Today on a coaching call, we were covering issues of positive emotions and negative emotions. The discussion was about how the emotions are a choice and have a snowball effect of growing exponentially based upon which you are providing energy. And then, I remembered an old post from 2015 which I now will share with all of you.
As we have discussed many times, your adrenaline-driven mind has taken control, and your “fighting Parkinson’s” is calming down that mind and opening up your your dopamine-flowing heart. Recently, I was reminded of a short story that drives home this point. Here it is.
“One evening an old Cherokee Indian told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, ‘My son, the battle is between two ‘wolves’ inside us all.
One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.
The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.’
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: ‘Which wolf wins?’
The old Cherokee simply relied, ‘The one you feed.’”
Which wolf are you feeding?
The “fight” against Parkinson’s by doing the Parkinson’s Recipe for Recovery® has three components: the body (physical) part to heal your internal organs, the mind part to calm your adrenaline-driven mind, the soul part to open your dopamine-flowing heart.
Feeding the Evil Wolf is what helps bring Parkinson’s symptoms to the surface. Once you have Parkinson’s, continuing to feed the Evil Wolf exacerbates the symptoms and sends the disease in the negatively spiraling direction. All of you would agree that when you are feeling the emotions exhibited by the Evil Wolf in the story above, your symptoms appear worse.
Feeding the Good Wolf is what helps bring Parkinson’s under control all the way to your full recovery, your cure. When you calm your mind, you are starving the Evil Wolf. He does not like this because he likes being in control. So, he “bites” you in the form of a bigger tremor, more stiffness, more slowness, and some worse balance.
However, if you calm your mind, you will realize that his “bite” has no teeth. In meditation and sleep, symptoms slow down or disappear, clearly proving that if your mind is calm, then the Evil Wolf’s “bite” has no teeth and cannot hurt you…you are not getting worse.
When you open your heart to yourself and others, you are feeding the Good Wolf. Again, this is starving the Evil Wolf. This time, he “bites” you with self-judgment, self-criticism, “you are not worthy or deserving,” “you do not deserve forgiveness,” and “you must be perfect in all things.”
However, if you open your heart fully and find joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith, you will realize that his “bite” has no teeth. In meditation and sleep, symptoms slow down or disappear, clearly proving that if your heart is open to yourself and others, then the Evil Wolf’s “bite” has no teeth and cannot hurt you…you are not getting worse.
The challenge is maintaining this same calmness of mind and openness of heart in your everyday life. It is a new way of living…from your heart!
You do not “fight” Parkinson’s by beating it down with a stick. You “fight” Parkinson’s by healing your organs, calming your mind, and opening your heart…feeding the Good Wolf. And then, the Evil Wolf simple drops off, like dropping off some dirty, toxic clothes and stepping into your dopamine bath.
Which wolf are you feeding?
It is a choice.
Choose joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. Feed the Good Wolf, and watch your full recovery roll out in front of your eyes.
You can do this!
You are worth it!!!
All my best,
Howard
Thank you Howard!
Hello Howard, this is my first time responding to your blog posts and I wanted to let you and the others following your blog know how impactful the “Wolf Story” is to me. In fact, my wife recently shared this mantra with me…”My mind is calm and my heart is open.” What the grandfather taught his grandson is so true….that we have control over our thinking and our feelings and we can choose to feed ourselves with healthy, positive and loving thoughts and feelings to the point where there is simply no room for the unhealthy and negative thoughts and emotions. Doing this calms the mind and opens the heart. Thank you Howard for all the work you do and the support you freely give. Gary E.
Thanks for this insight and approach Howard, the power of healing . Still on my bike at 8 months 19 days now and my shakes and stiffness is giving me a good fight towards my recovery. Feeling very positive and grateful for everything. Thanking
everyone for your blogs as I read them all as I’m with you for this fight over the line . Love from Australia 😀😅😅😀😀
Rick, I like your consistently upbeat tone, like you’re whistling all the way out of Parkinson’s. I commented to Howard on a recent coaching call: ‘I think I should be more Rick’ and he replied that I ‘should be more Val’ – his point being that each of us is perfect as we are and we need to be that person.
Working with Howard has illuminated truths that should be obvious but which get occluded by the Parkinson’s brain.
For example, I am learning that my limitations are not failures or shortcomings but simply the periphery of my core being. I do my best and beyond that is an expanse which exists only in the imagination of other people but which I thought was real and contained the resources to cope with their expectations. I am learning that it’s OK to say, this is where I end; you can’t have any more of me because there isn’t any more.
