Meet my new neighbours… bahbours… they moved in yesterday. I am now living in a sheep sandwich…
Humans often use sheep as a metaphor for… for what exactly?
“The price of being a sheep is boredom. The price of being a wolf is loneliness. Choose one or the other with great care.” ― Hugh MacLeod
Let’s just say that if you do a search for the term ‘sheep’ in quotes, you’ll find a lot of words laced together by one human using the word ‘sheep’ to describe other humans, usually in not so complimentary ways… usually with the person speaking referring to others as ‘sheep’ or ‘sheeple’ in a condescending manner and considering themselves to be… what?… a lone wolf… or a fox… somehow better than and above this flock of ‘sheep’ they perceive to be in some way beneath them or not as intelligent as them or something like that which is very human and probably not sheep-like at all or wolf-like or anything other than human. HUmans tend to think that other humans are not able to see what they can see, and they feel the need to speak about their superiority by using their perceived inferiority of others to prove it.
Are they right, wrong, or something else? Who knows…
“You will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity. At some time, every creature which lives must do so. It is the ultimate shadow, the defeat of creation; this is the curse at work, the curse that feeds on all life. Everywhere in the universe.” ― Philip K. Dick
It’s a human thing… foxes, wolves and sheep don’t do that sort of thing… that we know of… they may be enemies of a sort, but they may all agree about how they perceive humans. Again… who knows, we’re certainly not going to listen to them even if they spoke in clear human speak. They may choose not to ever speak in human speak if they could simply because they know there’s no point, we don’t listen unless those who are speaking are saying what we want to hear… or what we don’t want to hear and want to argue with to prove our point and disprove someone else’s… which is the same as not listening.
There are also humans who appreciate sheep, not just for what needs of ours they can fulfill, but also in other ways. There are those who use the metaphor in a positive way, those who see the value in being part of a group, a flock.
“I had chosen the path of the black sheep rather than that of the unicorns and puppies.” ― Magenta Periwinkle
There are humans who have learned to speak sheep, and the language of other animals, those whom we may refer to as animal ‘whisperers’ and consider them to have some mysterious power. Maybe they do. And there are those who translate the world of animals for us… although they often anthropomorphise and so we end up misinformed, maybe, yet in a happy way. Hearing what we want to hear. Animals are just like us… or we are just like them. We just look a bit different… is all.
Then there are those who see the symbolic meaning in the natural world… although the sheep as a totem animal or spirit guide or symbol is perhaps not as valued by humans as something more fierce. Most people want to be wolves or tigers or eagles. Something big and bad and clever and… awesome in our own eyes. A sheep… bah!
“The proof that the little prince existed is that he was charming, that he laughed, and that he was looking for a sheep. If anybody wants a sheep, that is a proof that he exists.” ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Humans are probably the most crazy of all of nature’s creations… there’s not much we can do about it, except maybe be aware of it, which may make us crazier, and find a way to accept it, very hard for humans to do, and live with it, we don’t have much choice about that other than… well, you know. As for living with each other… we try, sometimes we succeed, sometimes we have… issues.
We don’t really know what we’re doing or where we’re going with this thing called life… human life… we just do and go and hope for the best, prepare ourselves for the worst, maybe achieve a happy medium… perhaps.
We’re all… crazy, wild, natural… sheep, wolves, and everything else… we all belong on this weird planet we call Earth, Hurtling through whatever we think this planet is hurtling through or suspended in or whatever. We have our place even when we don’t like our space and want someone else’s… because they don’t use it as well as we would if we had it and other things like that.
We’re all in this together whether we like it or not, whether we think we are or not, whether we consider ourselves wolves, sheep, or something else.
“Anyhow we never know where we must go, nor what guides we are to get… people, storms, guardian angels, or sheep….” ― John Muir
It’s kind of fun being human… I’m guessing it’s kind of fun being a sheep too. I don’t have any pics of wolves… but that’s probably fun to be too.
An Upturned Soul 
We are what we are, aren’t we? Perhaps if we spent less time trying to convince ourselves that we’re something else, we might be able to recognise more easily how much fun it can be.
