Within our world, at many different levels, I see the rise of hatred everywhere. I preceive it throughout our world in all the divisions, conflicts, and extremisms present. I observe it in our country as we struggle with the realities of COVID and climate change. I notice it in my professional work in the health care field as we deal with health care limitations and difficult clients. I witness it arising within myself when I feel judged or dismissed by others including palliative clients I visit in the community. Unless we come to understand the dynamics of our hatred and what is driving it, this hatred will someday consume and destroy us. In this blog, I want to explore the dynamic of hatred and how we can tame it with love. Last month at the Canadian Association of Spiritual Care Annual Meeting, I heard Little Brown Bear (Ernest Matton), a respected Metis elder, share a story of the two wolves similar to the following. “An old Cherokee Indian chief was teaching his grandson about life. He said, ‘A fight is going on inside me,’ he told the young boy, ‘a fight between two wolves. The Dark 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 Light Wolf 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 grandson…and inside of every other person on the face of this earth.’ The grandson ponders this for a moment and then asked, ‘Grandfather, which wolf will win?’” (//www.linkedin.com/pulse/which-wolf-you-feed-jean-michel-wu/) Then Little Brown Bear asked me directly in the Zoom video session consisting of 40 screens which caught me by surprise. “Gord, which wolf will win?” Thankfully, I knew this story and answered, “The one we feed.” The reason we have so much hatred evident in our culture is because more and more of us are feeding the Dark Wolf within us rather than the Light Wolf. Why is that? Within the Diamond Approach, which I have followed for 15 years, I have learned that hatred arises from our experience of powerlessness. Almaas, the founder of the Diamond Approach states it this way, “Hatred arises when you feel powerless, for it is an attempt to eliminate the frustration by annihilating it. You want to annihilate whatever problem you have, whatever is in your way, whether it is an inner or outer frustration. You want to make it disappear” (Spacecruiser Inquiry, pg. 328). I have found this connection between hatred and powerlessness quite profound. Think of all the ways we have experienced powerlessness during this time of COVID. Think of those who have gotten COVID and found themselves in hospital fighting for their lives and many times losing...and their families and friends who have supported them. Or the people who are living with long-haul COVID where they live with the affects of COVID for months, maybe even years. COVID has made all of these people powerless and so they will naturally feel hatred toward COVID. But the hatred connected to COVID goes far deeper than that. Think of all the businesses who have been affected, by COVID, who had to close their doors for months due to the health restrictions imposed by our government, and are only now beginning to open their doors and move slowly toward full operations. For some like the travel industry or office rental industry, it will be months, possibly years before their businesses return to normal. And how many people have lost wages due to their work places closing and now struggle to pay their mortgage or rent. All of these many people feel totally helpless, powerless. No wonder there is so much hatred toward government policies and health care restrictions and the science behind these rules, even though they are necessary. But the hatred is even more wide spread. Think of the powerlessness we felt, and still feel to some extent, in living with the existence of COVID. Our whole way of life in Canada was upended. And then the vaccinations finally came but not everyone wanted to take them for various reasons. Those who are against vaccines feel powerless as their jobs are threatened by government or business rules requiring all workers to be vaccinated. No wonder they feel hatred toward those creating, enforcing, and supporting these rules. And yet, those who are vaccinated feel helpless when anti-vaccers will not take the vaccinations. Their hope for a return to normal life is threatened. No wonder they feel hatred toward anti-vaccers. All because of powerlessness. Now COVID is just one source of powerlessness in our world, one reason why we feel so much hatred. But there are many other issues in our world and in life in general that are huge or beyond our personal control like:
But there is another dynamic tied to hatred that is often not recognized, and it is tied to the aboriginal teachings about the two wolves and which one we feed. Do you remember what the purpose of hatred is based on the Diamond Approach’s understanding? As I quoted earlier, hatred ...”is an attempt to eliminate the frustration by annihilating it.” Lets explore a simple way we often express hatred with the goal of removing that which frustrates us or threatens our sense of well being. This simple expression of hatred is also a common way we feed the Dark Wolf. How of many of you have experienced someone dismiss or ignore you, not take you seriously, or totally criticize something that you appreciated? Do you like such occurrences? No, we “hate” such experiences, at least I do. I use this word “hate” intentionally for that is exactly what I feel when someone dismisses me, but it turns out that this is a universal experience. We experienced that personal act of being dismiss as an act of hatred against us. When this happens, we have a choice to make based on the aboriginal tale. We can either feed the Dark Wolf or we can feed the Light Wolf. When we feed the Dark Wolf, we will express our hatred right back at the offender through dismissive conduct (bully behaviour, rejection, criticism, flippant comments) or in more subtle ways (ridicule about them with others, gossip, despising thoughts about them). Now, when I suggest to people that they are experiencing hatred, they often quickly deny it for hatred is seen as something no one should feel. It happened again this week when I suggested that a client was possibly experiencing hatred. He quickly denied it. He equated hatred with killing or abusing or bullying someone or structural oppression, like what we see in Israel where Jewish Settlers dismiss the legal rights and existence of Palestinians. However, that is hatred in its more severe forms. This is what happens to hatred when we feed our Dark Wolf for a long time. This denial dynamic is also what happens when we “hate” our experience of hatred. When we hate "hate", we deny