Tag: the four agreements

A Conversation with the Wolf (A Four Agreements Saga)

August 12, 2021 / Tom

I’ll never forget the last time I met the wolf. It was the darkest moment of my life, a moment when I had to choose between living and dying, between change or rotting with my demons.

How I got there is a long story, perhaps something more in line with a book than a blog post, but suddenly I was on my knees in the snow, watching my kids play through windows and tear-soaked eyes. I knew then I needed to live, and in order to live I needed to change.

My eyes were swollen with rage and sadness mixing like the salt and water running down my cheeks. I lowered my head to the snow and scooped up handfuls of it, hoping to lessen the swelling. I heard a familiar friend growl at me, and I felt a bit of relief. A growl may instill fear in some, but to me that sound meant survival and strength.

“Look at you,” said the Wolf, “on your knees sobbing, thinking you should die.”

“Yeah,” I replied, “I am weak.”

The Wolf laughed, and I could feel the heat of his breath lift the hairs on the back of my neck.

“It’s the weak ones who continue to stand though they should be on their knees. The strong ones fall to their knees when the time comes because it is only the strong who know they can stand back up again. Weakness is not what drops you to ground. Weakness is what keeps you there.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“You will when the time comes for you to stand. Rising is not for the weak or the faint of heart. Only the ones with the guts enough to live and to fight for their lives know what it takes to get back up. Tell me, do you want to kneel in the snow forever?”

“Of course not,” I replied.

“Then what is it you want?”

“I want to be happy. I want to be a good dad. I want to be a partner someone would never want to lose, or I want to be alone. I want to stand tall, proud of who I am, and I want to be healed of everything that has led me to this place. I want not to live, but to be alive.”

“What are you afraid of?”

I thought for a minute or two, or maybe even an hour. Time made no sense to me at the moment, I was lost in thought and had surrendered to contemplation.

“I don’t know actually,” I replied finally. “I only know the pain that got me here. I don’t know any other way to be. I’m a broken boy who grew into a broken man, and I just wish I could end it all.”

“Hhhhmmm,” said the Wolf. “You have two ways to end it all. Kill yourself or change yourself. It seems to me you’ve chosen to change yourself. That choice is the first step in standing back up, and you’ve made it. So stand.”

“I don’t know what to do once I do.”

“Ha! Yes you do. You’re just afraid to admit you know exactly what needs to be done. You know, when I’m hungry I hunt and, when so blessed, I eat. When I’m tired I search for a place to rest and I sleep. When the time calls me I let my voice echo in the wilderness.”

I felt him sit just behind me, quiet for a moment as he searched his soul for something to add.

“It’s actually very easy. You want to be happy, make choices that bring you joy. You want to be a good dad, be a good dad. You want to exude honor and character? Be honorable and committed to your truth. You want to be healed? Then fucking heal.”

“When you are hungry, hunt, even though you know you may not eat. You control what you can, and let things go as they will. If you go to sleep hungry it won’t be for a lack of hunting. Things will not always work the way you want them to, but if you do your best, you have nothing to be sad about.

“When you are around your children, do your best. Teach them well so that they may never end up in the snow like you. They will fall to their knees, teach them to stand. They will be sad, point them to joy. They will fail, teach them that the success is in hunting, not in eating.”

“When your character is tested, be impeccable with your word. State your truth, and honor who you are. Strength is not the only thing you’ll need to be honorable. You will also need courage, and a lot of it. People will leave you. People will fall away, but those that stay are the ones you want around.

“Once you are happy with who you are, do not change who you are for anyone. Let the ones who can’t accept you go. Let the ones who love you and your truth into your heart, for they will build the community that sustains you. If you must be alone, be alone, for you will always be in the company you want to keep when you truly love who you are.”

“Do not assume you know anything other than your truth, which is no assumption at all. Others may have a treacherous path to climb that you may not wish to walk. You have no responsibility to unless it is part of your truth. Others may be mired in fits of disfunction. That is not your responsibility. Just as no one helped you out of your darkness and no one pulled you out of the snow, let them find their own way. You may offer a hand of assistance if your heart leads you to do so, but it should never be forced, abused, or coerced. Adhere to your truth, and let that truth guide you.”

And finally, when you understand your truth and allow it to be your compass, do not take anything personally. You will be tested, so always try your best. Again, the success is not in the eating, but in the hunt, so always do your best to honor your truth, make no assumptions of what you see around you, and provide no target for the stones others throw.”

I breathed a heavy sigh. It wasn’t one of frustration or fatigue, it was one of relief and preparation. I knew what I had to do.

“You always come when things look bleak,” I said. “I honestly hope I never see you again.”

The Wolf shook his head and laughed a deep laugh, one that seemed to go on forever.

“You dumb motherfucker,” he said. “I’ve never left you. I am inside you, dumbass. I am a part of you. I don’t leave and then come back. I don’t just exist when times get at their toughest. I am always there, it’s just that you don’t see me until there is nothing left to see. So, just be clear, I am not going anywhere. Your growl, which will come often, is my growl. You tears are my tears. Your existence is my existence. The path I just laid out is the path you’ve always known but were just too afraid to take. Nothing that happens here is because of me. Everything that exists in your space exists because of you.”

“So, now get to work and stop this nonsense once and for all. We are going to stand, and we are going to walk this path.”

I stood and dusted that now freezing snow off my pants. I looked through the window at my kids, still playing without knowing a thing that had happened just outside those windows. Another big sigh, but this one because I wasn’t sure how I was going to face my soon-to-be-broken family.

Before that sigh ended, though, it turned into a growl. I walked to the front door and entered the house, and then heard my kids running to greet me. I hugged them tight, tighter than I had in months, and nothing has been the same since.

