Welcome to this conversation
Don’t Feed the Animals, Episode 1 (aired 9/10): Why Not Feed the Animals? During a time of stress like we are in now, when the world and life seem heavy, it is important to do what we can to show up with our true selves. Everything else we hope to impact and deal with rides on this. But there is a threat to your true self, it is within you. It is the animals you have been feeding and that sometimes call the shots in your life when something better and truer within you should be. It’s not just you, it’s all of us. And it isn’t just right now, this is a lifetime challenge. And it’s one you can handle. So what are these animals and how do they work? Listen in!.
This week: Why not feed the animals?
Greg Meyer introduced an idea that we all know very well already, that there are animals (emotions, reactions, inclinations) within us that have a role, but are dangerous to us and others when we let them drive our lives. Giving that role to them is what we mean by feeding them. Instead we are meant to let them be sources of information that lead us to more thoughtful actions.
Jesus was pointing at this tendency in this saying, Good people reach into the good storeroom inside themselves and bring out good stuff. Hurting people reach into the hurting storeroom within and pull out hurt and pain. (Luke 6.45a ~ Greg’s translation)
Good people reach into the good storeroom inside themselves and bring out good stuff. Hurting people reach into the hurting storeroom within and pull out hurt and pain.
This isn’t just about not being an annoying, offensive or even hurtful person, this is about our hearts. It is about not letting our identity be taken over by something that isn’t who we truly are.
For it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks, that the hand acts, and the mind thinks. (Luke 6.45b ~ Greg’s translation)
The hurt created by feeding the animals not only hurts us, but it hurts others and becomes part of the generational pain that is passed down, as the Old Testament of the Bible reminded us repeatedly, “unto the 3rd and 4th generation.”
You can learn to not feed the animals, it’s a choice, but it is a lifetime process, not a one time action.
Two observations about learning to not feed the animals.
Accept that this is not to be easy, but will require you to deal with complexity. Why? Because you are a complex human being. Just like you want to be understood with nuance and understanding, so the people and the world around you need the same perspective if you are going to relate to them in healthy, long-term ways.
This isn’t about following the rules. Not feeding the animals isn’t an arbitrary obstacle set up for you to follow, even though you don’t want to, in order to ‘be a good person’ or ‘make God love you’ or ‘get into heaven.’ Neither God nor the world work that way. This is about living in alignment with the way the world works, the way the fabric of existence is woven. It makes sense - even if it is hard.
What are some animals in your life crowding out what could be there? What are those animals telling you? And what is being crowded out by them.
Don’t worry about fixing everything you discover, this is lifetime stuff. Quieting yourself so you can see the animals for what they are and beginning to understand them is probably what you first need to stop feeding them.
Join us in our next message as we begin to talk about some particular and universal animals that rob us of the life and world we could have, and how feeding something else can give us that life and world.
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It is human scale connections that will help us navigate.