Have you ever tried to think your way out of a negative thought loop, only to find it got louder?
You’ve probably heard the story of the two wolves, the one about feeding the good wolf and starving the bad one. It’s a compelling idea. But what if the whole premise is missing the point? What if the very thing you’ve been trying to eliminate is actually one of your greatest assets?
In this episode, Lisa Carpenter shares an extended version of the two wolves story that goes far beyond the ending most people know, and into the territory that actually changes things.
Lisa’s Take: The Story You Were Told Isn’t the Whole Story
Most people walk away from the two wolves fable with one takeaway: feed the good wolf, starve the bad one. Focus on the positive, push away the negative. And on the surface, that sounds right. But here’s what that approach quietly costs you.
When you spend your energy trying to eliminate the parts of yourself that feel dark, heavy, or inconvenient, those parts don’t disappear. They go underground. They wait. And the moment you’re distracted, depleted, or running on fumes, they come back louder than before.
The extended version of this story takes the grandfather’s wisdom a step further. He explains that both wolves have gifts. The dark wolf carries tenacity, strategic thinking, fearlessness, and drive. The light wolf carries compassion, wisdom, and the ability to see what’s best for everyone. Neither one, on its own, has what it takes. But together, they’re everything.
This is the work Lisa has been doing with clients for more than two decades, and it’s the work she’s done on herself.
What we cover in this episode:
- Why starving your dark wolf doesn’t work: When you try to suppress the parts of you that feel negative, they don’t disappear, they hijack you when you’re most vulnerable, and create the exact emotional chaos you were trying to avoid.
- The real purpose of your negative thought loops: Your dark wolf isn’t the enemy. It developed to protect you, to keep you feeling safe, loved, and like you belong. Understanding that changes how you relate to it entirely.
- How over-achievers misuse their dark wolf: That relentless drive to prove yourself, the push to do more, be more, achieve more, it likely came from your dark wolf. And while it’s produced real results, it’s also been quietly running the show in ways that have cost you your energy, your presence, and your peace.
- What emotional fluency actually means: It’s not about never feeling bad. It’s about learning to hold your attention on how you want to feel, while also acknowledging the parts of you that are scared, tired, or convinced you’re not enough.
- Why trying to only “think positive” keeps you stuck: Focusing on problems makes them bigger. But pretending they don’t exist doesn’t make them smaller. Lisa walks through what it actually looks like to work with your full emotional range instead of fighting it.
- The inner shift that changes everything: When there’s no war inside you, you can access something deeper, a clarity and knowing that guides you to the right choice in any situation. That’s what Lisa calls peace, and it’s not soft. It’s one of the most powerful places you can lead from.
- How to start nurturing your light wolf without abandoning your dark one: Practical perspective on what this integration actually looks like in daily life, and why it’s a practice, not a one-time realization.
- What Lisa’s own dark wolf taught her: From the drive to prove herself to the envy that showed her what she truly wanted, Lisa shares how making peace with every part of herself opened up a life that feels as good as it looks.
This episode is for you if you’ve ever:
- Tried to “think positive” and found the negative thoughts just came back louder
- Pushed through exhaustion and told yourself this is just how driven people live
- Felt guilty for feeling angry, resentful, or burned out, like you should be more grateful
- Noticed you’re running on fumes but can’t figure out how to actually stop
- Numbed out with food, wine, or scrolling because slowing down feels too uncomfortable
- Felt like you’re fighting yourself constantly, and losing
- Known you should rest, but your mind won’t let you
- Wondered why you can accomplish so much and still feel like it’s never enough
- Craved peace but thought you had to sacrifice your drive to get there
What does it mean to stop fighting yourself?
The high achievers Lisa works with didn’t get where they are by going easy on themselves. Their dark wolf, that relentless inner critic and drive to do more, produced results. It was rewarded. And that’s exactly why it’s so hard to step back from it.
But there is a cost. Snapping at the people you love. Collapsing into bed with a mind that won’t stop. Hitting milestones and feeling nothing. Wondering quietly how much longer you can keep this up. That’s not ambition. That’s a war inside you that’s been going on too long.
The work isn’t about destroying the parts of you that push hard or feel dark. It’s about learning to lead all of them, so your drive doesn’t have to come at the cost of your health, your relationships, or your ability to feel the success you’ve built.
