Our Shared Shelf discussion

I only just started this book, but upon skimming through it, I ran into this passage called "The Interior Women." It is at the very end of chapter four: The Mate: Union with the Other.
I loved this passage. I can't stop going back to reread it.
It got me to wonder just who my interior woman is, what does she want? I'll be thinking about this, but in the mean time... who is YOUR interior woman? What does your deepest self desire?

Comment here :) x

I would say my interior woman is someone who likes giving the benefit of the doubt and doing what she can to pursue something she believes in.

Love it!

Hm, my interior woman probably likes the gender revolution. The gender as a spectrum instead of two opposing ideals. The fact that "woman" is a social construct, not something that is given.

Yes, I do have problems reading this book!

That's a very interesting concept. I hope the book gets better for you, reading wise!

I would say my interior woman is that divine spark within me that makes me who I am. Uniquely me. The union is coming back to that, honoring that, and remembering that. it it's that spark that holds the Gifts that I have to share with the world.

After I finished chapter 4 I came back to see what the remarkable passage was. And it was one that stood out to me too! I've actually been thinking about this lately, so to hear it's not just me confirms I should continue thinking about it.

I usually use this kind of thinking for small, day-to-day things. "What do I really want to eat (doI really want that snack or is a cup of tea all I need?)?" "I'm freaking out right now, what do I need to feel peace?"

I've never been good at thinking big and long term, but I like the idea of applying this principle to who I am in that sense. I'm still thinking, but I'll come back if I figure something out. :)

Emma wrote: "Love it!"

Thanks :)

Jacki - I love that. Thinking of little things that may lead to who your interior woman is and what she desires. I'm still trying to figure it out, too.

I think this passage specifically was aiming more towards a relationship and what our interior women want in relationships. Which leads to further interesting concepts to think about!
What does my deepest self desire for life?
For work?
For love?
What does my deepest self desire in a relationship?
With a lover?
With a friend?
Family?

Just some thought provoking ideas for the curious minds here :)

I think the interior woman is definitely a part of our identity and our subconscious. What do we catch ourselves day dreaming over? What are those little things we think of and then perhaps try to push those thoughts aside because they seem too far fetched? What do we dream at night about? I think all of these things help make up our interior woman; who she is, what she wants, our deepest desires.. maybe we personally haven't had the chance to discover what we truly want yet, but our subconscious has and our interior woman is trying to communicate that through our little day dreams off into the clouds..?

Love this idea.

Hello everyone,
I started this book a week ago and even it's being a slow reading and have some difficulties to follow some thoughts, I just wanted to share with you that I love in the chapter 2 when she tells about the grandma of her coworker. that lady who dreamt a frivolous life and ended to live in a farm and at the end shoot herself.

Why do we accept sad life or to repress our dreams and feeling just because we love (or we think that we love) someone?

great passage

I think that represents what Estes is trying to say, that women can often become so caught up in romantic love, that they lose sight of their interior, wild woman.
Then she further encourages women to stay in touch with their inner selves and souls, so the romantic love doesn't diminish pieces of your soul, but rather enhances and illuminates it.

yes exactly. in other words, if you want to love in an healthy way someone, you need to be in contact with your inner you and first love yourself.

"This acquiescence to marrying the monster is actually decided when girls are very young, usually before five years of age. They are taught to not see, and instead to "make pretty" all manner of grotesqueries whether they are lovely or not...This early training to "be nice"causes women to override their intuitions. In that sense, they are actually purposefully taught to submit to the predator." (p. 45).

This passage really speaks to me, because it seems so prevalent in our culture, still, after all this time of feminism taking hold. Women, young girls, are still not given the proper lessons about how to protect themselves, or how to look out for warning signs in others so that they may avoid danger rather than have to eventually face it and be unprepared or unable to save themselves.

"Within us is the old one who collects bones. Within us there are soul-bones of Wild Woman. Within us is the potential to be fleshed out again as the creature we once were. Within us are the bones to change ourselves and our world. Within us is the breath and our truths and our longings-together they are a song, the creation hymn we have been yearning to sing."

