Anger and the two wolves
I was speaking with a client recently about an internal struggle she was having with her thoughts and feelings around a situation she’s dealing with right now. She is a caring and compassionate woman to others but finds it hard to be caring and compassionate to herself. Maybe we can all relate to that, hey?
‘And where do you feel that anger?’ I ask
She feels herself getting hotter and more uncomfortable by the second. This is going nowhere. She can’t feel anger. She’s not allowed to feel angry. Anger is for mad people and bad people. It’s scary and dark. What happens if she lets it out?? Will she ever be able to stop it?
‘I don’t know’. She replies
‘And what are you afraid of feeling if you allow your anger to be there?’ I ask.
‘I’m afraid of its power and what it can do’, she says quietly.
I was speaking with a client recently about an internal struggle she was having with her thoughts and feelings around a situation she’s dealing with right now. She is a caring and compassionate woman to others but finds it hard to be caring and compassionate to herself. Maybe we can all relate to that, hey?
There was a fear around saying no, not being there for others in the way she’s always been. She was angry with herself for feeling that way and felt guilty for being angry. An internal battle had commenced and as she spoke, I could sense the discomfort as she struggled with this part of her, the part that wanted to say no and look after her for a change. The compassionate carers in our family and circle of friends are generally also the people that find it hardest to place boundaries around their own time and energy. They give and give, often to the point of exhaustion. More on why that might be in a later post.
The old parable of the two wolves
And as we talked it reminded me of the old parable of the two wolves. I asked her if she’d ever heard the story, and she had not. The story was first told to me by a Psychotherapist I was seeing at the time, and it resonated deeply.
Whilst searching for the story I realised I’d never heard the second part, and wow, did it make more sense now! I was blown away by the depth and the truth and by how much sense it made of feelings we may not allow ourselves to feel.
Before I explain why, here’s the story of the two wolves:
An old Cherokee Indian chief was teaching his grandson about life.
He said, "A fight is going on inside me, it’s a fight between two wolves. The Dark one is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, drama, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego."
He continued, "The Light Wolf is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you…and inside of every other person on the face of this earth.”
The grandson ponders this for a moment and then asked, "Grandfather, which wolf will win?" The old Cherokee smiled and simply said, "The one you feed".
Pretty deep, right?
I’ve always thought that the wolf you choose to feed will define who you are and how you experience life. Every day we make choices, choosing which thoughts, emotions and behaviours we will feed with our energy, attention and focus.
Based on this version of the story it seems that we should only feed the Light wolf. But of course, we don’t always do that. And more importantly if we did, what happens to the Dark wolf we neglect? Do we listen to the loud roars of the Dark Wolf as if we have no choice, or do we ignore him altogether, pretending he isn’t there – suppressing and avoiding the emotions he howls.
Upon reading the second part of the story it began to make more sense:
The story continues like this...
The old Cherokee replied, “If you feed them right, they both win.”
“You see, if I only choose to feed the Light wolf, the Dark wolf will be hiding around every corner waiting for me to become distracted or weak and jump to get the attention he craves. He will always be angry and will always fight the Light wolf.”
“But if I acknowledge him, he is happy, and the Light wolf is happy, and we all win. For the Dark wolf has many qualities — tenacity, courage, fearlessness, strong-willed and great strategic thinking–that I have need of at times. These are the very things the Light wolf lacks. But the Light wolf has compassion, caring, strength and the ability to recognize what is in the best interest of all.”
“You see, son, the Light wolf needs the Dark wolf at his side. To feed only one would starve the other and they will become uncontrollable. To feed and care for both means they will serve you well and do nothing that is not a part of something greater, something good, something of life.”
“Feed them both and there will be no more internal struggle for your attention. And when there is no battle inside, you can listen to the voices of deeper knowing that will guide you in choosing what is right in every circumstance.”
“Peace, my son, is the Cherokee mission in life. A man or a woman who has peace inside has everything. A man or a woman who is pulled apart by the war inside him or her has nothing.”
“How you choose to interact with the opposing forces within you will determine your life. Starve one or the other or guide them both.”
Quite the plot twist, isn’t it?
If we only view the Dark wolf as bad, we ignore the emotions and behaviours that he embodies, and they also become bad. We may feel shame around those emotions and repress them into the darker depths of ourselves. If we only feed the Light wolf we may become the giver with no boundaries. The ‘positive vibes only’ types who dismiss their true needs.
But what if we see the best in both wolves? What if we honour them both as having valid stories to tell?
Getting curious
When we get curious about both the light and the dark, we honour, feed and nurture all parts of us and as a result we step into a more empowered, authentic space. We are a whole human being after all: angry, joyful, caring, powerful, with needs of our own. We need to honour both our wolves to thrive.
What about you? How do you perceive these two versions of the story? And which wolf have you been feeding lately? If you are starving one, and over feeding the other, maybe it’s time to show love and compassion to all parts of you. Nurturing each and every part that wants to be seen and heard.
Either way, one important fact remains, what you feed and what you neglect matters.
Using Transistor's embeddable podcast player, you can embed your podcast on your existing website in a variety of ways. Embed a playlist of episodes, your most recent episode, or feature a specific episode from your backlog. Here are some examples of how you can customize Transistor's embeddable podcast player.
You can also customize the colors of your embeddable player to match your brand or website. From your show's settings page, you can save the default colors for your embedded players. Need to override the colors for an embed? You can do that too. Simply add color=and/or background= parameters to the embed URL to override your defaults.