Ready to stop fighting yourself and start leading from wholeness?
If this episode landed for you, it’s probably because some part of you already knows there’s a gap between who you are on the outside and how you feel on the inside. You’ve built something real. But somewhere along the way, the cost of building it started showing up in your body, your relationships, and that quiet voice asking whether this is all there is.
The Congruency Audit is where we look honestly at that gap. We identify the exact patterns running underneath your success, what they’re costing you, and what it’s going to take to build a life that doesn’t just look good from the outside but actually feels right on the inside. This isn’t a sales conversation. It’s a real look at what’s getting in the way of you finally feeling the success you’ve worked so hard to create.
Book your free Congruency Audit: lisacarpenter.ca/audit
Join Lisa on the Camino in Spain this September: lisacarpenter.ca/camino
TRANSCRIPT
00:00:06:29 - 00:00:33:12Lisa You built success that looks damn good on the outside, but inside it's costing you your health, your relationships, your energy. And no matter how much you do, it never feels like enough. Welcome to Congruent. I'm Lisa Carpenter, the coach. High performers call when they can afford to burn it all down, but they can't keep living like this either. 00:00:33:14 - 00:00:58:24 Lisa Here we rip off the mask of success and expose what's real. The patterns that you keep running, the price that you've paid, and how to build success that fuels you instead of empties you. Real success is agency. It's powerful self leadership to run your life instead of being run by it. To let your drive and your well-being finally work together. 00:00:58:27 - 00:01:08:22 Lisa Because the real win is success. That actually feels good. 00:01:08:25 - 00:01:36:19 Lisa Welcome back to kangaroo. And this week we've rereleased one of my favorite episodes, where I bring a new twist and perspective to the tale of the Two Wolves. So perhaps you've heard this fable before about the battle that goes on inside each of us, and how to determine who wins. In this episode, I share an extended version of this story that goes beyond the ending you're probably familiar with and into the importance of feeding all the parts of you. 00:01:36:21 - 00:01:57:14 Lisa So we all have negative thought loops, but have you ever considered the value that they bring to your life and why they started in the first place? So self-development always wants you to believe that we should only feed the good and only focus on how we want to feel. But when you come to understand the power of all your emotions, this is when your life will truly begin to shift. 00:01:57:16 - 00:02:24:20 Lisa It's not about never feeding the bad, but understanding how to work with your emotions so that you can use them to guide your actions. So the work is often not what many believe it to be, and it's more a journey to discover all the parts of yourself and, walk you into a space of loving and accepting all of them, which I know is very hard for many of us to wrap our brains around. 00:02:24:22 - 00:02:39:09 Lisa So enjoy today's episode. As I said, it's one of my favorites from the archives, and I am confident it is going to land in the right ears. So enjoy and I will catch you next week. 00:02:39:11 - 00:03:03:06 Lisa Well, hey, hey, thanks for joining me for another episode of the Full Frontal Living podcast. As I said in the intro, this is going to be a deep episode. I am going into the story of the two wolves, which you may or may not have heard before. But I wanted to share it with you again, and I wanted to share it with you in the same capacity that I've shared it with my clients. 00:03:03:09 - 00:03:29:03 Lisa An extended version of it. Now, before I get started, though, as I was doing research for this episode, I found out that this this story, most people tell it from the perspective of, you know, it was a Cherokee Indian grandfather who was telling it to his grandson. And in doing a little bit of research, I dug around and found out that that is not actually where the story originated from, which I was not aware of. 00:03:29:05 - 00:03:55:02 Lisa It was originated from Billy Graham, who basically created the story to drive home the concept that we're all born with evil inside of us. And, anyways, there's a whole history around the appropriation of this and yada yada, yada. So I've changed the story a little bit. I've just changed it to, you know, a grandson or, sorry, a grandson listening to his grandfather. 00:03:55:02 - 00:04:15:06 Lisa So if you're like, hey, I thought this was a story about a Cherokee Indian, go do some digging on the interwebs. You might be surprised at what you find about the history of this story, but I am going to leave that for you to go do your own research. Because today I really just want to talk about this story. 