Tonight we discuss the Cherokee parable of the two wolves.
Which one do you feed? The answer seems obvious - the good one.
If you describe these two wolves to a parent as two children, and tell that parent - these are both your children. Which one will you feed? The answer is obvious - both.
These two wolves represent a fragmentation of your inner self. If you feed one and starve the other, the other becomes the "other". It becomes justified in its anger and lashing out at the world. Love really is the answer, the cure, the healing. You have to treat that wolf with the same compassion you would treat an actual child, your angry embittered child. We are all born whole and intact. So then the question really is - how did one intact soul become fragmented? What tore you apart? How did these wolves get created?
I am a survivor of child sexual abuse and very public about this history that is part of my present because it is carried within. As many people have discovered, one of the things that makes a person a survivor is the ability to cope, and one of the coping mechanisms of surviving sexual abuse is dissociation. The mind disconnects from the body. As I experience it today, sometimes my heart disconnects from my pelvis and lower body. I don't feel much, and the numbness causes rage and grief within me. It also causes a lot of energy stagnation and illness and chronic lower back pain. When I am in rage about the numbness, it is a mighty struggle (and fucking infuriating to even try at times) to love the numbness and to love the rage as much as I love other things about myself.
I don't believe in dichotomizing anything or anyone. I don't believe there are two wolves. What makes us human is our incredible capacity to feel, and what causes struggle is our inability to reconcile seemingly contradictory feelings. The mind intervenes with sensation. We simply feel what we feel. There are no whys necessary (though I do spend plenty of time on the whys) in order to notice the feelings and pay attention to what we need now. We actually don't need to know why to respond promptly and tenderly. And we do need to respond to our own needs and to all that causes us to fragment - paying attention is the beginning of resisting fragmentation, or even noticing what's causing it.
I don't believe in good and bad. I believe that all people are born into a set of circumstances they didn't choose, and shaped by history as much as the current social, political, familial environments we are raised in. Each of us is a unique soul on a journey. In this life, we have a purpose and some core struggles. One of the things about the spiritual circumstance we are born into is that each of us has also inherited our own unique struggle. It's the thing that our soul needs to learn, that we can't evolve from unless we learn to do it differently. Have you ever found yourself in a recurring situation - abusive job, relationships with people who take your for granted or take advantage of your kindness, inability to get along with your coworkers or your family members....? There's something there. Recurring patterns are a sign of our path - the thing we need to learn. It's your own special wolf :)
I'm not saying that I don't want to be the "good" wolf. I do, all the time. I know that's the point of meditation and spirituality and all that "good" stuff :) I'm saying - we all have a natural state and a created state, and each of us has the power and potential to be good. But unless we can love the bitter, hurt, wounded pieces within our own selves, how are we going to love and accept them in others? How are we going to co-exist? How are we going to cultivate goodness if we cannot cultivate compassion for our own lacks? I don't say this as someone who succeeds all the time, but I do say it as someone who believes all the time, and tries.
If the wolves battle it out, you're creating violence within yourself and it doesn't really matter which one lives or dies. The key is to stop seeing them as separate. By polarizing their goodness and badness, we fragment ourselves. I do things at times that I know will harm me - like walking too much today after being home in bed for 4 days. (It hurts like a..... lemme tell you) A common one for a lot of people is around food - eating what they feel like will not serve them how they want to nourished. I do that too. But I try not to say "I was bad today". I hold on to my goodness for dear life, and in that belief, am reminded of the inherent goodness, and struggle, that each of us lives daily.
Love your wolf. Love it so hard that it becomes a puppy! The anger that has been a healthy alarm bell will have room to be loud, the self-doubt will have room to be heard, the resentment will tell the story of wounds unnoticed until then. When you have loved the hell out of your "bad" side, you will recognize its truth. All these things happened and were real and hurtful. Give witness and validation to your self. And to others too. Every feeling is valuable and is telling a part of our story. Honoring the painful ways our living shapes us, allows the wounds to rise to the surface and see the light. In the light, all is okay, all is healed by (self-)acceptance (first).
