The Wolves Inside You Don’t Exist – Stop Living in Labels

When I first I heard this, I confess my gut reaction was: “how the fuck did a wolf get inside me – and where is it right now”? Mind you, I never worried about the second wolf because I knew if the first one found a way to come inside, the second one would just follow. Wolves are like that. They move in packs.

But going forward I did try to find the wolves. I also tried to understand how a wolf inside me can drive my actions.

Of course, I never found any wolf. Now I know this is all metaphorical. I know we are talking at a symbolic level. And, to a certain extent, I’m okay with that.

But I think—and this is the topic I want to touch today—we are overusing these metaphors, and we are trying to dilute our personalities into symbols.

The Map Is Not the Territory – It’s the Prison

Think about it. How many personality tests have you taken in the last five years? Myers-Briggs, Enneagram, Astrology, Tarot Cards, StrengthsFinder, the “Which Game of Thrones Character Are You?” quiz at 2 AM.

We tend to collect these test results like trading cards. The more we have, the more empowered we feel. There’s literally more self-confidence, because, for a fleeting moment, we “see”: “I’m an INTJ.” “I’m a Type 4.” “I’m a Ravenclaw with Slytherin rising.”

Those revelations might be useful. They can help with understanding. They can shape the territory around us, and they can reveal some patterns about ourselves, patterns that, going forward, can be useful – if used wisely, that is.

But because we’re lazy, we don’t use them wisely – we just start living inside those boxes. We use them to justify our behavior, instead of taking responsibility. “Oh, I can’t help being disorganized, I’m a Perceiver.” “Don’t expect me to be warm and fuzzy, I’m an Enneagram 5.” The symbol overlaps with our persona, and instead of being a tool, it becomes an excuse.

The map we just drew becomes a prison.

Freezing Inside the Comfort Zone

I’ve seen people reject entire relationships just because someone’s astrological sign was “incompatible.” I’ve watched friends turn down job opportunities because their Human Design said they should “wait for invitations.” The tool that was supposed to help us understand ourselves became the limitation.

We somehow turned a provoking wolves metaphor into a freezing label. And when you freeze a moving thing, you take something alive—your actual, messy, contradictory self—and you pin it to a board like a butterfly in a museum. It looks beautiful. And dead.

We are not just a symbol. We can use symbols to define some context, but we cannot be pinned, we cannot be frozen. Not without taking all the potential that is waiting for us, every single second.

We’re happening in a continuous now, in ways that no symbol framework can fully capture. Symbols have their place in our lives. They are important and useful to make an accurate map of the world. But if we rely too much on these symbols, we lose touch with what is real, what is true.

And what is true is just this very second that you have right now, and what you do in this second, what you decide in this second, what is your next step.

There’s no fucking wolf. Really. I searched. It’s just you.