00:04:15:06 - 00:04:39:25 Lisa The story of the the two wolves, because I think it's so important, for you to understand how much deeper this story can go and what you're missing. So if you haven't heard the story before, I'm just going to dive in and, enjoy. So, as it goes, a grandfather was teaching his grandson about life. He said a fight is going on inside me. 00:04:39:26 - 00:05:17:25 Lisa He told the young boy a fight between two wolves. The dark one is evil. His anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority lies. False pride, superiority and ego. He continued, the light wolf is good. He is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you, grandson, and inside of every other person on the face of this earth. 00:05:17:28 - 00:05:47:19 Lisa The grandson ponders this for a moment and then asks, grandfather, which will four win? The the grandfather smiled and simply said, the one you feed. So the life that you're living today is made up of a series of choices and the story continues. But I wanted to interject here, you know, choices, these choices that you've made, choices that others have made, that have impacted you, your beliefs, your values, thoughts and emotions. 00:05:47:24 - 00:06:09:11 Lisa These have all been shaped by the choices that you've made in your life, and you in turn, are shaping the world around you. And I think most of us would agree it's very easy to feel your dark wolf. Most of us have negative thought loops about a variety of things in our life. From how you feel about your body, money, relationships, business, spirituality. 00:06:09:17 - 00:06:35:28 Lisa I mean, I even had my dark wolf, like, spoke up about math, right? Like I'm not going to math because I'm not good at numbers. So these thoughts, these thoughts that we have, these kind of dark wolf thoughts, they impact the actions that you take in life. They impact the choices that you make. They make it easier for you to procrastinate, avoid, complain, blame. 00:06:36:01 - 00:07:00:04 Lisa Feel frustrated, overwhelmed, anxious, or they allow you to simply just give up. As the saying goes, if you think you can, you will. And if you think you can't, you won't. Both are right. So what I've noticed in the years that I've been coaching, and in my own experience, is that suffering and struggle seem to be the default setting for many of us. 00:07:00:06 - 00:07:32:25 Lisa And as much as you might say you don't want to feel badly, have you noticed how much time you spend thinking about your problems? Have you noticed how much time and attention you continue to place on what you don't want? How you don't want to feel or maybe even on what you don't want to do. I want you to really consider that, like, just pause here for a minute and think about how much time and energy do you give and focus do you give to the things in your life that you view as problems? 00:07:32:27 - 00:08:07:29 Lisa Okay, now your Light Wolf is a whole different beast. And for most of us, it feels so much harder to feed because as I said, most of your life, you've been practicing over and over and over and over the habit of feeding your dark wolf or these negative thought loops. So feeding your light wolf, gosh, it takes so much time and commitment to learning, practicing new habits, creating new behaviors, and new ways of being in the world. 00:08:08:02 - 00:08:28:21 Lisa It takes a ton of courage and vulnerability to hold your attention on how you do want to feel, and to move your focus away from the problems that you have or that you think you have. Because so often we spend so much time focusing on our problems, thinking like, well, that's how you fix a problem, you focus on the problem. 00:08:28:23 - 00:09:01:14 Lisa Whereas when we're holding our attention constantly on a problem, it just makes the problem bigger. So it takes a lot of effort, self-love, energy, time and patience because results rarely happen overnight. When we're nurturing these new ways of thinking and feeling about ourselves and the things going on around us, it takes so much tenacity and determination to stick with this inner work of feeding your light or your light, Wolf. 00:09:01:17 - 00:09:23:05 Lisa And I know this because it has been true for me. I've witnessed this in myself and in the thousands of people that I've worked with in my more than two decades as a coach. The more you stay committed to feeding your light, wolf, the more you'll feel a sense of pride, accomplishment, fulfillment, ease, joy, peace, and success, and your life will start to change. 00:09:23:07 - 00:09:51:10 Lisa Your life will start to transform in ways you thought were impossible. So as I said, you know that is the story that most people know about well, which you know which wolf grows, the one you feed, which wolf wins, the one that you feed. But I found an extended version of this story that goes so much deeper, and I wanted to share it with you again. 00:09:51:12 - 00:10:17:23 Lisa So I'm going to dive back into the story here. The extended version has the grandfather saying, but if you feed them right, they both win. He continued, you see, if I only choose to feed the Light wolf, the dark wolf will be hiding around every corner. Waiting for me to become distracted or weak and jump on and jump to get the attention he craves. 