The story of the white wolf and black wolf is a great example of the battle for self-acceptance. The inner critic we hear in our mind can be very loud and persistent, believe it or not the function of the inner critic is supposed to help us learn and improve. The problem is we only hear the critic and ignore the supportive, positive voice. Unfortunately we are hard wired to listen to the negative because our minds are always listening for anything that might harm or threaten us, positive things are not a threat so no need to pay attention to them. This imbalance makes it hard to accept and love ourselves, the imperfections are the only things we seem to see and hear. This is very well illustrated by the story of the White and black wolf:
Black wolf White wolf
An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life:
“A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.
“It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil–he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.”
He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you–and inside every other person, too.”
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf will win?”
The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”
For all the reasons I have stated above the black wolf feeds itself with very little help form ourselves.
So how do we feed the white wolf? The best way to address and rebalance this is to work on noticing and feeling happiness and fulfilment in our life, don’t wait for these feelings to come to us but rather express love and acceptance to ourselves and others, this will trigger these feelings inside of us. We have to start treating ourselves as someone we love not someone we dislike, start from a place of self-compassion and self-forgiveness, make a commitment to forgiving ourselves and refuse to judge and condemn our self.
Food for the white wolf:
- Don’t wait for someone else to give us permission to feel happy, we give ourselves permission.
- Have the courage to show up as your true self, be real. It takes courage to be vulnerable.
- Stop comparing to everyone else, accept that you are good enough.
- You are imperfectly perfect, do not define yourself and live in fear that your basic human imperfections are somehow shameful.
- Live in the grace of one day, yesterday and tomorrow are time travel, today is the only now.
- Practice Compassion & forgiveness for yourself.
Start today and make the White wolf the Alpha