“It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”
The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”
I think the old man forgot to identify 2 more archetypes that contribute to our human struggle: the Realist and the Dreamer.
In today’s society the Realist is revered and the Dreamer is very much pushed under. Imagine opening the paper or turning on the news and all you see are stories that inspire you, that set your dreams on fire, that make you feel good in your soul, that make you believe in honesty, that encourage you to be the Real You, and not just some pretend person?
Hmmm, that wouldn’t work would it, because that would mean you never heard the ‘real news’ about shootings, killings, serial rapists and countries going bankrupt and then how would you know to remain safe? You might even become too empowered and do something silly like giving up your day job and creating something marvelous for yourself instead. The world as we know it would come to a crushing halt.
I look at my little grandchildren and wonder if I will catch the moment when the Realist Wolf becomes firmly established in the CEO position and the Dreamer Wolf will be delegated to the lower echelons where it will gather dust and become starved and forgotten. My eldest grandchild is 7 and thankfully he still has all his creative faculties on board. But inevitably it will happen, probably somewhere between now and the end of high school and the thought of it saddens me. I am sorry today for all the times that I acted as a Dream Crusher to my children thinking I was doing the right thing. I thought crushing their dreams would keep them safe and stop them from making silly mistakes, creating chaos and turning their lives upside down. Sorry kids! I won’t do the same to your offspring!
I remember laughing at one of my daughters when she started singing like an opera singer. She has never sung like that since. I remember forcing Tom to have remedial lessons for years when he couldn’t read, write or spell or do maths, when he could have been playing carefree in the sunshine, climbing trees or demolishing the furniture. (When he was 3 he meticulously demolished his cot in the semi dark instead of having an afternoon nap. I didn’t recognise that as being a genius at the time, I was cross at him for being naughty!)
All those painful hours of extra tuition that went on for years didn’t help him one little bit, but when he started his apprenticeship everything suddenly fell into place and today he is a wonderful father, partner and builder. He can put his hands and brain to anything and he is only 21! Come to think about it, Tom used to be the biggest dreamer in the family. Up till he was about 6 he used to stare into space for hours, with a happy dreamy look in his eyes. We used to laugh and think it was funny but that didn’t stop him from being a dreamer.
All this changed when I took him for a kinesiology session in Hobart which lasted for a full day. After that he suddenly became focused. We saw that as progress but was it really?
Nobody realizes that the Realist is really a bad wolf in disguise, like a wolf in shepherd’s clothing. His real name should be Dream Knocker or Idea Crusher! The Realist wants to be in control because it knows that the Dreamer always wins in the long run: when we die Reality as we know it ends yet the Dream continues.
That is too good to be true! I hear you scorn…. Hmm, is this the Realist butting in? Ok, let me illustrate how might work for you like it does for me now that I am older and wiser.
Dreams spring up from the Heart and Reality is constructed in our Heads. Did you know that our Heart is all knowing? It is wiser, deeper and more resourceful than the deepest ocean. Our heart is our connection to the Universe. It is like our umbilical cord to something far greater, more beautiful and glorious than we can ever imagine. Like a foetus is attached to its invisible mum, we are attached to the Universe that is pregnant with ideas, inspiration, positive energy and solutions to all our problems and like the expectant mum, it can’t wait for those ideas to spring to life so they can be enjoyed.
On the other hand there is our Brain and Nervous system. They are the biggest filtration systems in the universe because they filter out the Greater Reality till there is only one billionth left, and that one billionth is what we base our entire existence on. Our version of reality is so narrow that it is like looking through a tiny straw and thinking this is all there is to it. Our partner/neighbor/child is also looking through his straw and sees something completely different… and this is how confusion and doubts creep in.
Sometimes it takes a near death experience to gain clarity or become the owner of a powerful dream which becomes a forceful influence for the betterment of mankind. Let me talk about Gary Young first. Gary grew up on an isolated farm with Nature as his best friend. When he was 17 he moved onto his own ‘homestead’ somewhere in North America and worked tirelessly to improve his farm. When he was 24 he broke his back during a tree felling accident. When he woke up he was paralyzed from the waist down. He spent a couple of years feeling miserable and depressed. Then he realized that his life wasn’t going to change unless he took charge of his destiny and this is exactly what he did. Gradually he regained the use of his body as he studied natural ways of healing. About ten years into his recovery he was introduced to essential oils and from then on he never looked back. He even ran his first half marathon in his late thirties.
He became so fascinated by the powerful effects of essential oils on the human being that he completely dedicated himself to the science of essential oils. As his health returned his dream grew larger. He wanted to share his passion and experiences with the essential oils with the entire world. Today Young Living is the fastest growing networking company in the world and changing lives on a daily basis. |
I can just imagine the Realist muttering something like this: That was a good dream; he should retire now that he is nearly 70 and take it easy. But that’s the thing about dreamers: once you seize your dream it will never let you stop. It only gets bigger and better. Gary won’t rest till every single household in the world has access to his essential oils and till everybody has the opportunity to earn enough money to live comfortable. |
My dreams are not as big as Gary’s but I still want to share them with you. When Peter and I were in our late thirties we wanted to open up a small clinic where we could share our skills and knowledge with people in the district.