00:10:17:26 - 00:10:43:22 Lisa He will always be angry and will always fight the light, Wolf. But if I acknowledge him, he is happy and the Light wolf is happy and we all win. For the Dark Wolf has many qualities tenacity, courage, fearlessness, strong willed and great strategic thinking that I have a need of at times. These are the very things that the Light Wolf lacks. 00:10:43:25 - 00:11:12:13 Lisa But the Light Wolf has compassion, caring, strength, and the ability to recognize what is in the best interest of all. You see, son, the Light wolf needs the dark wolf at his side to feed. Only one would starve the other, and they will become uncontrollable to feed and care for both means. They will serve you well and do nothing that is not part of something greater, something good, something of life. 00:11:12:15 - 00:11:33:00 Lisa Feed them both and there will be no more internal struggle for your attention. And when there is no battle inside you, you can listen to the voices of deeper knowing that will guide you in choosing what is right in every circumstance. Peace, my son, is our mission in life. A man or woman who has peace inside has everything. 00:11:33:02 - 00:12:00:22 Lisa A man or woman who is pulled apart by the war inside him or her has nothing. How you choose to interact with the opposing forces within you will determine your life. Starve one or the other or guide them both. Powerful story. Powerful story. Because what this is talking about is polarity. And polarity is a universal law. What goes up must come down. 00:12:00:24 - 00:12:28:12 Lisa An inhale always follows an exhale. Contraction always follows expansion. Day follows night. We have negative charges that need positive charges. Your light wolf and your dark wolf represent your different emotions and your different thoughts. And all your emotions serve a purpose. From the depths of pain and sorrow. To the highs of joy and ecstasy. Emotions. And you've heard me say this before. 00:12:28:13 - 00:12:51:10 Lisa They're not good or bad, right or wrong. They're simply Guideposts to help you find your way. The days I struggle with my dark wolf, I honor the gifts this part of me holds for you. For many years, my negative self-talk, stories and beliefs kept me safe, even if it was slightly misguided. Okay. There are no parts of us. 00:12:51:12 - 00:13:17:02 Lisa And please hear this. There are no parts of us that wish us unwell. All these parts, whether it's a light wolf or dark wolf, they are simply doing their job to keep us feeling safe and loved and with a sense of belonging. And we often develop these thought patterns or behaviors because these parts of us innocently think that that is the way to protect us. 00:13:17:05 - 00:13:40:12 Lisa That is the way for us to avoid feeling things that we don't want to feel. I love that my dark wolf, that side of me that was out to prove myself, helped me really discover my drive and ambition. I love that my dark wolf envied others because that showed me what I wanted in my life and what was possible for me as well. 00:13:40:14 - 00:14:12:07 Lisa I love that my emotions, like anger, frustration, and resentment showed me what I valued in my life and gave me the opportunity to get curious about what I was avoiding. I love that my dark wolf taught me about what is possible when I persevere, and then I'm capable of so much. I also love that my Light Wolf showed me that I didn't need to prove myself to anyone, and then I can accomplish just as much with patience, kindness, self-compassion, and ease. 00:14:12:09 - 00:14:40:21 Lisa My dark wolf was really so hard on me, and innocently thought that pushing me was how to create the success and happiness I wanted. I'm so grateful for this part of me that can guide me to do things that I don't always want to do, or I don't feel like doing. And I love that my Light Wolf shows me that I don't have to beat myself up to find my drive, and then I don't always have to push my dark wolf. 00:14:40:22 - 00:15:04:03 Lisa Save me from feelings I wasn't ready to feel like shame, grief, and unworthiness. And when the universe decided I was ready for the lessons I needed to free me from my own victimhood. It allowed my light Wolf to show up and teach me about emotional fluency and what life could be like on the other side of feeling more than good enough. 00:15:04:05 - 00:15:30:05 Lisa My dark wolf still wants to tell me sometimes that I can't, but I know it's only because this part of me is scared and doesn't want me to feel hurt or disappointed. I pay attention to those voices, and I love my dark wolf. I love my dark wolf. Like hear this? I acknowledge him, and I let him know that everything is going to be okay. 00:15:30:08 - 00:15:54:15 Lisa When he shows up, he's just again trying to protect me from not getting hurt or feeling disappointed. It's my job to acknowledge him, and this is what happens in the work I do with my clients. We unpack all these parts that are innocently trying to protect you from you, and we don't, like, take them all behind the barn and shoot them and leave them for dead. 00:15:54:17 - 00:16:16:28 Lisa We don't skip over them with gratitude. We learn to embrace and accept them and work with them by shifting the role they play and the position they hold. We learn how to nurture the light Wolf, to give it more strength and power so it can stand eye to eye with your dark wolf. Not in a fight for power, but with love, grace, compassion. 