The Metaphor of The Hungry Tiger: How to Stop Numbing Anxiety, Fear, and Other Difficult Emotions
There is a famous metaphor in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) called “The Hungry Tiger.” It’s often used to explore the dynamic that can develop between us and our emotions when we attempt to numb, avoid or appease them for too long. (Hint: things only tend to get worse.)
I’ve adapted my own version of the story below:
Imagine one morning you step into your kitchen to find a small baby tiger staring back at you. While on one hand he might look a little cute, you have to admit it’s also a bit startling. You see a flash of his sharp-looking baby teeth and begin to get a little nervous that he could nip at you. He does look a little hungry, after all... Just to be safe, you grab a small slab of meat from your refrigerator for him to nibble on instead of your hand, and the baby tiger makes his way out of your house to enjoy his breakfast, effectively leaving you safe and alone again.
At least for a bit.
The next morning, you walk into the kitchen to find the tiger back in the room, this time waiting patiently next to the fridge. He’s gotten a bit bigger since you first met, and so once again you grab some meat from the fridge in hopes that he’ll leave without much fuss again. You don’t really want to upset a growing hungry tiger, so you breathe a small sigh of relief when he takes your offering and heads out once more.
The next day - as you now have begun to anxiously anticipate - the tiger is back. Although this time, bolstered by all that good meat you’ve been feeding him, the tiger is much larger and much more ravenous. Trembling a bit, you start wondering if feeding him may not have been the best idea. But with a terrifying roar and swipe of his razor-sharp claws, he now demands to be fed! Panicked, you quickly oblige, and the cycle continues.
Each day you give the tiger his temporary fix, and each morning you watch the tiger return larger and more powerful because of it. As an added consequence of giving away all your meat, you start to have little food left for yourself. Panged by hunger and slowly wasting away, you become weaker and weaker beneath the tiger’s dominating presence each day.
In therapy, the metaphor of The Hungry Tiger is meant to illustrate our own typical relationships to unwanted emotions. While their bark may actually be bigger than their bite, the more we attempt to placate or avoid difficult feelings, the more powerful they usually become.
But what does this actually look like in practice?
Consider some examples of the coping mechanisms we often use to escape the more painful parts of life:
Procrastination, overwork, or compulsive behaviors to placate feelings of anxiety and uncertainty
Binge eating, drinking, or shopping to drown feelings of insecurity or shame
Sex, people pleasing, or social media to avoid feelings of underlying loneliness or grief
When we use these behaviors to numb or avoid directly dealing with the emotion itself, we start to allow these unwanted feelings to grow bigger and scarier in our heads than they actually are. We begin to believe that feeling them would simply be intolerable, and so do anything we can to escape the experience at all costs—of course, only perpetuating the cycle as a result.
The truth is, when we confront difficult emotions we find that although the bite may certainly sting a bit, it is often much less painful than living in constant fear, and much less detrimental than the cost of becoming a slave to them has on our lives.
And while we may never successfully get the tiger to move out of the house entirely, we just might learn that it is still quite possible to tame and develop a healthy and effective relationship with this house guest. And wouldn’t it be kind of cool to have a tiger around, so long as you establish some ground rules and mutual respect?
So take some time to consider for yourself:
What is the tiger (aka: feeling) you’re always trying to avoid?
What is the meat (aka: coping mechanism) you’re using to placate it, and what are the consequences?
Which power dynamic with the tiger do you want to end up in long-term?