We experience peace, war, and conflict not only externally, in our relationships, but primarily within ourselves. When I look around, I cannot help but see the roughness, aggression, fear, anxiety, and pain that we often inflict upon ourselves. I realize that peace in our hearts and lives is related to how we are able to cope with our own vulnerability, sensitivity, setbacks, and also competitiveness, ruthlessness, success, and failure.
In one Native American legend, it is said that everyone has two wolves inside them, fighting. One is bright, just, peaceful, cheerful, generous, wise, and kind. And the other is dark, evil, angry, jealous, selfish, unpleasant. Do you know which of the wolves will win that fight within us? The one we feed the most. The one we believe in. It is the same with our emotions.
I love this story. We all occasionally allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by our own anger, self-pity, or other not-so-popular feelings and emotions. The dark wolf then manifests in all its beauty, and we have it within us. We all do. Even though we see it much more clearly in others. It represents our fears, distrust, frustration, feelings of being threatened, injustice, and disappointment, which awaken this dark warrior, and which we so desperately do not want to feel in today's world. Yet, they are a part of us. To deny one of them is to lose a significant part of our internal navigation system. Both wolves are extremely important for our lives, and that is why it is good to know them and tame them.
What about our feelings and emotions?
We do everything to feel good, to be well, or to get rid of bad feelings. So, what is more important than how we feel? What are we doing for it?
We go to work to secure ourselves, earn some money, and buy things that make us feel good. We buy the latest iPhone because we want to fit in with our colleagues or classmates, feel like part of a group, and be accepted.
We buy new clothes, suits, and accessories because we want to please our surroundings and get admiring looks, we want attention.
We drink alcohol, take pills, to shut down our negative thoughts, to numb the pain, to feel better.
We enter into relationships with other people to find understanding, support, and happiness.
We work hard to gain recognition, respect, and experience success.
We play games, read books, watch movies and series, just to forget about all our worries for a while and immerse ourselves in a completely different world, where we can be anyone.
We help those who are weaker, so that we can feel our own influence and power, the power that evokes in us a feeling of goodness and usefulness.
In short, we are chasing good feelings, wherever we can. We crave them. This has its dark sides, when we do not know the limits, the measure. We can easily become addicted to work, alcohol, drugs, food, or another person, and we suffer from the fear of losing something of that, of not being "good enough." We are all a little dependent on our good feelings, on each other, and we are willing to do almost anything to secure them and not lose them. The dark wolf is awakened, without us even realizing it.
How would you like to be able to set clear boundaries for yourself, while also building close and healthy relationships?
How would you like to have your own internal compass that shows you the way in important life crossroads or when you are experiencing confusion?
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In such cases, it is essential to explore and understand your emotions, both your "wolves," including the dark one, and what lies beneath them.
Discomfort and Loss of Certainty
Change, uncertainty, unpleasant, and negative emotions are an integral part of our agreement with life. They are as much a part of us as the pleasant, positive ones. No matter how hard we try, we cannot avoid these negative emotions. It's impossible! You can't have a meaningful career, an idyllic family, happy children and relationships, or make the world a better place to live, all without stress and discomfort, with just a smile on your face.
Imagine a manager, an entrepreneur, who has been working eighty hours a week for almost twenty years in the same position. She suddenly can't keep up with the pace and demands of her company and loses her job. At the very same moment, she realizes that she is competing for a new job with people who are half her age. How does she feel? The dark wolf comes to life, her existing certainties are shattered. This is precisely when it is good to have a trained dark wolf, because we are thrown out of our comfort zone, and our certainties are shaken at the very foundation.
What remains in such moments?
We get angry, we are upset, we swear, we blame ourselves, others, and the situation. We are furious. We cry, we feel sorry for ourselves, we despair. We drown in our feelings, which control and paralyze us. Many of us end up complaining about the unfairness of fate, the idiots around us, and the injustice of the world. But others eventually notice their emotions and realize: "What am I doing? How am I treating myself? Yes, I was fired, it was exhausting, they no longer appreciated me, but that's not the end of the world. I still have something to offer!" They look beyond these emotions, into their thoughts. Perhaps it's just not what they wanted, perhaps it's just what they expected, perhaps things are just different than they thought and planned. However, that doesn't mean the situation is unsolvable.
Our lives are never governed by our plans and expectations; they don't fit into a straight line and can't be calculated according to a mathematical equation (even though we might wish it). At any moment, something – as we already know – can derail us and surprise us. Even the best mathematician makes mistakes from time to time, or fails to take all variables into account. In any case, we have a whole range of other options and alternatives available. It's just that at that moment, despite all our ideas about how things should be "right," we simply don't see them.
What is difficult about our negative thoughts and feelings is that we treat them as facts. We believe them. Often, we believe everything.
What can we do about it?
Give your past bad experiences a new perspective.
Article published with the kind permission of the magazine Sféra