Great post! 🙂
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Thank you 🙂
That’s very true. It’s strange isn’t it how difficult it seems for us to just accept ourselves as we are and enjoy who we actually are as is. The ripple effects of it can cause us not to accept others as they are either, we can’t give something to others that we don’t give to ourselves, not easily anyway, it becomes a concerted effort and perhaps we resent it a bit especially if others don’t appreciate what we are doing. And because we’re so hard on ourselves, pushing ourselves to be someone else, we perceive others as not accepting who we are either, as wanting more from us and keeping a list of all of our faults and flaws. You can spot this sort of subtle undercurrent in so many interactions.
I was like that for a long time, I’ve relaxed more these days but I still catch myself doing it, picking on myself for who I am, wanting to be someone else, someone who is better than me which in my eyes isn’t that difficult but it seems impossible for me to do. I was doing it to myself last night, it usually kicks in when I can’t get my head around something which I perceive others as finding easy to do. For me it’s connected to my dyslexia, my mind just can’t compute certain things and I get very frustrated with myself. The main difference these days is I know I’m doing it, not accepting myself and… that tendency is also part of who I am.
I think we have to accept that we don’t always accept ourselves, that way we can accept all the facets. So being contradictory happens and it’s okay. Relax, have fun with it. At least that’s what I tell myself 😉
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I can relate. I am hard on myself. People in my life tell me this. And it’s true. It’s a holdover from my childhood. An unwanted stowaway. I just can’t seem to be as kind to myself as I am to others. It feels so unnatural, like I must stay on top of myself. It’s silly, really, as I am not lazy and quite sufficient at things. See there, I just got hard on myself about that 🙂
Hard on myself about being hard on myself.
I think I just never grew out of the vigilance of my childhood. I’m working on it. I think it’s my deep down, real, truest challenge. Someone said to me recently about the nature of my thoughts and feelings: “Welcome everything. Welcome it all”. There’s something in that for me. It speaks to this issue for me, but I’m not sure how yet. Maybe it’s a softening of the vigilance? It says “Come….there is a place for you here…your fears…your worries…what you think is bad or wrong about you….it really is all okay….Come”.
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I’m very hard on myself too… and I’m hard on myself for being hard on myself. My escape from the knotty problem which that creates is just accepting that being hard on myself, and hard on myself for being hard on myself, is all part of who I am as is. It’s going to happen because I’m going to happen.
So when I catch myself doing it, either way, I shrug and let it be. It has a flip side too. Nothing is just half, everything is whole. Being hard on myself, being hard on myself for being hard on myself, informs how I relate to others, how I understand them, and how we interact. It makes me more aware of how critical people can be towards themselves, and how often their criticism and judgmental attitude towards others, towards me, is influenced by their self-talk, their self-criticism and self-judgment.
That self-knowledge of how hard we are on ourselves can give us insight into how hard others are on themselves… and when they’re being hard on us, it’s not us they’re being hard on… it’s themselves through us. Through what they project and reflect onto us.
It’s made my relationships more satisfying. So being hard on myself, seeing it, knowing it, understanding it, being aware of it, softens the way I am with others, and can soften how they are with me and with themselves. It all connects… and seeing those interconnections makes it acceptable because we see the purpose it serves from a bigger and wider perspective.
Some things which are labeled as being ‘negative’ are more positive in their ripple effect and consequences than those things we value as being ‘positive’. Our insecurities and doubts can give the kind of confidence which nurtures us and others in a way that our securities can make us cold and harsh and not nurturing at all.
Perspective. 🙂
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Thank you, Ursula. I greatly admire your openness to thinking about things from lots of angles. You’ll look behind that thing and around it, you’ll put it in a different setting, you’ll change its clothes, you’ll switch out its lighting. Figuratively, of course, but you know what I mean, especially about things related to you, to your self, your self-concept. You’ve said in past posts, I think, that you have been rewriting the programming from your childhood. I can see it, and it’s truly a beautiful thing.
And it inspires me to do likewise, although I’ll do my own rewriting, because otherwise that would be plagiarism 🙂
I like this idea of accepting that we don’t always accept ourselves. It reminds me that I don’t need to fix myself. I don’t need to change. I can just be me. Everything in me has its place in me. Because honestly, if I have to fix being hard on myself, and then fix being hard on myself about being hard on myself, and that’s just ONE thing, then it all sounds like so much work and I want to throw my hands up in the air! 🙂
So then this makes me think…. maybe it isn’t so much about reprogramming old, faulty beliefs? Maybe the answer is to just let ourselves “be”? Maybe it’s about self-acceptance, right this very second, in the here and now….because we might reprogram something that really has its place. Things that keep us humble, and human.
