Compassion is our inner nobility, dignity and grace.
There’s a well known story about compassion:
One day an old Cherokee man sits down with his grandson to teach him about life. His grandson says to his wise grandfather:
“A fight is going on inside of me. It’s a terrible fight between two wolves.
One is evil – full of rage, jealousy, arrogance, greed, sorrow, regret, lies, laziness, and self-pity.
The other is good – he is filled with love, joy, peace, generosity, truth, empathy, courage, humility, and faith.
Which wolf is going to win, grandfather?
The old Cherokee simply replies, “The one you feed.”
REFLECT:
Which wolf do you feed with the most attention / time / energy in your life?
The compassionate practice is to heal your emotions by replacing the evil wolf with the good wolf.
APPLY:
Set an intention / goal to feed the good wolf.
With your personal style in mind, learn / create / practice ways to feed the good wolf and starve the evil wolf.
Some of my practices over the years have included visualization, journaling, affirmations,
For instance, when I was beginning my practice and still feeling a lot of anger, I tried visualization. When I tried to see the anger (deep red and rectangular), I spontaneously “saw” a huge pool in the sky above my left side, filled with anger from all humanity. A straw went from that huge pool into the top of my head, draining some of the pool into me. When I felt anger, it was fed and magnified by the huge pool in the sky. I tried to see the pool emptied, but it kept refilling.
So I changed the visualization to a pool of compassion. When I got angry, I “saw” the straw drain compassion into me until the anger was washed clear and clean.
In addition, I used the following practices to neutralize the evil wolf:
*writing long letters about my negative state, and then burning them while celebrating the release of all negativity.
*dancing out the feelings
To feed the good wolf, I used the following practices:
* keeping a gratitude journal, starting each day with 10 gratitudes.
* focusing on the positive
* this will have a good outcome
* I am grateful for this situation, even if I don ’t understand how it serves me yet
* writing and speaking positive affirmations
* I align with peace and harmony today and everyday in ease and grace and I am grateful
* eliminating judgmental and negative language from my vocabulary such as good, bad, right, wrong, awful…
* doing breath meditations
* inhale gratitude, releasing all else
* inhale peace and harmony, releasing all else
* inhale acceptance, releasing all else
* inhale joy, releasing all else
Of course, my practice that had the deepest impact was creating a personalized Change Your Mind recording for each “evil wolf” situation I experienced – with release and forgive statements for all aspects of the situation.
APPLY:
Find your own way to walk with the good wolf and release / neutralize the evil wolf
