The War Within

 Have you ever had a war within – a situation where you had to choose from two vastly opposing courses of action?  Well, we have all had them (whether we want to admit it or not) and as a matter of fact we have them more often than we realize.  Social psychologists call this cognitive dissonance – where we carry conflicting beliefs, ideas and values etc.  To understand in the simplest form, consider the following proverb - A Cherokee grandfather sitting with his grandchildren told them, “In life there is a terrible fight taking place inside us - a fight between two wolves.  One is evil: he is fear, anger, envy, greed, arrogance, self-pity resentment, and deceit.  The other is good: he is joy, serenity, humility, confidence, generosity, truth, gentleness, and compassion.” A child asked, “Grandfather, which wolf will win?” The elder looked him in the eye. “The one you feed.”

What jumped out at me was the response – “The one you feed.”  How do we feed our wolves?  In my opinion, we feed them through our thoughts.  Our thoughts dictate our choices which manifest themselves in our speech, action and overall character.  Paul espoused this (more eloquently than I do) when he wrote to the congregation at Philippi, ^“Summing it all up, friends, I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse” (Philippians 4:8 – The Message).   If we feed the wolf (fill our minds) with noble thoughts, our resulting speech and actions would be polite, respectful and selfless.  Does this mean we will be perfect?  No, it simply means that even when we are wrong about something, our consciences are clear because we acted without an ulterior to hurt, belittle or bring down another.  When a wolf is fed purity, the host (person in whom it lives) will act from an authentic place of respect for others, including all living creatures.

Whereas, when the evil wolf is fed, we act sans care for the wellbeing of others, there is no justice with selfishness and greed running rampant among societies.  Why is it so easy to feed this wolf?  It is easier to feed because it takes into consideration only three people – Me, Myself and I – with no thought of how these actions will affect others.  Psychologist Carl Jung believed that the images of universal experiences contained in the collective unconscious are called archetypes.  He further identified three archetypes:

·         Persona – the mask or public face that we wear to protect ourselves.

·        Animus or Anima – both the biological and psychological aspects of masculinity and femininity (which coexists in both sexes).

·        Shadow – the most dangerous and powerful of the archetypes.  It is our dark side, thoughts feelings and actions that we tend to disown by projecting them outward.

Jung helped me to realize that when the good wolf is fed, you can be an authentic person with no need for a persona because people interact with what is presented to them. If we are always presenting a false self, people interact with us on a superficial level; and thus the cycle continues.  However, if I present a kind, gracious person to people (more times than not) our interactions would be more authentic.

So, whether you call the evil within you a wolf or a shadow – it is there.  Are you going to feed it?  I’m just thinking …