It is quite a heady revelation because it is an admission to myself that I have red lines and they are worth defending. I don’t need to pledge anything from the hinterland I haven’t got because what I have got to give is sufficient in itself.
I am guilty of feeding the Evil Wolf but I always feel better when I am feeding the wolf that symbolizes spiritual wisdom and harmony.
On the subject of wolves, I’d like to recommend a great book: Women Who Run With The Wolves: Contacting the Power of the Wild Woman, by Clarissa Pinkola Estés. She has a stupendous writing style.
Hi Val , thank you for kind words very much appreciated. To me your the true warrior as you have been doing this for a while now , that takes determination but it’s worth it . Look at Helen Gil from Australia , recovered after doing the recipe for 4 years 3 months. For a lot of people they would have given up . Someone said to me recently when will you call it a day, I said until I recover. Your the true warrior Val as I get my inspiration from you 😀😀😀😀😀
Thanks, Rick. Compared with Helen, I am only about halfway through my recovery. LOL. But like you, and Helen and Howard before us, I am committed to fighting for my recovery for as long as it takes. I know it’s within my reach because of the occasions when I briefly regain the ability to do something. Like, I can hardly walk. But, recently, I got out of a car after a three-hour journey and strode the length of a hotel corridor with faultless steps and both arms swinging. Parkinson’s? What Parkinson’s?
I also read all the comments on Howard’s blog and miss seeing names that don’t crop up for a while. I wonder how they are doing.
Keep infecting me with your positivity, Rick!
Best, Val
Excellent news Val 😇
Yes. Thank you Howard. Truly a beautiful analogy of the war within. I’m learning. Learning to starve my need to control my life and feeding my love for the beautiful life given to me.
Many blessings everyone.
Thank you again Howard for this post!!
Thank God I came to this website after a long search. Thanks Howard. I have now a purpose and hope.
Hi Ulve, since when are you in Parkinson mode? I was on “it is what it is-Parkinson-Mode” for 3 Years and took it for normal, because first visit/no cure/…and so on. Then, I found this website, took coaching lessons and have learned, it is never to late to start. So you do have a purpose and hope. See yourself cured and recovered. Thanks for everyone else for the support.
I am 51 years old woman and the first signs of the disease appeared 3 years ago. I denied that, I have this disease. I’m so young, I’ve always been healthy! It is not possible! Then came Covid, a lot of work came because some people were sick or at home and I have physical work in a bookstore. I couldn’t do it anymore, I was so tired and all the symptoms came at once. I had to accept myself, yes it is this incurable disease. I cried.
I tried to take as little medication as possible, read everything I found on the internet. But all the articles and sites of official medicine come first. I changed the doctor three times, but the treatment is always one – increasing the dose of the drug.
I was looking for three words – what cures Parkinson’s.
And God heard me. I knew there had to be something! Everything Howard writes is so true.
Now I’m going to be good to myself. I can’t break myself at work, I take a break from work at the moment and I commit myself. It’s such an interesting and smart and lovely conversation here. And I’m so grateful, so grateful, so grateful!
Ulve, thank you for being so open. We all have our unique story until a certain point—-when we are diagnosed. When I was diagnosed I was 52 years old and in that same year I even did an Half Ironman in Triathlon. I did sports all my life. I know what you are saying. So I wanted to continue and for the next three years I was on -medical based Parkinson state- until I left the country for vacation and could not come back home for corona reasons. I couldn’t come back and being stuck abroad, I run out of medication. That was the beginning: I started research and I found Howard and this website and it was the best thing ever, what could have happened to me relating to P. Nowadays what I’m doing online, I only put in Parkinson’s on the web in combination with diet, nutrition, and health etc. etc. That keeps me away from the bad pages. (Which I read before). The last thing I really did to get healed is, I changed my diet in February 2021 completely to a vegan diet and it does help. I’m taking not a lot of medication just some milligrams of sifrol and one rasaglina every day, Because I am full time working and somehow of course I need to function at work and on the other side life has to have some quality; but my symptoms got really better and I’m going to ask my doctor next,when I have an appointment, to reduce the medication a bit. The little things showing on the outside will be gone very very soon. I am on the recipe for almost 16 months now and if necessary I am doing it for the next 30 as well. I know, this is the only way to be completely healed. I already have beaten my ego mind, I do not have any negative thoughts anymore. I am very happy with my life and since everything is in divine order this diagnosis of Parkinson had to come to lead me on the right path. You are worth it. I am grateful.