its existence, and as a result, this hatred festers unconsciously underground within the psyche of our individual soul or our national soul. Over time, this hatred becomes more powerful and structured. Even then, when this hatred becomes more evident for outside people to see, the temptation within our culture is still to hate these acts of hatred, that is, to deny that these acts are as bad as other people think. I believe this denial is part of the dynamic right now around how hard it is for we, as Canadians, to own the acts of hatred that occurred within our nation's painful history with First Nations people. It is becoming clear what it means to feed the Dark Wolf. But what does it mean to feed the Light Wolf when we feel dismissed and notice hatred emerging within us? It means to “love” the feeling of dismissal and hatred. In reading this, you probably asking, “Gord, how can anyone "love" the feeling of rejection and the associated emotion of hatred?” Often, people reduce love to the feeling of love, but love is more than an emotion. Within the Christian tradition, the ground of all love is agape love, an unconditional God-like love, a love that keeps loving regardless of what is being loved. This means that true love cannot contain any rejection within it. To feed the Light Wolf is to practice this type of love with all our experiences of life including our experiences of being dismissed and the hatred that arises from them. To love our experience of hatred means to validate its existence for this hatred arose for some valid reason. One of the first things we will notice when we love hatred is that hatred arises from our experiences of powerlessness. So, if we want hatred to disappear, we have to address the dynamics that are making us feel powerless and others powerless. This connection between powerlessness and hatred has help me understand better some of the dynamics currently playing out around COVID in our country including those who are anti-vaccers. Seeing this connection to helplessness has caused me to extend more grace toward people who are expressing hatred in our world. I want to understand more the roots of the powerlessness behind their hatred. Many times the roots of their powerlessness has a long history to it within a person's life, a history that has its beginnings within childhood powerless experiences often involving trauma. Nurturing this Light Wolf means we seek to validate people and their experiences whenever possible, instead of dismissing them which is what happens if we feed the Dark Wolf. Here I have found the practice of “yes, and...” a helpful guide when interacting with someone I hold different views. In practicing this discipline, I first share ways I appreciate what they value but then add something that is important to me that I think could also be relevant to consider. I run across this connection between love and validation in many places in my work. This past month I have been digging deeper into Internal Family System (IFS), an evidence-based psychotherapy that helps people deal with past trauma in their lives. One of its principles is that every behavior, regardless of how bad or painful it is, is a coping tactic around trauma. In other words, every behavior, even cutting or suicide ideation, can be validated as a managing pattern around traumatic pain. It may not be the best coping approach now, but at one time in that person’s life when it first appeared, it was the best survival strategy available. In fact, that handling pattern may be why this person is still alive. Furthermore, IFS teaches that the validation of this behavior is key to the healing of this person’s painful traumatic past. No transformation is possible without this compassionate validation. Again, we see that validation is a key aspect of feeding the Light Wolf. How would our world change if we perceived people’s unhelpful behaviors, like rejecting authorities that demand people take vaccinations, in this same gracious light? While their managing tactics may be causing our culture much grief today, this coping pattern may have been a key survival strategy that made it possible for them to survive, maybe even thrive, despite their challenging past? It is only when we validate people’s experiences and coping patterns that understanding deepens opening the door for further transformation for all people involved, including ourselves. I just discovered today, as I was working on this blog, that there is a second Cherokee version of this two wolf fable. This version captures what it means to love our Dark Wolf inside of us. Instead of ending with the words, “The wolf you feed wins”, the Cherokee Chief says to his grandson, “If you feed them right, they both win” and then story goes on... The Grandfather continues, “You see, if I only choose to feed the Light wolf, the Dark Wolf 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 will always fight the Light Wolf.” “But if I acknowledge him, he is happy and the Light Wolf is happy and we all win. For the Dark Wolf has many qualities — tenacity, courage, fearlessness, strong-willed and great strategic thinking–that I have need of at times. These are the very things the Light Wolf lacks. But the Light Wolf has compassion, caring, strength and the ability to recognize what is in the best interest of all.” “You see, son, the Light Wolf needs the Dark 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” (//www.linkedin.com/pulse/which-wolf-you-feed-jean-michel-wu/). The next time you feel hatred arising within your heart, you have an important choice to make: do I feed the Dark Wolf or do I feed the Light Wolf? The truth is, as the second Cherokee teaches, that if you feed the Light Wolf properly, both the Light Wolf and Dark Wolf receive the love and validation they need, and thus they eventually become friends to each other working together in harmony.
Questions to Ponder: 1. What are the different ways you have felt powerless during this time of COVID? In what ways has that powerlessness caused you to experience and express hatred (dismiss those we disagree with, despised them, etc.)? 2. How have you fed the Dark Wolf within you? How has that led the Dark Wolf to become stronger within you? What are the different ways you reject or dismiss this experience of hatred within you, and cause it to go underground? 3. How have you fed the Light Wolf within you? When have you shown validation and love to the Dark Wolf part of you? How has that changed your experience of your hatred and those you tend to hate? What are the gifts that have arisen from your Dark Wolf part when it is fed with love and validation?
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