The Two Wolves Parable, and the Quiet Choices That Shape Our Inner World
- Val Blair
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
When I was young, my grandmother used to tell me a story.
She didn’t rush it.
She didn’t frame it as a lesson.
She spoke it the way stories are meant to be spoken, as something passed down, not explained.
In the story, a grandfather sits with his grandson.
They are close enough that their knees almost touch.
The boy is carrying feelings he doesn’t yet have language for, anger, sadness, confusion, fear.
The grandfather listens without interrupting.
Then he tells him this.
Inside every person, there are two wolves.
One wolf carries fear, grief, anger, jealousy, resentment, shame, and regret.
The other carries patience, kindness, trust, hope, love, and compassion.
These two wolves live together inside the same body.
And they are always in conversation.
Sometimes quiet.
Sometimes fighting.
The boy thinks for a long moment.
Then he asks the only question that matters.
“Which one wins?”
The grandfather answers without hesitation.
“The one you feed.”
When my grandmother told me this story, I didn’t try to understand it.
I received it.
Like a seed placed gently in the ground, meant to wait until the right season.
Some stories are like that.
They grow as we do.
Why This Story Returns in Hard Times
The two wolves parable has survived generations because it speaks to something ancient and true about being human.
We are not singular creatures.
We are layered.
We carry many voices.
We carry the instinct to protect and the longing to trust.
We carry grief alongside joy.
We carry memory in our bodies, not just our minds.
When life is gentle, the wolves feel balanced.
When life brings loss, uncertainty, or prolonged strain, one wolf often grows louder.
Not because we are failing.
Because our systems are wise.
The Wolf of Survival
The wolf that carries fear and grief is not broken.
It is ancestral too.
It learned how to watch the horizon.
It learned how to remember danger.
It learned how to prepare.
This wolf carries the imprint of loss, both personal and inherited.
It holds the knowledge of what happens when safety disappears too quickly.
For those living with grief or anxiety, this wolf often steps forward first.
Its voice is urgent.
Protective.
Insistent.
It is trying to keep you alive.
The story never says this wolf must be destroyed.
Only that it must not be the only one fed.
Feeding Is an Act of Attention
Feeding does not happen through grand decisions.
It happens through repetition.
The thoughts we circle back to.
The memories we return to in quiet moments.
The stories we tell ourselves about what is coming next.
Attention is nourishment.
What we sit with, what we rehearse, what we allow to shape our inner weather, these things grow roots.
This is not a moral failure.
It is how humans have always learned.
The Other Wolf Waits
The wolf of compassion and trust does not shout.
It does not rush. It waits.
It grows when we allow ourselves to feel without hardening.
When we rest without justification.
When we soften instead of bracing.
When we remember that tenderness is not weakness.
This wolf carries its own inheritance, one of connection, ritual, care, and belonging.
It remembers that life is not only about survival, but about meaning.
Feeding this wolf does not erase grief.
It makes room for breath inside it.
Choice Lives in the Smallest Movements
We often think of choice as something loud.
A turning point.
A declaration.
But choice is usually quiet.
It lives in how we speak to ourselves when no one is listening.
In whether we pause when our body tightens.
In whether we allow a moment of peace to pass without suspicion.
These moments shape us more deeply than any single decision ever could.
You Are Not Behind
If you feel like the fearful wolf has been fed more lately, it does not mean you are doing something wrong.
It means life has asked you to carry a lot.
Feeding the other wolf does not require force.
It requires noticing.
Sometimes feeding looks like a breath.
Sometimes it looks like turning away from a familiar spiral.
Sometimes it looks like allowing softness without guilt.
You do not have to starve one wolf to nourish the other.
You only have to become aware of where your attention goes.
What the Story Is Really Offering
This story was never about winning.
It was about remembering that we have a say.
That even in grief, even in anxiety, even in exhaustion, there is still a quiet place where choice lives.
The story my grandmother told me was not a warning.
It was a reminder.
Reflections to Sit With
Let these questions move slowly. They are not meant to be solved.
Which inner voice feels most familiar to me right now?
Where does my attention naturally return when I am tired or overwhelmed?
What helps me feel even a small sense of softness or grounding?
What would feeding the gentler wolf look like today, without effort or force?
What part of me might be asking for compassion instead of correction?
Some wisdom doesn’t arrive all at once.
It arrives when we are ready to hear it again.
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