Thank you, Uwe, what an interesting and inspiring story. After finding this community, I feel like I am part of a team working for common goals. In the past, I felt myself so alone with my disease, because besides us, nobody knows how we feel internally.
My hobby was dancing all my life, so one day I had trouble walking! Now I have a background image on my computer where I was dancing, because one day I will dance again!
Until recovery, we do every day as much, as we can for healing, and we are grateful to each other and to yourself.
Respected Howard sir,
You always have perfect examples for treatment of PD. This time a story of wolf.
The bad wolf starts overpowering and puts us in miserable condition. We are not aware about the weapons to neutralize the bites of wild wolf. But yes, joy, empathy, humility, gratitude, all of these nullify the effects of bite. Thanks a lot for making us aware of it. Lots of love to my fellow warriors. Regards Mona
Thank you Howard. The wolf story is a great illustration and reminder.
Recently I read this. I do not the author:
“Fear does not stop death. It stops life.
Worrying does not take away tomorrow’s troubles. It takes away today’s peace.”
Peace to all my fellow warriors.
Thank you Howard and fellow warriors for your words of wisdom. They give me much hope!
I just love this story thank you Howard, brilliant analogy and put in a very easy way to understand and serve as a gentle reminder
Love to all my fellow warriors
But Howard , when you’re trapped and it looks like there is only 1 wolf at that moment the other wolf has no way to come closer to you until the evil wolf is fulfilled and is gone sleeping, so to speAk. So in that very moment when emotions runs skyhigh how do we have to respond to this?
🌺🌺🌺
Hi Petra. If you feed/fulfill the Evil Wolf, he or she always will return, never leaving you alone. If you refuse to feed the Evil Wolf, even if at that moment you cannot find access to the Good Wolf, the Evil Wolf will either leave (because you did not feed it), or starve (because you did not feed it)…either way, no more Evil Wolf. In any moment, “I accept myself unconditionally right now” will summon the Good Wolf. Love and blessings, Howard
Thank you,
I will keep this in mind when the moment is there. I wrote it on a post-it and when it’s rising I run to this reminder. Most of the time when it’s rising I get frustrated with the question “why”. So, no “why“. No food for the evil Woolf.
No why, no analyzing! (critical mind)
Reminds me of how in the book Howard talked about giving fear to God and saying something like, “God, I don’t have time to deal with this fear right now. It’s too big. So you take it.”
I have to keep doing this, because fear keeps creeping up on me. Even before getting a diagnosis, I was experiencing extreme fear of aging and dying. It’s so much more in my face now. Reading about PD is overwhelming. And now I get all these ads for Alzheimers, aging, and caregivers. It’s scary! I have to keep giving it back to God.
Howard, I like the story of the Good Wolf and the Evil Wolf. I always try to feed the Good Wolf but the Evil Wolf is always lurking around and sometimes the Evil Wolf is ever ready to pounce whenever opportunity arises. That is when I face the battle between the Good Wolf and the Evil Wolf! I am doing my best feeding the Good Wolf with meditation, positive thoughts, good sleep and the Parkinson’s recipe. I am also trying to love myself and smile more often.
I have long been conditioned to believe that I’m being responsible when I worry about life’s many little details.
Of course this feeds the bad wolf and smothers the good, dopamine bearing, wolf.
True responsibility is when I look after my own health and happiness (feed the good wolf) so that I can best deal with life’s challenges from a position of strength.
Please forgive the coming levity, but I do love to laugh, smile and share the fun. I believe that is a massive asset in our push back of Parkinsons. As I concluded reading Howard’s message, I had a vision of Tweety bird winning over the “Bad ol’ Putty Tat”, and a lesser vision of Road Runner vanquishing the Coyote. Now that should do two things for you if you see something similar. 1 is a great dopamine release, and a healthy laugh. 2 is lodging Howard’s message in a very easily accessed reference file in your mind. We, of course are the prey. The predators are Howard’s bad wolf.
I am a bit behind reading the blog but I love your bad wolf, good wolf Howard. I am learning to turn my back to the bad wolf and call in the good wolf. It brings me so much peace. I invite joy in my heart and cultivate calmness. I have been hurting a lot since I started the Recipe but I know it’s my body getting rid of toxins and Parkinsons is fighting to stay. I see Parkinsons melting away, that is its destiny. Thank you Howard for always being such an encouragement and feeding us good thoughts. Many blessings.