“Beware the stories you read or tell; subtly, at night, beneath the waters of consciousness, they are altering your world.” - Ben Okri
As the story goes, an old Cherokee man explained to his grandson that there were two wolves battling within him: one was full of anger, envy, and sorrow, while the other embodied joy, peace, and love. “It can be hard, because both wolves try to dominate my spirit.” The grandson asked, “Which wolf will win?” His grandfather replied, "The one you feed."
Sometimes, my irritable wolf gets very fat, indeed.
It’s not uncommon for a therapy client to sit down after a few months of working through whatever brought them in for help and lament, “I don’t really have anything to talk about today.” This is always a wonderful opening in my eyes.
It’s common to race our beings into one catastrophic repair after another, rather than investing the sincere time and effort in ways of being that change the trajectory.
Too often, we live from fire to fire. This way of surviving tends to be self-manifesting, rooted in trauma. It’s also culturally normalized in much of the world. We tend to hide our greatest burdens behind stoic productivity until a full meltdown insists on our attention. In the midst of a great loss or major diagnosis, we praise the walking wounded for being so “strong.”
When there is no crisis to tend to, we can finally redirect our resources to the subtle, everyday work of liberating ourselves from self-fulfilling beliefs.
Back to our inner wolves: why so angry, jealous, or melancholy? The Cherokee parable is essentially a children’s story of parts work. That angry wolf isn’t evil, it’s terribly protective. While we can all likely point to a regrettable breaking point when we fed our entire lives or a whole child to that wolf, most of the time, that inner protector is growling in the background. These microaggressions toward ourselves, others, and life in general become an insidious status quo narration, coloring our reality.
When someone merges unceremoniously in front of me in traffic while I am late for an appointment, which wolf is narrating?
If my hopes for the day are thwarted by a string of unexpected chores and interruptions, what is my default story?
When a loved one fails to check-in while I am going through a hard time, or to celebrate when I’ve accomplished something significant, which wolf do I feed?
Now, presume that in each scenario you are sleep-deprived, overwhelmed, and hungry.
We all turn into a snarling or apathetic beast at a certain breaking point. The aim isn’t to be superhuman. The bigger question is: When there is no crisis, which wolf is winning?
Am I living in a hyperaroused state of defensiveness due to trauma, overwhelm, neglect, and/or sheer habit?
We have the capacity to create a wide window of tolerance for discomfort. In other words, we can develop the nearly-superhuman ability to calmly and even pleasantly move through bad traffic while hungry, and even change a flat tire when the need arises, without waking the beast.
Depending on the depth and recency of any wounds your angry wolf is guarding, it can take a lot of intentional and continual practice to open that window and maintain that spaciousness.
The compassionate and curious observation of our inner (and sometimes out loud) narration of our lives can open our eyes to the severity of what has become second nature while also feeding the loving, empathic and encouraging wolf.
As with any automatic habit, such as cursing, saying the word “like,” or rushing to every appointment a bit late, once we are aware, we can then take proactive steps to interrupt those slick neural pathways with desired reframes that reinforce new ways of feeling, thinking, and responding to stressful stimuli.
May the loving wolf win.
“The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset. This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives.”
― Carol Dweck
Authoring Beauty Practices:
Paid subscribers can join me on a deeper journey to embody each week’s lessons through poetry, writing prompts, and intentional practices.
Are you a mental health professional? Reach out for full access at no cost. It’s a small way I can support our shared community.
Find this week’s Authoring Beauty Practices here.