With Mother’s Day being a focus I decided to add one more post about a book I just finished that has really spoken to my soul as a woman.
I wasn’t taught how to embrace being a woman. I was raised to be quiet. I was raised to care for everyone else but me. I was raised that when people treated me badly, I should “just ignore it”, “get over it” and just accept it. I was taught that having any emotion other than happy and obedient was wrong, and I wanted to be a good girl…so I took that hook line and sinker.
Now at the age of 34, I realized that part of me really wanted to embrace being a woman, but not in the way that I was taught. I didn’t really know what that looked liked or where to even start remaking myself not just as a woman, but as a strong woman. I can’t tell you how frustrating it was to go on Google and not really find much on how to go about finding what it means to be a woman. It was like women knew something I didn’t and it was that “something” I wanted to learn about…but that something turned out to be that I hadn’t been programmed to embrace myself, and it was going to take a lot more than self-love and self-care bubble baths to do that!
While browsing the bookstore before a session with my therapist, I was drawn to this book called “Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D.” (which you can buy with a click on the affiliate link below). Not to sound dramatic, but it was a bit like pulling a sword from a certain enchanted stone. I knew in my heart that I had to get this and read it, and so I did and I was surprised at the deep levels this book spoke to me.
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