My internal Realist worked overtime to wear me down with arguments like: you may as well give up, because with 6 kids, where will you find the time, energy or money? How will people know you are here? We never had any spare cash; we had a large mortgage and 8 mouths to feed. But thankfully we listened to our Heart and shut out the ‘voice of reason’. We ended up selling the family car and raised enough funds to get us started.
We did most of the building ourselves, with the help of the kids as well as a casual builder who was in love with one of our teenage daughters. He was a real dream knocker and never stopped telling us that we were making a mistake (which wasn’t exactly the way to win my daughters heart) by saying things like: who wants to pay for a massage anyway or drive all the way to Forth, nobody is going to find you here!
But my passion was so strong that his words had the opposite effect. I just wanted him to hurry up and get it finished so I could prove him wrong!
Early 2000 we were the proud owners of our sparkly new clinic, consisting of 3 treatment rooms, a tiny waiting room and a loft upstairs where our teenage kids used to bunk. The clinic was surrounded by our newly planted silver birch copse. Every part of the Silver birch tree is Immune Boosting and can be eaten or drank as a tea. Not that I told my clients this, but I felt secure within the shelter of my healing silver birch teenage trees. I felt so happy that I could cry! But that didn’t mean that starting out was easy. This was the year 2000 before the Internet and Facebook and we spent our last dollars on a separate phone line and newspaper advertising.
After a few long silent days the business phone rang early one morning. The shrill ring of the phone nearly electrified me, and Pete and I looked at each other like paralyzed puppies. When I finally answered it my hands were shaking. Unfortunately I had to turn my first potential client down because it was somebody who wanted us to massage out a huge bruise on her leg, and we had been taught that was one of the things we weren’t allowed to do. Other than that I knew nothing about how to treat bruises.
When I hung up the Realist wolf was ripping at my heart. See, I told you so! It won’t work, you aren’t good enough, and you know nothing! All that money that you spent on the clinic could have gone towards paying off the mortgage or towards the kid’s school uniforms!
Luckily I had the ‘10 Everyday Oils’ at my disposal and I immediately grabbed the Valor which I splashed all over myself and Pete to help us remain confident and focused on the big picture, rather than our disappointment!
The lady was very impressed because all her pain disappeared in that first session. She even told me that I was the answer to her prayers. I never knew if the results were due to my massage or the huge amount of Young Living oils I used to compensate for my lack of experience! I pocketed my $33 dollars which was the standard fee at the time. After 15 years of being an unpaid helicopter mum this seemed like an insane sum of money for doing something I enjoyed doing with all my heart and I almost felt guilty.
My first client was so happy that she immediately referred 3 more and before long we were treating about 20 clients per week. After a couple of years we got so busy that we had to employ another person and by 2005 we had well and truly outgrown our small clinic.
We started to look around for different premises. We still wanted to be in Forth, because we felt a real connection here. Then the old Post office building in the centre of town came up for sale and we were thrown into conflict all over again.
The Realist told us to stay small. Why change something when things are good? Why take another huge risk? But once again we followed our Dream and the Universe set the wheel in motion, because even though we already had a large mortgage and many dependants, the banks allowed us a second mortgage. We optimistically started stripping back the building to its bare bones in our spare time. Once we started there was no turning back! We wanted to do it right this time and create 6 massage rooms, a large reception area, a commercial kitchen and a café with healthy food and we had allowed ourselves $30,000 to achieve all this. It cost us $7000 to dig the septic tank up. There were perhaps 20 truckloads of slush and mud that had to be excavated and then another 10 truckloads of dirt and gravel to create a solid driveway. That left us with $23,000. Then we got a builder to redo the foundation walls. That took another $7000. Our money was disappearing like snow in the sun and we hadn’t even started! But before we had time to get real worried an event took place that changed everything: In January 2006 at 4 pm my life as I had known it ended.
I was getting into our Kia which was parked outside the Purple House when a potato truck came along with a tray that was sticking out too far. I didn’t see it coming but I remember the shock of my back exploding and then I was above the accident scene. I could see the whole thing unfold, the truck roaring away up the hill, my body lying on the driver door which had come off and then Johanan (our eldest son who was home from university) running towards the accident scene yelling Shit, its mum!
I felt an intense feeling of regret that my life was over and I put up a struggle. Then I moved to another level and my whole body filled with light, peace and a deep knowing that everything was in order. I realized then that all the things we worry about mean nothing and that being connected to our Heart is the most important thing in life.
Later that night it was decided that I had to be flown to Melbourne and I had to say goodbye to my family. I almost wasted my last breath on giving Peter strict instructions to bring the Lavender essential oil because I knew I was going to need all the help I could get. Then I lost consciousness.
I remember waking up the next morning and flying in the tiny air ambulance above the Bass Straight. It was a glorious sunrise and I took this as a good omen. Like an experienced Dreamer I took stock of my situation. I could still move my arms for which I was grateful and decided not to worry about the details of my injuries. This way I would be able to 100% commit myself to a full recovery in the shortest amount of time possible. I wanted to be back with my family and go back to business.
