The Bane of Fragility

Can it be a sign of life?

I take things too personally.

I’m good at reading people; at catching sight of what’s going on beneath the surface. I’m keen to nonverbal signals; posture, facial expressions, avoidance tactics - which was especially useful when standing in the narthex of the churches I served, surveying for someone in need of a listening ear. It was an extremely valuable asset when someone requested time to meet and discuss personal struggles.

In those counseling sessions, my prime directive was to help the person catch sight of who they really were, tease out what they wanted, and clarify who they would like to become. The mechanism was to listen carefully, using all the tools of perception at my disposal, to what they were saying, thinking, and, most importantly, feeling. I checked in to assure my assessment was on target. They confirmed that I was correct in my observations often enough for me to keep using the approach. There were times when I was wrong, which taught me to keep listening past my own conclusions.

The problem with those tools is that they were refined by a pathological need to be liked.

I learned to read people so that I could figure out what to say and do to please them, or at least not offend them. My oral rudder is rigid enough that I made no moral sacrifices of what I believed to be right and wrong while doing so, but I needed to be and be seen as a good person.

What complicated that task was a harsh reality.

“There lives in me two wolves…” the Cherokee legend goes…

The Tale of Two Wolves

ONE EVENING, AN ELDERLY
CHEROKEE BRAVE TOLD HIS
GRANDSON ABOUT A BATTLE THAT
GOES ON INSIDE PEOPLE.

HE SAID “MY SON, THE BATTLE IS
BETWEEN TWO ‘WOLVES’ INSIDE US ALL.
ONE IS EVIL. IT IS ANGER,
ENVY, JEALOUSY, SORROW,
REGRET, GREED, ARROGANCE,
SELF-PITY, GUILT, RESENTMENT,
INFERIORITY, LIES, FALSE PRIDE,
SUPERIORITY, AND EGO.

THE OTHER IS GOOD.
IT IS JOY, PEACE LOVE, HOPE SERENITY,
HUMILITY, KINDNESS, BENEVOLENCE,
EMPATHY, GENEROSITY,
TRUTH, COMPASSION AND FAITH.”

THE GRANDSON THOUGH ABOUT
IT FOR A MINUTE AND THEN ASKED
HIS GRANDFATHER:

“WHICH WOLF WINS?…”

THE OLD CHEROKEE SIMPLY REPLIED,
“THE ONE THAT YOU FEED”

What is a helpful tool in the one on one counseling setting can be a bane in other settings. At its core, my “bad” wolf is driven by fear. It often presents itself to me as anger, jealousy, and feelings of inferiority. The fear is the existential fear; I am not good enough, in fact I have no inherent value.

I do lots of things that have value, and I must do them or I will simply disappear.

My ability to read people is a bane when I read into what I see on their faces, judgment of me, disdain, or disapproval. The result is that I might be caricatured as having a thin skin. My “bad” wolf is encased in that thin skin. I can feel jealous or angry or hurt or guilty or inferior and settle into self-pity or shame at being so fragile. While I am reactive in that those feelings are immediate, I mask them and, to the degree I am able, I present a face that keeps them hidden from the casual observer. To be clear, I don’t suppress the feelings or pretend to myself that I don’t have them. While masking them I am strategizing whether or when to express the feelings.

I am aware intellectually that my feelings are my own. No one has the power to hurt my feelings unless I give them that power. The thin-skinned wolf doesn't know that. That wolf is ready to jump at the first sign of an attack whether it is intended as an attack or not. The time and space behind the mask is where and when a shitload of work is done processing the situation, feeling the feelings but not showing them, processing options for what to say or do next, whether it is worth the time and energy to respond at all. Being a functioning adult is so much work! The idyllic spontaneity of childhood is long gone.

Now to my reason for addressing this subject and using the far too frequently referenced two wolf story. I am not sure I want to tame the “bad” wolf. The bad wolf is alive and well. I feel the pain of that its bite. I have been bitten by it countless times, and still I can feel its nibbling teeth. It comes with being alive and vulnerable to other people. To tame it completely would demand maintaining a safe distance from others. Maintaining personal boundaries that clarify where we end and the other begins are necessary to allow each of us to be who we are as individuals. To stay far enough away to remove the possibility of feeling pain is to opt for the most profound state of loneliness. To allow the bad wolf to live, allows the good wolf and all the joy and peace and kindness and goodness and humility and compassion to thrive. Being alive is messy. For me fragility is one bit of evidence that I haven’t lost the ability to feel, I am still alive.

There is one other interpretation of the Two Wolves tale, and it goes like this:

(I’ll let you decide which is serving you.)

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, “If you feed them right, they both win. You see, if I only choose to feed the white wolf, the black one will be hiding around every corner waiting for me to become distracted or weak and jump to get the attention he craves. He will always be angry and always fighting the white wolf. But if I acknowledge him, he is happy and the white wolf is happy and we all win. For the black wolf has many qualities – tenacity, courage, fearlessness, strong-willed and great strategic thinking – that I have need of at times and that the white wolf lacks. But the white wolf has compassion, caring, strength and the ability to recognize what is in the best interest of all.

“You see, son, the white wolf needs the black wolf at his side. To feed only one would starve the other and they will become uncontrollable. To feed and care for both means they will serve you well and do nothing that is not a part of something greater, something good, something of life. Feed them both and there will be no more internal struggle for your attention. And when there is no battle inside, you can listen to the voices of deeper knowing that will guide you in choosing what is right in every circumstance. Peace, my son, is the Cherokee mission in life. A man or a woman who has peace inside has everything. A man or a woman who is pulled apart by the war inside him or her has nothing. “How you choose to interact with the opposing forces within you will determine your life. Starve one or the other or guide them both.”

The Destination is Now,

Peter