which wolf are you feeding?
finding your power by focusing on what you want
choice is power
as a student of mental health counseling, one of the core underlying mechanisms for successful therapy is bringing awareness to people’s choice.
emphasizing mindfulness of the here & now is how therapists get clients to recognize their choice in each moment; because choice is where our power is.
misspent power means the waste of valuable cycles beating around the bush of our true desires.
today i want to present why you should focus on what you want, rather than what you don’t want.
this simple precept gently accompanies choice; acting as the true north of the spiritual compass towards peace, joy, and equanimity.
the cost
without keeping this in mind, we may be incurring an irreparable cost.
for example, when adventuring outdoors, if i’m using a map to reach a destination, i don’t spend time marking and exploring the trails that don’t get me there. i simply continue to focus on how to get to my destination.
if i don’t want to fail school, i don’t spend time preparing for failure by looking at jobs “just in case” i fail. i spend time studying harder. i spend time and energy towards what i do want. i go all in.
focusing on what you don’t want usually leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy, because what we focus on thrives.
the two wolves
there’s a ancient Cherokee legend that depicts this.
it describes an elder passing wisdom to a young listener; the elder describes a battle between two wolves within one’s self, using the battle as a metaphor for inner conflict. when the listener asks which wolf wins, the grandfather answers "whichever one you feed".
to me, this points at a universal law in life that says energy (or food in this metaphor) can be spent one of two ways; towards good or evil, building or destruction, and growth or decay.
when we utilize choice in each ever-changing moment, we get to decide what thrives.
no easy way
paradoxically to me, both wolves lead to the hardships of growth, there is no actual easy way.
“Marriage is hard. Divorce is hard. Choose your hard.
Obesity is hard. Being fit is hard. Choose your hard.
Being in debt is hard. Being financially disciplined is hard. Choose your hard.
Communication is hard. Not communicating is hard. Choose your hard.
Life will never be easy. It will always be hard. But we can choose our hard. Pick wisely.”Unknown
if there is no easy way, then feeding the wolf of what we don’t want doesn’t make sense.
giving energy to what we don’t want fuels fear, anger, greed, and creates shows like Doomsday Preppers.
we burrow into safety, robbing ourselves of actual life before someone else does.
dare to dream
so why not take the risk of dreaming, envisioning a better world, and acting towards it; spending our limited time and energy on creating something new rather than preparing for total disaster?
these past few weeks i’ve been reading Nonviolent Communication (NVC) by the great Marshall B. Rosenberg, PhD.
in the book, there’s a section on how to help others meet your needs by making requests using positive action language (PAL).
boiled down, this means asking for what you want, rather than what you don’t want.
MBR uses a cheeky example to emphasize the importance:
when a couple attended a NVC workshop, the wife asked her husband to “spend less time at work”, and was dismayed to hear him announce a few weeks later he had listened to her by signing up for a golf tournament!
she asked him not to spend time at work, because what she really wanted was for him to spend an evening at home once a week with her and their children.
when you know what you need, you bring clarity to others of how to meet your needs.
beware
but buyers beware: focusing on what you want comes with grasping.
wanting or grasping is one of the three buddhist poisons, and as the Stoic Hecato says, hope and fear are the same, “They are projections into the future about things we do not control. Both are the enemy of this present moment that you are actually in.”
conclusion
so do not become attached to the hope or the fear; simply act instinctively from the here and now, reveling in the cosmic dance with reality.
we have limited time and energy on this rock hurling through space, so why waste a drop of lifeblood on what we don’t want.
i dare to dream.
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?” - Mary Oliver