Which one do you feed? The answer seems obvious - the good one.
If you describe these two wolves to a parent as two children, and tell that parent - these are both your children. Which one will you feed? The answer is obvious - both.
These two wolves represent a fragmentation of your inner self. If you feed one and starve the other, the other becomes the "other". It becomes justified in its anger and lashing out at the world. Love really is the answer, the cure, the healing. You have to treat that wolf with the same compassion you would treat an actual child, your angry embittered child. We are all born whole and intact. So then the question really is - how did one intact soul become fragmented? What tore you apart? How did these wolves get created?
I am a survivor of child sexual abuse and very public about this history that is part of my present because it is carried within. As many people have discovered, one of the things that makes a person a survivor is the ability to cope, and one of the coping mechanisms of surviving sexual abuse is dissociation. The mind disconnects from the body. As I experience it today, sometimes my heart disconnects from my pelvis and lower body. I don't feel much, and the numbness causes rage and grief within me. It also causes a lot of energy stagnation and illness and chronic lower back pain. When I am in rage about the numbness, it is a mighty struggle (and fucking infuriating to even try at times) to love the numbness and to love the rage as much as I love other things about myself.
I don't believe in dichotomizing anything or anyone. I don't believe there are two wolves. What makes us human is our incredible capacity to feel, and what causes struggle is our inability to reconcile seemingly contradictory feelings. The mind intervenes with sensation. We simply feel what we feel. There are no whys necessary (though I do spend plenty of time on the whys) in order to notice the feelings and pay attention to what we need now. We actually don't need to know why to respond promptly and tenderly. And we do need to respond to our own needs and to all that causes us to fragment - paying attention is the beginning of resisting fragmentation, or even noticing what's causing it.
I don't believe in good and bad. I believe that all people are born into a set of circumstances they didn't choose, and shaped by history as much as the current social, political, familial environments we are raised in. Each of us is a unique soul on a journey. In this life, we have a purpose and some core struggles. One of the things about the spiritual circumstance we are born into is that each of us has also inherited our own unique struggle. It's the thing that our soul needs to learn, that we can't evolve from unless we learn to do it differently. Have you ever found yourself in a recurring situation - abusive job, relationships with people who take your for granted or take advantage of your kindness, inability to get along with your coworkers or your family members....? There's something there. Recurring patterns are a sign of our path - the thing we need to learn. It's your own special wolf :)
I'm not saying that I don't want to be the "good" wolf. I do, all the time. I know that's the point of meditation and spirituality and all that "good" stuff :) I'm saying - we all have a natural state and a created state, and each of us has the power and potential to be good. But unless we can love the bitter, hurt, wounded pieces within our own selves, how are we going to love and accept them in others? How are we going to co-exist? How are we going to cultivate goodness if we cannot cultivate compassion for our own lacks? I don't say this as someone who succeeds all the time, but I do say it as someone who believes all the time, and tries.
If the wolves battle it out, you're creating violence within yourself and it doesn't really matter which one lives or dies. The key is to stop seeing them as separate. By polarizing their goodness and badness, we fragment ourselves. I do things at times that I know will harm me - like walking too much today after being home in bed for 4 days. (It hurts like a..... lemme tell you) A common one for a lot of people is around food - eating what they feel like will not serve them how they want to nourished. I do that too. But I try not to say "I was bad today". I hold on to my goodness for dear life, and in that belief, am reminded of the inherent goodness, and struggle, that each of us lives daily.
Love your wolf. Love it so hard that it becomes a puppy! The anger that has been a healthy alarm bell will have room to be loud, the self-doubt will have room to be heard, the resentment will tell the story of wounds unnoticed until then. When you have loved the hell out of your "bad" side, you will recognize its truth. All these things happened and were real and hurtful. Give witness and validation to your self. And to others too. Every feeling is valuable and is telling a part of our story. Honoring the painful ways our living shapes us, allows the wounds to rise to the surface and see the light. In the light, all is okay, all is healed by (self-)acceptance (first).
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