The Lone Wolf Myth and the Price of Peace

I’m at an ill-timed stage in my life where I have to rebuild. Mentally, I should be more stressed than I’ve ever been. There’s a lot of external pressure, trust me. It’s not just self-imposed. Internally, though… here’s the thing about hitting rock bottom: there’s truly nowhere to go but up. There’s tranquility.

For a moment, I almost fell back into my usual pattern of taking more classes, piling on certifications, climbing, hustling, booking more gigs, and then…

Pause.

I was doing the same damn thing again. This happens every time I hit a roadblock.

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Tattoo story time!

There’s a story of Kali, the goddess of destruction, who enters such a wild war frenzy that she cannot stop herself. She slays demon after demon, her tongue dripping with their blood, her dance shaking the earth itself. The frenzy becomes endless; Kali is no longer just killing demons, she is consumed by destruction and unable to return to herself. The gods plead with her to stop, but nothing works.

Shiva, her consort, then lies down in front of her in shavasana, the corpse pose of total surrender. When Kali’s foot lands on his chest, the shock of realizing she is about to destroy the one she loves brings her back to consciousness. She calms, her tongue still out in both shame and recognition.

The story is often told as a metaphor for the way frenzy, rage, and survival energy can consume us until rest, love, or deep stillness interrupts the cycle.

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Rock bottom → survival strategy: grind and conquer → I rub two brain cells together for once, intelligence steps in and… rest.

That’s this year for me.

I’ve learned I’m an emotional sponge. I’m actually embarrassed at all the Stoicism I’ve touted in my mid 20s. I need to protect myself at all costs. If it costs me my peace, it’s too expensive. That’s a hard call for someone wired the way I am, but looking back at this year, I’m proud of how far I’ve come.

Look at these marshmallow seals. It’s actually an accurate photo of me insides (I’m soft):

I’ve cut contact with most of my family. I only speak to my brother, and my dad once in a while. That’s a huge shift from answering my grandmother’s calls all day—sometimes upwards of 68 calls—for emotional support and, often, money. I feel remorse about cutting off my Japanese family. It felt cruel. I ghosted. I want to make that right someday. Yumi, Yuko, if you ever see this, I’m really sorry. I really do want to go to Japan together with you one day.

But as a sponge, every visit left me canceling plans, sleeping all weekend, literally shaking from the grief I’d absorbed. I do want to build myself into a stronger container for the people I love, but I have to be honest about how much I can handle. For too long, I played resident family therapist and ignored my own needs.

Friends have been even harder. I take friendships seriously because they’re the family we choose. I had to take a hard look at each one, at how much I was giving. When I stopped giving endlessly, guilt trips started, resentment built, and I realized I’d been enabling. They’d never fly if I kept carrying them.

Now I focus on watering the friendships that water me, too. Accepting help has been weird but good. I realized I’ve always been happy giving, but I resisted receiving because it made me feel vulnerable—like I’d owe someone, like I’d eventually fail their expectations, anyways, so why bother?

What a messed-up circle of unhealthiness and avoidable pain.

I leaned hard into the ‘lone wolf’ archetype while in survival mode. It’s comical to me, now. I keep attracting other lone wolves. We’re not kidding anyone—we’re the loneliest of all. Not mysterious. Just damaged. Have some grace for us. I even have a wolf tattoo, and my German Shepherd in LA is named Wulf. I almost want to throw up. Every human being is wired for connection, and I resisted this for so long.

Every person I’ve dated fit the same archetype: brooding, mysterious, independent, a neat little puzzle.

A friend shook me in May, right as I was moving to Texas, and said, “What are you complaining about? You are this archetype! You’re complaining about yourself! Stop being it.”

They were right. Like attracts like. Would I count on any of us to raise a healthy family? Probably not. We’re great friends, terrible lovers and probably terrible parents. Hence the rewiring of my entire existence. My mentor once joked, “You’re terrible at relationships. You should probably stop.” I can laugh about this all this now —I accept all of me and have largely stopped resisting that I’m a Golden Retriever trapped inside of a Wolf, trapped inside of an Asian Lady. And we’re all trying to figure it out. I’m thankful for the Wolf for protecting me when I need protecting.

I keep saying relationships are mirrors, and they are. Even broken ones. Every relationship—romantic or platonic, has taught me something and accelerated my growth faster than I could have done alone. I’m grateful for all of it, and it helps me grow and become a better partner; a better friend each time.

Still, I yearn for closeness, connection, family. I read something recently about a writer falling so in love with the reader they’d die for them. I must admit, I’ve felt least lonely lately while writing. I feel connected and whole on the page in a way I’ve never felt among people. I’ll keep pushing my edges to find creatives. But the page—it’s always been about the page.