You know that old story about having two wolves inside - one good and one evil? And the grandfather tells his grandson that the two wolves fight all the time? In the myth, the grandson asks which one wins. And the grandfather says, 'the one you feed'. The myth is supposed to be Native American but is actually a story Billy Graham told to promote good vs. evil. Well, that story is in my head today.
Moving beyond the murky and very questionable origins of the story and the concept of good vs. evil, I'm struggling with the concepts of choice today and the profound implications of making changes in my life.
I saw this quote today:
Everything in your life is a reflection of a choice you have made. If you want a different result, make a different choice.
I don't know who to attribute that quote to, but it resonates with where my life is at the moment.
I am trying to make choices in a more mindful way. I am constantly amazed at how difficult that can be. How scary it is at times to choose something out of my comfort zone. For me, my two wolves aren't evil and good, that is too black and white. For me, my two wolves are complacency and courage.
Making a choice to listen to my heart takes courage. It takes courage to eat the healthy dinner not the comfortable one. Those two wolves fight inside of me all the time. It is easy to 'rest' in anger, or be complacent in habits that only give the illusion of comfort.
But the courage it takes to make those harder choices is sometimes out of my reach.
I want to honor myself. I want to honor the emotional, physical and spiritual core of who I am. And each choice I make allows me to feed one of my two wolves - courage or complacency.
Someone I love told me about the 4 levels of competence.
As an example, in my childhood I learned that love was earned. It was not freely given, it was something I only deserved if I worked for it. If I just did enough, if I just gave enough, if I just tried hard enough, I would earn it. If I was struggling - I just needed to give MORE. That would fix it. In a very unconscious way, I meandered through life - consistently disappointed I could not do enough to earn love. In general, I didn't get angry or blame others when things didn't work out, I got angry at myself, but didn't see the pattern in my choices. When I met Candace, she taught me that in friendship, love wasn't earned - it was shared. It was freely given - even when it hurt, even when it seemed too hard, it wasn't taken away when things got difficult. It didn't depend on me being 'good enough'. Love was love. I moved from unconscious incompetence to unconscious competence over time - weeding out friendships and people in my life that demanded more from me than I was capable of giving. It was a slow process, but over time I realized what friendship meant. Candace taught me and for that I will be forever grateful.
But the reality is, that simply because I know how to make different choices in ONE piece of my life, doesn't mean it applies to others. Without realizing it, that pattern of trying to earn love continued in my life. Not in my friendships, but in other areas.
I find myself having to relearn that lesson all over again. That is how powerful complacency is. Change is hard work. It is continual. And it is easy to feed complacency. Complacency gives me a sense of comfort - even as its corruption eats away at my foundation.
Letting go of anger, letting go of fear, letting go of childhood patterns is hard. Those patterns were developed for a reason. They protected the heart.
I took a risk this week to shift a pattern in my life. I stepped out of complacency. It was scary. It was incredibly hard. I tried to do it with courage and grace, but I'm not sure I managed that. And I do not know what the outcome will be. Because when you make a change, you are not the only one involved in it. Patterns developed with others also have to evolve. Sometimes you come to a whole new level of connectedness. And sometimes that isn't possible.
So I'm tackling moving from complacency to change. I am making the choice to live my life in a more mindful way.
I am working hard to feed the wolf of change.
I'm working to choose courage.
One bite at a time.
MaryKate
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