00:16:17:03 - 00:16:40:01 Lisa So all sides or ignore it. Acknowledged. Eventually, we learn how to feed them both and harness the strength, guidance, and power each of them hold a rebalance of power. So to speak, without having to starve one away or feel like you need to destroy parts of yourself. And this is what I see so often, is people and my clients. 00:16:40:03 - 00:17:06:10 Lisa Maybe even you, listening. We so want to avoid feeling crappy that we try and just pretend like that dark wolf side of us isn't there. Instead of acknowledging the gifts it brings us. And when you start to do this inner work, it's not about never having a negative thought or never feeling bad. It's about how can you nurture that side of yourself when it does show up? 00:17:06:13 - 00:17:34:07 Lisa How can you do this work to strengthen the light Wolf part of you as well, so that when the dark wolf shows up, they don't. Again, they don't have to go toe to toe, but one can support the other. This is such a great way of looking at your emotions, and how it is important for you to feel all of them, to find your way. 00:17:34:09 - 00:17:58:13 Lisa Nobody likes to feel bad. Like I said, nobody likes to feel bad. So it's the practice of learning how to hold your attention on how you do want to feel. Really nurturing the voices that need nurturing. That little tiny part of you that know she's good enough, but she's like hiding under the desk because the big dark wolf keeps, like, lurking around everywhere. 00:17:58:15 - 00:18:25:13 Lisa It's giving her more strength and power, while at the same time acknowledging, like, why is the dark wolf there? Why does that part of you believe this? Because, again, it doesn't want you. It's not trying to hurt you. It's not trying to hold you back. It truly believes that it's helping you. It's just so misguided in its way because so many of us didn't grow up with emotional fluency. 00:18:25:18 - 00:18:52:11 Lisa We learned how to cope with things. And I'm going to come back to what I said is we all have these pillars inside us that are fundamental needs that need to be met. Those needs are for love, safety and belonging, and we will create strategies to make sure that those are in place. And this is where these kind of thoughts and beliefs stem from. 00:18:52:14 - 00:19:26:03 Lisa So the more that you can learn how to pay attention to all the different parts of you the dark wolf, the light wolf, and there's a whole range in between of other of other voices that you can nurture and feed and acknowledge and accept. When we learn how to accept all parts of us out, making them wrong or bad, that's when you truly find the freedom, joy, peace, ease, fulfillment that so many of you are looking for. 00:19:26:06 - 00:19:58:29 Lisa So I hope you enjoyed today's episode. I would love to hear your feedback on this one. I was really excited to put it together for you. I know it was a very powerful, reading when I brought it to my clients, and I hope it is just as impactful, for you. And I hope that in listening to this, you can learn to see and value and give that dark wolf a little bit more love while also loving hard on your light wolf. 00:19:59:01 - 00:20:04:13 Lisa So until next episode, thank you for tuning in. I appreciate you being here. 00:20:04:15 - 00:20:07:10 Lisa And, I'll talk to you on the next episode. 00:20:07:18 - 00:20:30:10 Unknown Thanks for being here and listening. And if you are looking for more, I want to leave you with a few resources or things you can check out. Well, I'm on hiatus, so first you want to head over to Lisa Carpenter, aka Forward Slash bonus. This is a Trevor Treasure trove of resources that we've been putting together with each new episode that we put out. 00:20:30:10 - 00:20:52:20 Unknown So you may have missed you might have missed them. So head over. It'll give you the workbook, the guide, and the corresponding podcast episode on congruent that it goes with. The next thing is, I want to remind you that I am taking a select group to the Camino with me this September in Spain. This is both, walking retreat. 00:20:52:20 - 00:21:16:16 Unknown So we're going to be doing coaching while walking from Syria to Santiago de Compostela. And I have a podcast episode about that as well. You'll find that on the bonus page, so make sure you go and check that out. Or you can go directly to Lisa Carpenter, aka Forward Slash Camino. We have very limited spaces left, and I would love for one of them to be filled by you. 00:21:16:18 - 00:21:23:10 Unknown So until next time, I will catch you on the next episode and enjoy those free resources.
