💡The Tiger Pounce

💡The Tiger Pounce

I know that I am smart and intelligent.

I also know that I am a Water Tiger.

And sometimes those two things arrive at a problem at very different speeds.

My Tiger tends to arrive first.

She sees something that feels wrong

unfair

dishonest

or simply off and…

POUNCE.

There goes the bathwater.

Unfortunately

every once in a while

there goes the baby with it.

I know this about myself.

I can become passionate very quickly

especially when I feel that something important is at stake

I want to act.

I want to correct it.

I want to stand up and say

No!

This isn’t right.

And there is nothing inherently wrong with that instinct.

In fact

I’ve learned that my emotions are often the first part of me to notice

that something needs my attention.

The problem comes when I ask those emotions to do a job they weren’t meant to do.

They can sound the alarm.

They don’t necessarily need to conduct the investigation.

Peaceful Does Not Mean Passive

For a long time, I think I confused peace with yielding.

If I didn’t fight immediately, perhaps I wasn’t standing up for myself.

If I waited, perhaps I was allowing something wrong to happen.

I’m learning something different.

I can be peaceful without being passive.

I can notice the anger.

I can listen to what it is pointing toward.

And then I can wait long enough for clarity to join the conversation.

What actually happened?

What do I know?

What can I prove?

What am I assuming?

What does the document actually say?

What does the law actually say?

What remains when I separate the event

from the story I have already begun telling myself about the event?

Those questions don’t make me weaker.

They make my response stronger.

Give the Tiger a Job

I don’t think my Tiger needs to disappear.

I rather like her.

She has courage.

She notices things.

She has gotten me through circumstances in which I needed someone

willing to stand up for me

and sometimes that someone had to be me.

So perhaps the answer isn’t to tame her.

Perhaps the answer is simply to give her the right job.

Her job is to say:

Something is happening here.

Look.

And then she can sit beside me while I examine it.

The evidence can be the evidence.

The truth can be the truth.

I don’t have to make either one bigger in order for it to matter.

And if I discover that I was mistaken?

Well.

We are each allowed 1,000 mistakes a day.

I can change my mind.

I can retrieve whatever I tossed out too quickly.

I can begin again.

The Baby Gets to Stay

Maybe this is what peace actually looks like.

Not silence.

Not submission.

Not pretending that something doesn’t hurt or anger me.

Not abandoning the part of myself that is willing to fight for what matters.

Peace is creating enough space between the pounce and the response

for wisdom to enter.

My emotions can tell me where to look.

My mind can help me understand what I find.

And neither has to destroy the other.

The Tiger can stay.

The bathwater can go when it needs to.

And,

with a little practice,

the baby gets to stay in the bathtub.

💎 Stones for the Pause

🩷Rose Quartz

🩷Morganite

💙 Blue Lace Agate

For softening the pounce

finding clarity

and choosing a response without surrendering your voice.

Continue to 💎 The Litharium

Continue to 💡Under, Inner & Outer Standings

Return to 📖 The Mountain Journal