The Beast Within
by Jackie Kosednar
There is a bridge between heaven and earth...
It is called love.
There are some things in life we can’t change.
Human Nature is one of them. The physical part of
us, our body, is intimately related to the animal
kingdom. You don’t have to tell your body how
to heal or make a baby or get out of the way of danger.
It already knows how and does so automatically. Our
bodies come pre-wired with instincts, or automatic
programs that are necessary to survive on this planet.
We take that animal intelligence for granted. It is
so integrated into us we don’t even recognize
its existence.
If you set an intention to notice the part the ‘animal’
plays in your behavior and the behavior of others,
you can become more wise and compassionate. You can
then use this energy instead of letting it use you.
There are positive ways the animal within can aid
us. One of them is in childbirth or intuitive parenting
of our young. Ask any women who allowed the “animal
self” to take over and then gave birth in an
easy, glorious, profound way.
There is also the other side of the animal, the dark
side. We bring out the beast when we tell others they
are wrong or challenge them. Others may then fight
us because they feel threatened. By paying attention
to the animal within and having compassion for it,
however, we let go of some of the impossible expectations
we have for others and ourselves.
Fighting
The human animal becomes a beast when it doesn’t
know love or is abused; that is, when it feels stripped
of its power. Feeling afraid is feeling powerless.
When we feel a power deficiency it triggers the animal
and our survival instincts take over. We go unconscious
and look for ways to steal power. The instinctual
animal self will take it from the ones we love, or
ones we hate through abuse. Abuse is always an effort
of the traumatized animal self to steal power and
puff itself back up.
Have you noticed that when people start fighting,
they stop listening? If you consider your last fight,
you will probably see that no one won and everyone
lost. Even if it looks like you won, you have lost
something—usually the love and respect of the
other person. That’s why we have the same fights
over and over again with no resolution.
The power-deficient animal self can never come from
a place of compassion. If threatened, it doesn’t
take your wishes into consideration for it doesn’t
care how you feel. The higher parts of the brain turn
off as the reactive mind take over. Love is not allowed
into the equation when the beast has hijacked the
brain. It simply takes over because that is its job:
to protect us. It is a blind intelligence whose goal
is to maintain its position of power to survive. When
the beast recedes we feel guilty and wonder what got
into us.
Human drama
We live in a power hungry world—a world of fear.
The nightly news is enough to keep the animal up and
on guard, barking its head off. Human drama glorifies
the human animal. The human beast is our main source
of entertainment from news shows to soap operas. In
this way, the media gives us the entitlement to act
out the nature of the beast: making war on others
for territory, possessions or control. The human animal
is very sophisticated, sometimes very subtle. Unfortunately,
it has an intelligence that our animal friends or
wild animals don’t have, which can make us more
cunning and deadly.
What’s the answer?
The goal of the spiritual seeker is to stay in a ‘witness’
viewpoint and master the potential beast within. Then
we can cultivate and grow our higher self. For we
can’t master the beast by ignoring, cornering
or suppressing it.
There is a bridge between heaven and earth—or,
from the frontal lobes of the brain to the anterior
primitive or survival brain. It is called love. Where
there is love, there is safety. All animals will respond
in some degree to love and respect. Every animal trainer
knows this. The only way animals became domesticated
in the first place was through love. By loving them
tame, they became beloved pets. The only way an animal
can be trained or tamed is with love and appreciation.
Love and consistency make us feel safe. Unless we
feel safe, we can’t love. Fear makes us bite
and nip. Love makes us purr. Both fear and love move
in a circle. Love creates love. Fear perpetuates fear.
How to tame the beast
- Start by noticing when your animal (or someone
else’s) is engaged in a power struggle. Make
yourself the witness, not the participant. Yes,
this is tricky, but it is possible with practice.
Dedicate one week to noticing the animal in others:
on television, in the grocery store. If the beast
engages you and insists on fighting, you won’t
be able to get through. So stop trying. Maintain
your power by not engaging, by not defending yourself.
- Next, begin to perceive why you (or they) are
feeling powerless. When you see an individual as
powerless and trying to make up for the deficiency,
you can create a space for compassion. Then you
have the option not to buy into hurtful words or
behaviors. That could mean you give them what they
want, or just let them wind down without challenging
them or defending yourself. Sometimes leaving the
scene is the only way to defuse the energy of the
beast and empower both of you.
- Always do your best to love and empower people.
Look for ways to appreciate them. Kind words and
praise tame the beast. The more we empower each
other, the safer and less reactive we all are. When
you set an intention to be more loving, opportunities
will present themselves.
Perspective in retrospect
As you practice (no one ever gets through this without
lots of practice), you will notice that the choices
of the beast are limited to fight, freeze or flee.
With only these options, it is impossible to come
up with intelligent solutions to conflicts. You can
tell the brain has been hijacked when conflict becomes
robotic.
Effective problem solving comes from the frontal
lobes of the brain (or place of power), not the anterior
lobes (or primitive brain, which is the seat of fear
and, thus, no power). That means the only way problems
can be solved is through agreement, when both people
are coming from a higher place (safety). You could
even make a list of the common fights and set a time
each week to sit down together and brainstorm solutions.
Sometimes just agreeing to ‘not agree’
defuses a lot of conflict. Everyone has a right to
his or her opinion; we just don’t have the right
to inflict ours on other people, even if we believe
we are right.
