Please Don’t Feed the Fears

You’ve probably heard the old Native American parable about the two wolves, but in case you haven’t, here it is in a nutshell. A Cherokee grandfather is teaching his grandson about life. He tells him that there are two wolves having a big fight within him. One is fear, with attendants like anger, resentment, guilt, envy and regret. The other is love, accompanied by friends like peace, compassion, kindness and truth. The boy asks which wolf will win. The grandfather says simply, “The one you feed.”

Fear has been sneaking up on me in a big way lately. Sometimes I don’t even realize I’m spiraling into it until it’s too late. I feel inundated by news of the coronavirus, the election, the health of the planet, the homeless situation in my city, another mass shooting — and I could go on. It’s unavoidable. And it’s not just the media. It comes up in conversations at home and on the phone, via text message and on Facebook. I went to the grocery store a little while ago and saw a couple of people wearing protective masks. Reminders of things that are potentially dire are all over the damn place.

Fear often sneaks up on us when we’re not looking, but then we keep feeding it with more of the same. Negative thoughts, wild “what-if” scenarios and pointless fist shaking can eventually lead to coming up for air and realizing you’ve just wasted 75 minutes of your life freaking out…