Yesterday I went to a day-long seminar with Tsultrim Allione, who presented about her new book Feeding Your Demons. The concept behind the book is that when we feed our demons, rather than fight them, they become our allies, and it strikes me as a highly useful skill in the world of work. On the way to the office this morning (aka the coffee shop), I found myself contemplating my specific workplace demons. There’s the demon of procrastination, the demon of self-doubt, the demon of fear-I-don’t-know-enough, the demon of confusion-about-what-to-do, the demon of fear-of-calling-people, the demon of annoyance-at-coworkers. Then there are the yet-to-be-identified demons behind all of these.
The practice for feeding the demons draws on ancient Buddhist practice. When we resist a demon, we give it power over us, stoking our fear of it (and its power over us). Yet this is often what we do. Allione used Hercules second labor as a metaphor for what happens when we fight or go to war with our demons. In this labor, Hercules fought the hydra, but each time he sliced off this multi-headed created, two more heads emerged. Finally he used a flaming branch to close the heads before new ones popped out but the main head was immortal, impossible to kill, so this one — after slaying the body — he covered under a rock. Her point in using this story is that even if we do manage to defeat a demon in battle, the best we can do is hide it under a rock. Push the rock and it pops up ready to fight again.
But if you feed the demon — give the demon what it wants, which is often love, respect, attention — then you help it meet its needs, and its reason to fight you dissolves. In its place, you may find an ally
1 Response to “Feeding Your Demons”