Later that day Peter arrived at ICU in the Alfred Trauma Hospital where I was holed up. He immediately used neat Lavender oil where ever he could, to bolster my spirits. Lavender essential oil is called the mother of all oils because like a mum it takes care of everything. It is calming, relaxing, soothing and strengthening at the same time and it is very useful in times of crisis and that is why I chose it.
But I still had to overcome one final hurdle: my upper body had to be reattached to the lower half and I had to wait for a team of experts to come together. Three weeks later I was turned over onto my colostomy bag and the operation began. When they opened up the lower back the surgeons realized that my body had done their job already and I didn’t need any metal rods. They just cleaned up all the bone fragments and turned it into bone cement which was used as reinforcement on my sacrum. It felt lumpy for years, but eventually my lower back took on its original shape, like the surgeon had promised.
I spent weeks lying as still as possible staring at the same spot on the ceiling. Suddenly a physiotherapist appeared by my bedside and told me to sit up. I got a big surprise and my inner voice told me that I wasn’t capable yet. But I was a patient so I had to obey the hospital rules. I forced myself to get up from my horizontal position and sit up at the side of the bed. It felt like being tortured on an electric chair and if Peter hadn’t been there to catch me I would have fainted and fallen off the bed and broken my neck all over again. She realized she had made a mistake and wrote in big letters: Sitting no go!
Our world is full of well meaning Realists like this. While we are quietly working away at our dream they come along and knock the stuffing out of us. I felt such a failure! Suddenly the gap between expectation and reality seemed too enormous. I felt completely overwhelmed and wanted to quit. No amount of oils helped me that day; I just wanted everything to end.
The next day Peter helped me raise the bed on a gentle angle, and from then on we increased the angle a bit more every day, till in the end I was able to endure sitting up for a few minutes. Those minutes turned into half an hour and after 2 months I was able to sit up for an hour at the time. I was flown home to Tasmania after that and was allowed to recover on a hospital bed in my lounge room. This is when I really needed a lot of ‘peace and calm’. It was so hard for me to watch Peter work all day and then he had to help me with my catheter and cook and clean at night while the kids were walking around like orphans.
Another month of lying around and I got word that I was allowed to put my dream to the test and start taking a few steps. Peter had got me a walking frame from the hospital and I sat at the side of the bed looking at it for a while. I was so ready yet I was so scared at the same time. The kids were having breakfast when I slowly got up from my hospital bed in a standing position. So far so good, except that I had lost that much weight that my trousers dropped down around my ankles. I took a couple of steps and suddenly my stick legs remembered what to do and they took off. I jubilantly chucked the walking frame in the air and did a couple of laps round the table by myself after which I collapsed back onto the bed and the kids went back to their breakfast. That first wobbly step was a defining moment in my recovery and I have never really looked back since then.
Sometimes people ask Gary Young: how do you start on the oils? He’s been known to say: by taking the lid off the bottle! Don’t be afraid to open the bottle and start using the oils. Nobody needs to tell us how much to use, because our bodies will let us know. The oils will help us to let go of the limiting beliefs so we can see our dream and seize it.
Once we had to inhabit our new rooms most of our staff felt so unsettled that they left. They missed the ambience of the previous clinic and the Purple House felt quite ‘raw’ as if it was clinging to its old Post Office past. This meant we now had 6 therapy rooms and only 3 therapists. I had visualized the place buzzing with customers and happy workers but instead was sitting behind the desk all by myself one day wondering what on earth I had started! If I had been content to stay at home, we could have saved ourselves a lot of pain and money and paid off the mortgage instead of now having a double mortgage.
It only took a few months or so for the Purple house to settle into its new role and then we were up and running. In May 2013, about 6 years later than intended, we opened Alchemy Café which put the final pieces of our dream together. Now every square inch of the Purple House is being utilized and we have gone from a mere $33 per week to pumping over 1,000,000 dollars back into the community with the help and support of a Dream Team of 18 talented employees.
And what about Gary Young? Today at nearly 70 he is fitter and more productive than most 20 year olds. His personal aim is to build and open two new essential oil distilleries per year, up from one per year. He has recently published another book. Gary and Mary are also raising two young sons. With the support of essential oils Mary had her first child at age 54 and the second one at age 57 which proves that even age doesn’t need to limit our dreams. |
Here is a good question to ask: when was the last time you had a dream that made you feel good about yourself and your life? If I can do it so can you! Don’t rely on others to create your dreams for you. Own your dreams. Don’t worry if your closest friends or relatives are Idea crushers. The more they protest the more it means your Dream has real value. Your dream needs to be so big that it allows you to grow into it. |
PS: to obtain some of the world’s purest essential oils and wellness products at wholesale price contact the Purple House on 64283007. Become connected to the Purple Team, and become a member of the Young Living family. The Purple Team has many dedicated members, all happy to share their experiences, including Tania, Hannah, Caleb, Tarley, Cassie, Alanah, Joh, Mel, Lisanne, Eve, Caleb, Fiona, Pam, Peter, Bevan, Marjory me and the list keeps growing. |
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