the way of the ninja, the way of endurance, is the act of living centered in your heart/soul/life even when a blade is hanging right above you.

It’s sad that we’ve allowed pop culture to limit our admiration for the ninja to physical strength and some general sense of rogue badassery (which, don’t get me wrong, is awesome). But here’s what’s most impressive: they cultivated stable minds, showed unbelievable adaptability, and stayed grounded in their own intuition. Can you imagine what your life could be like if you developed those three qualities?

If you want to learn how to face the uncertainties, fear, and anxieties of life with clarity, composure, and strength, you won’t find a better guide than the ninja. And if you want to get clear on what’s most important to you and what you most need to be doing with this one precious life you have, you won’t find a better guide than your soul. The soul is the place where the unity of body, mind, and spirit is most powerfully present and most fully realized. The soul IS the unity, you see. Which is why being a soul ninja is about living toward that unity. It’s about leaning into the power of our own wholeness.

So, what’s a soul ninja? A soul ninja walks the path of human life bravely and with an open heart by moving toward inner harmony through mindful living. A soul ninja is committed to showing up in the world in ways that are compassionate, beautiful, and kind.

To begin your journey, you only need one thing. You don’t need to be “good at it,” you don’t need to be “born that way,” you don’t even need to know how or where to start. The only thing you need is practice. You have to walk the path, and keep walking it. The rest will come. (Much of the rest you can’t control anyway.) But the primary and most important thing you have within your power is to show up, and to keep showing up.

That’s it. It’s not easy, but it couldn’t be more simple. Just show up. Just keep walking.

Nobody becomes a soul ninja overnight. But anybody can become a soul ninja with time.

I don’t need to convince you (or probably even remind you) that we live in a society driven by division and distraction. If we don’t decide to be intentional about our life, it’s never going to happen. We will wake up one day at the end of our lives wondering how we got here and why we didn’t focus more on what really matters. Because here’s the truth: what you do shapes who you become. And who we become shapes the world we live in, and the world we leave for those who come behind us.

Soul Ninja is here to help you learn to live not from the fringes of your frustration but the center of your soul. In a world filled with chaos, conflict, and confusion, being a soul ninja is the art of learning how to transform all that energy into goodness, soul-force, and love. It’s learning how to be a positive presence in order to make a positive difference. And that journey begins by cultivating harmony in ourselves.

But it’s going to take practice. And much of that practice will be beautiful and encouraging and amazing. Much of it will also be uncomfortable and even hard. I’m convinced it’s worth it, for one simple reason:

Imagine what the world would be like if we all showed up.

Xo,

Danielle

*It has come to my attention that Ethan Nichtern wrote an article where he says the same thing about Michael Jordan and Mother Teresa. While I wrote this before I knew Ethan, it is a wonderful moment of synchronicity. I respect Ethan enormously and he has been a Buddhist mentor and meditation teacher to me personally for years. I highly encourage you to read his work and follow him at www.ethannichtern.com.