Which Wolf do You Feed?

“The Wolf that you give your attention to is the wolf that will lead you to your destiny.”

An elder was teaching his grandchildren about life. He said to them, “A fight is going on inside me. Its a terrible fight, and it’s between two wolves. One is full of fear, anger, envy, sorry, regret, arrogance, resentment and ego. The other wolf is filled with joy, peace, love, hope, kindness, friendship, compassion, generosity and faith. This same fight is going on inside of you too…and inside every person.”

The children thought about it for a moment ….the idea of two wolves fighting inside them too…and then one child asked his grandfather “Which wolf will win?” The old Cherokee simply replied, “Whichever one you feed”.

There is a wonderful lesson in this.

[From “Terrific Tips Newsletter” by Jurek Leon, January 2011]

Today I have been reflecting on the journey that desire for money and power and stuff takes we humans on.

Today I recover from a fraught month of helping to save my sister from the results of such a journey. She is now safely off that road and onto the journey of love and sharing which she continues to this day.

Today I see our financial world with different eyes than I did one month ago.

My sister has been saved from death by credit card. Several years ago she found herself very short of money because she wasn't able to work. When those brightly coloured brochures appeared in her letter box, promising interest-free money, she signed up. However, she is still short of money, much more so now, but those credit card providers (mostly the big banks) are adding more interest charges to her credit card accounts EVERY day! And last month they started threats of court appearances.

My sister had told them that she has no work, is on unemployment benefits while she looks for work, but to no avail.

So she faced total, utter ruin. Then she saw which wolves she had been feeding. My mother, my other sisters and I agreed that, now that she can see why it all went wrong, she needed to be saved. So we saved her and paid off the credit card accounts while she cut up every single plastic credit card.

Where were the credit card providers? Surely they could see that she was in deep, deep trouble. What she needed was counselling. But what they fed was the “fear” wolf.

I’m so glad for my sister’s sake that as a family we had the means to save her to create a life full of the “love” wolf.

Her “fear” wolf, fed so well by the credit card providers, has disappeared! And happiness has returned.

Wendy