Hi, I recieved this story in my inbox from ooffoo yesterday and really liking it decided to share it...
There's a wonderful story that has been attributed to the Native American Cherokee Indians. The story is about a boy who tells his grandfather that he is feeling very angry and upset. The grandfather explains to the boy that he too sometimes feels angry but also he often feels very happy. The grandfather says it is as if there are two wolves battling inside him. One is very angry, aggressive and acts out of fear. This wolf wants to fight all the time. The other wolf is happy, playful, and only wants to make friends and live in peace. But the two wolves are constantly battling inside. The little boy asks: which wolf wins?
And the grandfather replies: 'the one I feed'
Wonderful story! Thanks a lot! :)
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you like it! :-)
ReplyDeleteI love the imagery of having wolves inside me playing and growling at stuff!
This story is wonderful...:) I love it...beautiful, simple and true. I have never thought of my emotions that way....
ReplyDeleteIt is good isn't it!
ReplyDeleteEckhart Tolle in The Power of Now talks about the same theme of the emotions we experience the most being the ones we feed the most. He also mentions how when emotions arise they demand to be fed and how to aviod that by being aware.
Still, it is much better in a little story
Especially one with animals in it! :-)
Yeah, a good friend of mine sent me the link of your blog...and it looks really interesting...so wise...Do we feed our emotions, are they feeding on us...? I mean is that something we control? Or not? I mean how good can we control our emotions?
ReplyDeleteThank you!
ReplyDeleteYours is a very good question, and a very difficult one!
I think that as our emotions are part of us, if we are feeding them we are playing a part in creating how we will be in the present and the future. And I think we do feed them.
But I also think it is possible that emotions feed on us, they certainly can take over other parts of our personality. Also emotions such as mass hysteria or mob anger can take us over and we become wrapped up in the emotions of a crowd. But to say they are feeding on us would imply that they are separate too us, and that is a difficult concept to consider (though very interesting!). What are your thoughts on this?
As too whether we control our emotions, I think we can, though sometimes is is difficult and has more to do with levels of awareness than to do with trying to make them do what you want. I think that when we are more aware our emotions are in control less. I think that maybe this is part of humans developing, for example, can an angry dog become aware of its anger and so not act the anger out by barking or biting? I think not, but humans can, and the more they are aware the more they can.
Well those are my thoughts, what are yours?
Thank you for answering so quickly. At this hour i am not very creative, but I think that we are capable of having emotions which could be different of our "regular" feeling. Meaning that sometimes we can feel anger, hate, fear, joy, happiness, etc. with such an intensity we thought we were not capable of. I think we are feeding our regular feelings and our unusual emotions are feeding on us (i don't have a better word). Now it depends on what we classify as unusual (normal human beeings, normal feelings...normal limits). For example for an optimistic, happy person probably is unusual to be very depressed...and it would probably feel very exhausting, the person would feel powerless...becoming even more depressed. I don't know...does it make any sense?
ReplyDeleteSo you are saying that we have a certain set of emotions that are normal for us that we feed, but then also have more exteame or different emotions that feed on us?
ReplyDeletePersonally I think that is true in a way - I think normal emotions we are more in control of so it is us feeding them, whereas more extreame or different emotions are more powerful and so it is harder not to feed them so it will seem more like they are feeding on us.
But maybe it is through feeding a small emotion that it becomes bigger and leads to the unusual emotion.
Also I think that we can create what is normal for us, for example, we create whether we are optimistic or not. I'm not entirely sure where depression comes from, sometimes from bad things that happen, or from stress, or from loosing a path in life, or maybe other things. And sometimes there is feeding going on that we can change, but sometimes people find it very difficult to change that feeding. But really I don't know enough to say for definate
Emotions...very complicated thing to talk about.
ReplyDeleteYup!
ReplyDeleteHappy 15-year anniversary of this conversation!
ReplyDelete