I don’t know. My mind is jumping around a little right now. I’m thinking… maybe it’s less about challenging our old thoughts and assumptions with laser beam focus, and more about just speaking kindly to ourselves? If we are truly gentle and compassionate towards ourselves, there may be no need to root out old, harmful thinking. It will just go by the wayside. It will just happen naturally.
I just know I want to be gentle and compassionate towards myself. I want that for me. It’s what I want most for me. I’m tired of feeling I have to avoid parts of me, because they are not pretty enough to look at.
Anyways…I hope you know how grateful I am for the time and energy you devote to your thoughts and our thoughts. “Thank you” doesn’t seem enough. If you lived down the street, I would do something nice for you. I don’t know what, but I’d come up with something really great. You would SO love it 🙂
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Thank you 🙂
Ha! I love that!!! If you lived down the street… right now I could really use a ride in a dinghy (pouring with rain and flooding the roads) to get to the local village as I need to buy myself some new teeth – the ones I have have been worn down by chomping on thoughts 😉 I’m certain I would SO LOVE whatever wonderful thing you did!!!
I should warn you though, I always look rather shell shocked when someone does something for me. If someone gives me a gift, I tend to dive into a bunker for cover. Those who know me tend to yell – Incoming! – before they give me something. This quirk is mine, made and programmed by me, so there’s no getting rid of it 😉 although I can mitigate how it affects others… a bit… with humour.
Here’s the thing about me, my sweet tooth (again with the teeth!) is ideas, thoughts, abstract concepts, sharing and exploring. What you share with me, to me, is priceless and very valuable. Yours words, thoughts, ideas, the energy which they emanate inspires me and is something I consider to be the greatest treasure and gift that a human can give to another. There you have it. I too am grateful to you. It’s a reciprocal flow.
I think there is a kind of happy medium. It’s good to know where our thoughts, programming, patterns, etc, come from, what’s going on behind the scenes, how they were formed and what purpose they served and may still serve. Coping mechanisms in particular can pile up and cause a jam. Some are an important part of us, so we keep those because like you so rightly pointed out if we fix them we may make a mess of the interesting multi-faceted being that we are. Some of them though stop us from being who we are, from blossoming and discovering more of who we are. So those can be thanked for their part in our journey, and then slowly let go, gently, no force required.
There are certain things we’ve adopted which aren’t ours which may be masking what is ours. We sometimes pick up stray fears, ideas, which don’t belong to us. They seemed to need some food and a home, and then they decided to settle in, and we kind of need to release them back into the wild.
I think the guide of what to do comes from within us. We can feel it. This is me versus this is not me but something I thought was me.
I used to do this in a rather rough way with myself, like I was having a super clear out of a very cluttered closet, and occasionally I ended up throwing out things which were of value just to get rid of everything because I couldn’t stand the clutter. I’m gentler now. Age has mellowed me and made me more appreciative of myself as is. I’m also lazier, but it kind of works better.
A lot can be done simply by shifting how you look at something. For instance – being hard on yourself – this trait has other uses than just for being hard on yourself. It’s connected to other aspects of you. It gives you discernment. I bet that you have a very artistic eye. An ability to notice detail and see how it makes up the whole. So, sometimes all we need to do is see how something which we don’t necessarily like about ourselves ties in with things which we do like. See the links and connections. The hidden gifts of our curses. Sometimes it reveals that a curse is actually a blessing. And it allows to relax, to see that everything has its place and purpose, that which seems bad has good in it, perhaps more good than bad, perhaps it is the source of many things which bless us.
The more you accept the things which are you whether you like them or not, and can see their other sides and uses, the more the things which aren’t a part of you stand out and can be asked to leave. You may find the things which you didn’t like which are a part of you, will help you let go of the things which aren’t a part of you but got stuck to you, mixed in with the rest.
Many things about ourselves are just misunderstood, we try to get rid of them and avoid them because we just don’t get them, once we make the effort to understand them, they become our allies – even if they sometimes still play the villain every now and then and we still avoid them now and then. It’s part of the inner relationship dynamic, it all makes sense from a certain angle 🙂
Astrology really helped me accept what I considered unacceptable, because it shows the interplay of dualities and polarities.
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Thank you. You’ve given me things to think about. I have a long drive tomorrow, and these thoughts will be my companion. 🙂
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Thank you 🙂 Have a lovely adventure!
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