The Wolf We Feed the Most

The Wolf You Feed the Mostn(Excerpt from an upcoming book, The Wolf You Feed the Most, by Cindy Stone)

There is a most wonderful story originating with the First Nations that circulates in various forms in books (I referenced it in my first, The Incidental Guru; Lessons in Healing from a Dog), on the internet , and in the oral tradition it is passed from person to person in meaningful conversations. The story goes like this...

A native elder is telling his grandson that he has two wolves that are fighting inside of him. One wolf is angry and mean and the other is gentle and loving. The grandson looks up at the elder and asks, “Grandfather, which one is winning?” The wise grandfather answers, “Which ever one I feed the most.”
For me this might be one of the best teaching stories that has ever been created, as it strikes at the very heart of love; love in a relationship, love for the self, for others, and for the universe. The simple words, “which ever I feed the most,” is incredibly profound.

We have all met people who seem infused with anger. We have all likely felt infused with anger at one time or another, unless you are a saint, so deeply depressed you can’t feel the anger seething under the skin, or you live in a bubble where nothing can touch you or hurt you. Likewise we have probably met someone who seems to exude positive attitudes and love. We naturally love those people (unless you are rather cynical or completely jaded and mistrust that anyone in this world could possibly be happy, let alone loving and kind. You may be a candidate for some serious reflection about which beast you feed the most!)
If we reflect on our own experiences we are likely to connect with the wise native story more fully and be able to understand its wisdom in its fullest. Think of a time when you were really upset about something. The more you thought about it, the more focused on what upset you, you become. The upsetting situation is played out again and again in your mind. If you don’t let it go, it could threaten to consume you with the intensity of negative feelings. Usually, this is how we work out something that is upsetting or angering to us. If we need to rectify an injustice then that process will deliver a solution such as; protesting, or talking to someone who “hurt” our feelings, etc.
But, if we continue on the path of replaying the situation; of focusing on our hurt and angry feelings, we generate deeper and deeper feelings of hurt, anger and revenge. We are then, feeding a very hungry beast indeed, and that will be what begins to emerge. An angry person that has little to no happiness, little to no inner peace, and little to no love to give. If you have met someone who nurtures their anger at others or the world and the real or perceived injustices inflicted upon them, you can recognize that it is quite challenging to be with them. You can experience their anger and conflict, and it is difficult to make a connection to them.

What about the rest of us who don’t necessarily “feed the beast” of anger, sco
and revenge. We might have to look a little deeply inside ourselves to find our own hungry beasts that we feed; the beasts of resentment, hurt and one of the most insidious, the critic. The critical beast is the one that we use to hurt ourselves or the ones closest to us. If we feed our critic, it grows exponentially and often without our conscious awareness.

One of my friends once called me to tell me she made an incredible discovery. She had become highly critical of her husband. She didn’t like that he spoke slowly and precisely, that he left his shoes in the hallway instead of the closet, that he wasn’t as highly ambitious as she was. She then said, it was a difficult path to come back from, but the path she was travelling was beginning to kill her love for her husband. So she began to focus on what she loved about him (feeding the love beast), and stopped focusing on things she could criticize him for (feeding the critical and often mean beast).
Anyone in a close relationship with a significant other knows the critical beast when it begins to feed. It can spiral out of control and devour any love that is in it’s way. It is one of the surest ways to destroy love that would otherwise continue to grow and deepen.

Often the critical beast will turn on its owner and attack it. This makes the owner of the beast feel inadequate, unworthy of love and depressed. It is only a matter of time before the critical beast turns its hate (you may think this word harsh, but what is the absence of love, if not hate) to someone else.
Now that we know how to recognize the beasts that generate anger, resentment and unhappiness instead of deepening our love and happiness, what can we do to feed our loving beast?

1. Become conscious of where you focus your thoughts and energies.
2. If you discover you are spending too much energy on critical or angry thoughts you need to analyze what you need to do. (Refocus might be all that is needed; sometimes we need to disengage from a toxic relationship; sometimes we are the ones bringing toxicity into our relationship by being highly critical and angry.)
3. If your personal critical beast is beating you up regularly, get some help to untangle the critic and free yourself from self-hatred. It is life-changing. Read books that help you to understand the critic. (The Incidental Guru; Lessons in Healing from a Dog, Debbie Ford’s books help and Scott Peck’s classic, “The Road Less Travelled.”)
4. Spend more time with positive, happy and loving people. Emulate positive, happy and loving people. You will begin to generate more positive feelings within, as you practice the art of happiness and you will become free of knee-jerk anger.
5. If newspapers and tv shows make you crazy with the state of the world. Avoid that which makes you overly focused and worried, depressed or angry. For some people it is too much to be constantly bombarded with negative messages.
6. Don’t pretend you have no anger or resentment if you legitimately do, it will only go underground , fester and become more difficult to unearth. Get some help to deal constructively with issues so that you can then turn your attention to feeding the loving beast that deserves to be fed the most.