May you find your wolf, and your inner growl. In love and strength…

The Truth of Me

March 7, 2015 / Tom

I’ve been quite a few things in the short time I’ve experienced this life. I’ve been a sensitive boy, an abused child, a raging lunatic with a violent streak. I’ve been in trouble with the law, an altar boy drinking wine in the sacristy, a cheater, a liar, and a man afraid of who he was. Mostly, I’ve been an unhappy soul left foundering in a sea of his own despair, blaming everyone else for the suffering in my life.

I have memories of little bits of truth that came out through the bullshit. Like the time I secretly cried after a fight where I had knocked someone out. The time when my daughter was born and I felt love for what seemed like the very first time.

There were many instances of truth, but they scared me into grasping at the lies. I truly loathed who I was, and in that self-immolation I would try to be whomever you wanted me to be. I was, of course, doomed to failure.

A liar isn’t, in my experience, someone who gets off by lying. I just hated who I was when I was telling the truth. There is no moment of peace for the liar. In my case I relieved the voices of my youth always telling me I was not good enough, strong enough, handsome enough, fit enough, or tough enough to exist. I needed to be everything I was taught I wasn’t, so I lied.

One of my best friends reminds me often of my lying self. He tells a story of when we first met, and how much he hated me. I had created a shell of toughness, one that often instilled fear in those around me, one that often created the space I needed to exist in. I put out an energy that said, “fuck with me and I’ll hurt you”, with the size and swagger to back up that energy if you challenged me.

So, this man disliked me. Or rather he disliked the liar. Then, as he puts it, he talked to me. Somehow, some of my truth must have leaked through the cracks in the shell I had created. As a result I gained a friend, someone who’s been a trusted, beautiful person in my life for well over half of it.

Someone who I love dearly.

Someone I will always cherish.

A cheater isn’t always someone who gets off on cheating. In my case it made me sad beyond words. Yet, there was always that horrible fear I had in trusting someone else with my chastity, my faithfulness. I had seen people I trusted, those who were supposed to teach me things like love, chastity, faithfulness, and honesty do some of the most horrific things. I wasn’t going to be anyone’s victim, so I’d act out in ways I thought would give me control. Instead, I became an asshole, not to be trusted, and ruined some of the most beautiful experiences of my life.

And, yes, I played the victim. I was not, I was the victimizer who had grown a false strength through playing the victim. I thought I had an excuse when, in fact, all I really had was a choice.

It’s hard for me to write about these things given my current state of being. My life has changed so dramatically from then until now. I look back on the casual and not-so-casual debris that litters the fields on which I’ve walked and feel a tinge of sadness. Such sadness is only tempered by the realization that nothing in this life is permanent, especially when a man realizes his own power of choice, and the power of his own agreements.

A coward is not always a coward. Sometimes he just needs to find something to fight for. Similarly, misdirected people are not always misdirected. Sometimes we can finally take the compass out of our pocket and find our true direction. At some point and time the voices that send us off on wild goose chases can be replaced by our own strong, steady voice and our choices reflect the power in our purpose, the strength in our hearts, and the truth of our being.

All of us are, after all, liars. We hide feelings that make us vulnerable, or temper our opinions in the fear of offending others. We choose to wear suits when all we want is to put on sweats, or heels when all we want is a good pair of slippers. We stay in relationships that no longer serve us, often catering to voices not our own, trying desperately to make them happy.

Which begs a question. Do we even trust ourselves? Are we so busy wondering if we can trust the other person that we’ve lost sight of the fact that we no longer trust ourselves? Have we become so accustomed to hearing the voices of others in our head that we no longer hear our own?

How many of us have caved to a fear later proven unjustified? How many of us have fallen in love and never told the object of our affection? How many of us never even board a plane to jump out of, even though free-falling through the air is all we can think about? How many of us tell ourselves that we have no choice but to work for the bastard who refuses to pay us what we are worth, or that women deserve less money than men, or that all blacks must be doing something wrong to be harassed by the police?

I know, I am getting off on a tangent. I guess my point in doing so is to show us all that not one of us can truly throw a stone at an accused, and that not one of us lives in a house completely devoid of glass.

That’s not to say we must keep liars and cheaters in our lives, or maintain an abusive relationship with a liar and cheater because we, too, are liars. Instead, we must do what is best for us out of pure love for ourselves and, yes, for the person lying and cheating. They may, like me, have to lose everything in order to gain the truth of who they are. Suffering is a wonderful springboard to great things if we simply choose to focus less on the suffering, and more on the lessons that suffering is there to provide.

There is hope. If I can transform from a lying cheater into a man of principle and honesty anyone can. It’s about self-love. I love myself so much that I see nothing wrong with my truth. In fact, I see each example of fear that predated this transformation as something that was completely necessary, something I needed to experience for some purpose yet to be uncovered. I can’t change anything I’ve ever done. All I can do is understand what purpose the experience brought into my life, and what I should do with the lessons I have learned.

Remember, all of us are transformed from perfect, loving, honest babies into something else. If this is true, we can transform those parts of us that make us unhappy simply by choosing to and then practicing something different.

Today, when I am told I’m an asshole, it’s for a far different reason than in the past. I’m usually too honest, and people often don’t want to hear the truth or the way I offer it. I have not yet learned the subtle art of telling the truth without giving someone a blade to cut themselves, but I am trying. I don’t mean for my words, my thoughts, or my truth to hurt you, and I realize I can’t. All I can do is be me, what you decided to do with that is your business.

I am, yours, in complete honesty and truth. I’m mastering my own voice, not yours, so the process is a bit new to most, especially the easily offended. Still, I trust in the journey, and realize all I ever need do is tell the truth of me in the moment. There is great power there.