Story of Two Wolves
Apr 01, 2023If you're anything like I was, whenever you say to yourself, “I want to be my own boss”, there's a voice in your head that says, “You can't be your own boss. Who do you think you are?”
You have a battle going on inside your brain. It’s a battle between your heart's desires and your dreams and the negative judgmental part of your brain that says you can't do it.
The best way to illustrate this battle between parts of your brain is with the Story of Two Wolves. Here’s how the story goes…
An old Cherokee grandfather was teaching his grandson the facts of life. He said to his grandson, “Grandson, there is a battle going on in my head. It is between two wolves. The bad wolf is anger, fear, anxiety, stress, resentment, shame, guilt. The good wolf is love, compassion, acceptance, gratitude, curiosity, and creativity.”
The grandson thought for a moment and then he said, “Grandfather, which wolf will win the battle?”
The grandfather replied, “The one you feed.”
This story illustrates the battle that's going on inside your brain, inside my brain, inside all of our brains. We have been feeding our bad wolves for a very long time. What “feeding our bad wolf” means is that we spend most of our time thinking negative thoughts and feeling negative emotions. Self-judgment. Self-criticism. Self-doubt. Judgment of others.
That has been our mode of thinking for a very long time. Our bad wolf is very well fed and very strong. Our good wolf is emaciated, starving, and weak.
We need to start feeding our good wolf. Just how do we do that?
I swear by the scientifically proven Positive Intelligence mental fitness training program. I was having a random conversation with a fellow member of my Toastmasters club in early 2022. He raved about a book he had just read. The book was Positive Intelligence by Shirzad Chamine. I went home and Googled Positive Intelligence and watched Shirzad’s TED talk by the author. I remember thinking, “Eureka! I have found the solution to my problems!”
I immediately applied for the six-week Positive Intelligence program for coaches. To my delight, I was accepted into the program that started on April 16, which happened to be my 69th birthday.
This program introduced me to the concept of the Saboteurs and Sage and the three mental fitness strategies, convinced me of the importance of daily mental fitness workouts, and dramatically improved my mental fitness.
Over the past year, as a result of working a program of mental fitness, I am feeding my good wolf. My good wolf is getting stronger and my bad wolf is getting weaker.
As a result, today, I spend far more time feeling grateful, happy, joyful, creative, and curious and far less time feeling depressed, stressed, anxious, overwhelmed, and unworthy.