War Or Peace – The Wolf You Feed

Many of you may have heard the old Cherokee story of how inside all of us there lives two wolves: The good wolf and the bad wolf. The story explains how these two wolves are involved in a lifetime struggle for supremacy within us. Of course we are ultimately asked, “Which wolf wins?” and the answer is, “The one you feed.”

As a member of the recovery community I have been involved with 12 Step work for over twenty years. People who learn to deal with their addictions become acutely aware of the two wolves. They didn’t mean to drink the rent money. They didn’t want to be violent. Without our even realizing it the bad wolf took over and, as life became progressively worse, it consumed everything near and dear to us, while the good wolf went hungry.

The bad wolf lives in a world of negative emotion which is primarily rooted in our ego. It feeds on fear, deceit, selfishness, and self-victimization.  The bad wolf will tell us anything in an effort to get fed. It rationalizes and justifies its insane behavior and the ego, which hates honest self-appraisal, does everything it can to avoid seeing the truth about itself.

Driven to the brink of destruction many die from their addictions. However, there are others who are granted a spiritual reprieve, often courteous of a 12 Step program. It is only by courageously facing the ego based insanity the bad wolf represents that those in recovery come to see they actually have a choice regarding which wolf eats.  Within a short time their new lives bear little resemblance to the past and many will tell you they go on to live lives beyond their wildest dreams. They have experienced a life-saving, spiritual reprieve from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body.

In 12 Step recovery we are introduced to our good wolf. The good wolf is starving because it lives on honesty, love, patience, and tolerance. In time, the good wolf grows, becoming healthy and strong, provided we continue to feed it. We are not saints and most of us continue to deal with enough negative emotion that the bad wolf continues to live inside us, but now we know we have a choice. We know, in the depths of our soul, which wolf to feed.

Now look at our world, our culture.

When I turn on the news these days I am often reminded of the voice of my ego from those years prior to recovery.  We are constantly bombarded by stories which create fear. The interesting thing about all of this is that we would never accept spending billions of dollars and sending our children off to war if we were not afraid. So which wolf is being fed? And who profits?

For the last 20 years not only have I been involved in recovery, but I have also had the opportunity to live and work all over the world, primarily the Middle East. What I have learned, first hand, is that the people of the world want peace. There is only one major problem with peace – there is no profit in it.

The good wolf is out there – starving! And the bad wolf, running on ego, is devouring everything in its path. It is always hungry and never satisfied.

But we now know we have a choice which wolf we feed. Embrace the truth. Develop a diet of love, patience, tolerance and honesty. Can we continue as we have? Isn’t it time we healed? Let’s send our corporate and political leaders of the world to rehab.