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On Women & Wolves
If you’ve ever been invited to be a speaker at a public event, the question is: have you ever been UNinvited? I (Ginny) have. The president of a local women’s group asked me, years ago, to talk at their upcoming luncheon. I have distinct views on the subject of public speaking itself, and believed the members would benefit from hearing them (since public speaking is purportedly number one on most people’s list of fears). So I accepted -- even though I had mixed feelings, basically because a roomful of women is a lot of estrogen. Nonetheless, the President was delighted, and asked me to submit a promotional article for the newsletter. I did so, including the fact that I was waiving my speaker’s fee.I then got a call from the President UNinviting me to speak. Sheepishly, she explained that the (paid) publisher of the newsletter refused to print the article and assured the President that if I spoke, she would personally launch a campaign asking members to boycott the meeting. This did not surprise me, since I had served on the Board of Directors where this (paid) publisher regularly sat in on meetings as an unelected yet power-wielding club member. The next phone call I received was from her. She ranted for ten minutes (in not very polite terms) about the nerve I had trying to worm my way in as a speaker after I had chosen to no longer be a member. If I rejoined, she told me, she would reconsider her position. The irony of this is that the club had a policy against members being speakers. I declined her gracious offer.
Now ask yourself - would this have happened in a men’s group? Typically not. Most masculine behavior is fueled by logic, whereas women swim in a sea of emotion. (Yes, there are exceptions -- thus the word “typically” rather than “unequivocally.” We’ve all seen men who love the drama of the game of wily ways, and women who set their feelings aside to behave rationally. Thank goodness.)
Wondering what this has to do with wolves? Here it is: Wolves rely on neither logic nor emotion. In order to survive, they trust their instincts. And what, exactly is an instinct? Well, since you ask: An instinct is a concise message that comes to you unsought, with no attachments or embellishment. “Don’t go there.” “Don’t eat that.” “Don‘t buy those.” An instinct doesn’t have to make any sense at all. It’s job is simply to impact you in order to keep you safe somehow. It comes from your subconscious mind, where zillions of bits of information are stored beyond your level of awareness. Your subconscious mind processes all this material and, in an instant, sends a message to your conscious mind, giving you just the bottom line -- “Don’t trust this.”
We once raised two hybrids (from a wolf rescue program in the foothills.) While they were romping about in our then very rustic back yard, I rearranged the furniture in the living room. Our French doors were open, and Albertine (the female) came running in. Before all four feet were through the doors, she instinctively locked her legs,= to stop cold, skidded on the tile floor and, when she came to a stop… froze! Something was different! In that instant she wasn’t sure what, didn’t know why, and was not going to simply assume that the no longer familiar environment was safe. Instinct!
Wolves don’t just look at something. They look around it, over it, under it, behind it, and inside or through it if possible. This is their nature. It isn’t about logic, it isn’t about emotion. It’s simply about survival. If I had looked past that President who invited me to speak, I would have realized that true power rested in other (and unfriendly) hands, and I could have avoided all the drama. So what’s the lesson here? From women, men can learn more how to access, express, and channel their feelings appropriately, whereas from men women can learn to set emotions aside in order to make dispassionate decisions. From wolves, both men and women can learn to acknowledge their instincts without asking for or expecting anything other than clarity. A man might be tempted to ignore a message from the subconscious because it has no rational foundation, and a woman might be tempted to ignore a message because she doesn’t like it, it’s not what she wants to hear. Wolves rise above these limitations, and so can (and should) we, with intention and with practice.
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