We as First Nations People have led exciting lives. This sounds like a good thing and fun but it is also very trying on our well-being.
I often hear people talking about how they deal with stress and using words such as flight or fight. There is often a tone of being exhausted with this coping mechanism or feeling like “Why can’t I be brave instead of every time I face this situation I end up becoming angry and shouting or acting out, or I disappear in my mind or I leave the situation. Why can’t I be strong? Why do I have to always be so predictable in my responses to stress?”
It is exhausting to always be in flight or fight. Sometimes when we are used to being in dangerous situations our brain begins to get used to always being on the lookout for danger and it begins to see danger all the time. It is like our brain gets hardwired to sense danger and to always be on the lookout for any sign of threat.
When I hear someone talking about how they can’t sleep, have headaches and are generally frustrated and exhausted with what they perceive as their weakness, I take a moment and I talk to them about Rabbit Wisdom. When you watch wise Rabbit in the woods, he constantly has one ear open and is keeping a watchful eye as he goes about eating grass and raising his family.
Rabbits use their wisdom to know when they should run out of a dangerous situation such as when a Coyote is nearby, and the wise rabbit knows when to make a clean get away. They know this because when the Coyote first enters into their line of vision and hearing they they freeze and take a couple of moments to size up the situation. The wise Rabbit also knows not to call attention to itself while the Coyote is nearby so it freezes and while checking out whether Coyote will notice it in the grass. Coyote walks by wise Rabbit and no harm is done. Rabbit averts danger without even wasting any energy.
But if Coyote gets a bead on the wise Rabbit then wise Rabbit explodes out of the grass and uses a huge amount of energy, speed and zig zagging strategy to elude the Coyote. Sometimes, it works and sometimes it does not. If it does not, Rabbit can be hanging limply from Coyote’s jaws, and if Coyote gets distracted and puts wise Rabbit down, wise Rabbit comes out of a muscles limp state and in a burst of speed eludes the Coyote.
When we are in stressful situations, we need to trust ourselves to get ourselves out of the situation. We can freeze and see what is best course of action, take a deep breath and get ourselves out of dangerous situation or we can go as limp as a noodle while waiting for our chance to escape. We are wise Rabbit.
Honour your Rabbit wisdom. We are alive because of Rabbit Wisdom.