Wolf House Fables
Short, first-person reflections to help see yourself with clarity, curiosity, and deeper self-belief. These are tools you can use on a walk, between meetings, or whenever you need to reconnect and fall in love with who you’re becoming.
Wolf House Fables
Gratitude as the Antidote
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
A short reflection meditation on the using gratitude as the antidote to our evolutionary need to scan the horizon for threats.
I start today with a welcoming nod as I watch the changing of the guard within the palace of my mind. The night watchman salutes and makes his way for his daytime counterpart. They share the duty of surveying the horizon for threats on my behalf. Deep breath in. In out. I'm grateful for these guards and their long lineage of protection. Their ancestors kept my ancestors safe from lions, tigers, and midnight fires. Deep breath in. Grateful for their good intentions. Even though there's a gated separation between me and my threat scanning guards, I imagine myself right now walking up to them, putting my hands on their shoulders, maybe a hug if they're receptive. I can see me in their eyes. A younger version of me. Full of fear. I look them, me, in the eye and I say, You can trust me. Deep breath in. You can trust me. Another deep breath in. Is the horizon ever expanding with potential new threats hatching their schemes to take us down? Maybe, maybe not. But one thing's for sure, we don't need imagination brought into the watchtower. I don't need 3 a.m. reports of half-truths and concerns. Binoculars and facts are all we need. I don't need detailed second guessing throughout the day. I just need these guards to believe what I'm starting to believe myself, I am trustworthy. But I know evolution makes it hard to stop scanning the horizon. So I offer the only antidote I have: gratitude. I put my left hand on my chest and I scan for one thing I'm grateful for right here in my body. My heart, my lungs, my anchored feet. Deep breath in. I scan whatever room or space I'm in right now, and I find at least one thing that reminds me of the places, people, or moments I'm grateful for. Just one. I invite the day watchman to help think about something good happening within the next hour that I can be grateful for. I rest my left hand on my knee, palm up. I'm grateful for whatever I will receive to handle today's threats with skill. One last deep breath in. I'm grateful for a day where we all get to trust in little old meeting.