Inner Zoo Keeper - Who Knew!?

Taming, Training and Tenderly Feeding the Beasts Within.

I found a new practice to work with those most stubborn habitual thoughts—the kind that don’t care how much therapy, journaling, or meditation you’ve already done. The ones that show up uninvited, plop down in your mental living room, and start bossing you around. Enter Feeding Your Demons, a Buddhist-based practice adapted by Lama Tsultrim Allione in her book of the same name. It’s one of those deceptively simple “you think you get it, but just wait” teachings—beautifully clear, accessible for beginners, and still packing a serious spiritual punch.

The premise is wild but wise: what you fight, you fuel. Instead of trying to evict your annoying repetitive, fearful, shameful, or anxious thoughts, you invite them for coffee. Once you find the "demon", you personify it—give it a name, a shape, a voice. (Yes, you may feel ridiculous at first. That’s how you know it’s working.) You listen to what it wants, what it needs, and—plot twist—you feed it. Compassion. Breath. Confidence. Maybe a metaphorical slice of chocolate cake. As they ingest this elixir, they shrink and fade, making space for the higher vibration of an ally. All of this unfolds in your vivid imagination as part of a guided meditation. The practice itself has five steps:

1. Find the Demon. Focus on what’s draining, spinning, or disturbing you. Where is it hiding in your body? What does it feel like? 
2. Personify the Demon and Ask What It Needs. What size, color, or shape is it? Does it have eyes, limbs, texture? How do you feel looking at it? Then pose the three key questions—without answering yet: What do you want from me? What do you need from me? How will you feel if you get what you need?
3. Become the Demon. Close your eyes, switch cushions, and vividly imagine you are the demon. See through its eyes. Then answer the three questions as the demon itself: What I want from you is… What I need from you is… When my need is met, I will feel…
4. Feed the Demon and Meet the Ally. Return to your own seat and imagine your body melting into nectar—whatever essence the demon said it would feel when satisfied. Feed that to it until it’s completely content. Then, from the open space that remains, allow an ally to appear. It might be an animal, a person, a mythical creature, a light form—whatever arises. Ask it: How will you help me? How will you protect me? What commitment do you make to me? How can I access you? Then switch seats again, embody the ally, answer, and finally integrate it.
5. Rest in Awareness. Once the demon is fed and the ally integrated, let both dissolve into spacious awareness. Rest there. Breathe. (Read the book!)

​I’ll admit it—I was both fascinated and a little freaked out by the idea of “feeding my demons.” Curiosity won, but intimidation was riding shotgun. I wandered through Lama Tsultrim’s website looking for a step-by-step, maybe a “Feeding Demons for Dummies” version. And then—bam!—serendipity strikes: a brilliant podcaster, Diana Hill, had interviewed Lama Tsultrim and uploaded the full guided meditation on Insight Timer. Easy peasy. Plug, play, feed your demons. I was in.

The first time I tried it, the “demon” that showed up wasn’t some manageable little gremlin. It was a massive rattlesnake, slithering angrily right out of my chest cavity like it owned the place (it did). Cold, green, and sneaky. Hissing, pissed, eyes huge and spinning like Kaa from The Jungle Book. I was mesmerized—and terrified. I remembered the instruction: go with whatever shows up, even if it’s big and scary. So I stayed. This thing had been living the life of Riley inside me, defending me for years—reacting, engaging, constantly coiled and ready to strike, protecting me with a vigilance so fierce it hurt. It hurt even more now that I could see it wasn’t working anymore.

When my "demon" rattler answered those three questions, it was crystal clear: it wanted control—of everything. It wanted to look good, to be right, to never be vulnerable. Underneath it all, it just wanted to feel confident, safe, and powerful. So that’s what I fed it. My body melted sweetly into a stream of confidence, power, and safety—the nectar golden and sticky-sweet, flowing without condition or end. The snake closed its eyes, gulped, sighed, and actually smiled (eventually).

And then the most unexpected part unfolded. The snake’s eyes opened—lazy and satiated—and my vision blurred. Its form shimmered, shifted, and in its place appeared a puma. My ally. Same hypnotic eyes, but steady now. Unblinking. Calm confidence made flesh—or fur. The puma wasn’t asking for anything. It didn’t hiss, posture, or warn. It simply was—pure presence, relaxed strength, the embodiment of confidence and safety.

I was so moved that I Googled images of puma eyes later, found a photo that captured that gaze, and set it as my phone wallpaper. Those eyes became my reminder of what confidence feels like: grounded, alert, unbothered. When I sense the faint rattle of defensiveness rising, or hear my voice take on a hissing quality, I don’t rush to silence it anymore. I recall those eyes. I pause. The cougar’s wisdom watches the snake with quiet compassion: We’re good, it seems to say. No need to bite.

So there you have it: there’s a zoo inside me. Holy shit. And apparently, someone forgot to feed the animals. Oh—me? My bad. I didn’t know they were starving. But I do now. So thank you, and happy feeding. Better to hand out snacks than wrestle with a pack of hangry inner beasts. Besides, it’s oddly comforting to realize all those snarling, snapping parts of me just needed a little intentional abundance, love, a little nectar, a little acknowledgment. I can work with that.

Ultimately, this practice gave me something I didn’t know I was missing—another powerful practice to undo the overthinking, unlearn the defending, and return to that sweet beginner’s mind that keeps me happy, curious, and gloriously free.
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Field Guide Rule #43: When the world feels loud, go quiet inside. That’s your cue to pause, listen, and feed what’s really hungry instead of wrestling it. Because the monsters under your bed—or in your chest cavity—usually just want a story, a snack, and your attention.

P.S. Happy Halloween! ’Tis the season for masks and monsters, and let’s be honest—the scariest ones usually live rent-free in your own head. But on Halloween, when the veil thins between worlds (and between me and my inner zoo), I like to invite them all out for snacks. Snakes, pumas, gremlins—everyone’s welcome. Costumes optional, compassion required.

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