Keep in mind I'm a slow reader and have a hard time understanding some of this but this spome to me for whatever reason.

Sara- that reminds me of a quote from Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy: "Why didn’t you tell me there was danger? Why didn’t you warn me? Ladies know what to guard against, because they read novels that tell them of these tricks."

Alison, I love that passage as well. It reflects on feelings of nostalgia towards the women we were once before years passed. I like how at the end she simply summarizes the entire chapter by saying, "go collect bones" if you feel like you've lost touch with yourself.

Emma wrote: "Sara- that reminds me of a quote from Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy: "Why didn’t you tell me there was danger? Why didn’t you warn me? Ladies know what to guard against, because they re..."

Exactly! It reminded me of it, too. I love Tess of the d'Urbervilles. It's one of my favorite books and this passage has always stood out to me, how Tess feels abandoned by her mother because she did nothing to protect her from the dangers that exist out in the world. She just pushed her into it because she wanted money or recognition from a rich family.

What Estes is saying seems exactly the same: it is up to us to teach our daughters to know of dangers, to be aware of the predator. Tess is perfect example of what happens when one is not prepared. She is the prey.

I agree!

I think I am with many other women in that only recently (despite being in my 30s) have I discovered that I am allowed to even consider alternatives to what I have been told a woman should or shouldn't be. For many of us, unfortunately, the interior woman is so deeply buried it's hard to hear her voice when we first look for her. The voices ingrained in us since birth have such a strong hold we can't always see clearly how they are working within us. This book is an amazing awakening of the wild woman, and an amazing guide for helping us through this process. With this book, meditation and yoga, I am slowly rebuilding the connection with my interior woman and interior desires. My message is to send encouragement to others who feel overwhelmed (like myself sometimes!) by the seemingly huge burden of reconnecting with ourselves because we are so far away from her. We have become so bombarded with conditioning throughout our lives from parents/role models/media etc that now that we realize we can give ourselves permission to be as we are, asking "Who am I? Who is my interior woman". This can be scary and lonely when you ask your internal self this question and instead of a bold answer, all you hear is crickets.
This has been a slow and interesting process of reconnecting with myself. To answer your question Emma, these internal desires come to me in little snippets and hints here and there and I do my best really pay attention, to catch them when I can, hold on to them and explore them.
So far, I think my deepest self desire is freedom. To create, to dance, to not restrict myself or hold myself back to save face in front of society and family and others--to be free (or at least more free!) from feeling that being accepted by others and fitting a certain mold is so important.
I am so curious, what came up for you in exploring your interior woman and her desires?
lots of love x

My interior woman desires freedom. Freedom to express myself in all the ways I am. Freedom from feeling the need to constrain my thoughts and actions to a man's expectations or to societies norms.
I think over the years, I've developed so many personalities out of fear that one wasn't enough. Now, I am a variety of different thoughts, interests, hobbies, habits..
There is a quote somewhere that says something like, "to fall in love is to be set free." I have only experienced being confined in a cage.

My interior woman desires to be loved for all of her shades. All of her personalities. Freedom to express every aspect of herself. No confinement to be limited to one personality, one aesthetic, one woman.. Freedom to express her sexual desires without the fear of being only viewed as a sex object. To be able to talk about anything without the fear of disrupting societies' norms.

Love all the women within me, for each of them are a part of my soul.

How do I find her? I've always been aged beyond my years. An old soul. I find my interior woman when I "go collect bones" as Estés says. I feel her presence when I wear my vintage 50s dresses; when I write letters instead of texting; when I get immersed in a book. I see her when I look back into old photograph books of generations before me: my mother, my nana, my great grandmother.. I find pieces of my interior woman when I discover the traits I've inherited from them. And I develop more of my interior women when I think of the pieces of my personality and say, "not sure who I got that from," because it's simply me.

My interior woman is a sunflower. Bright, strong, independent, even if there's a day with a little less sunshine and she's a little down.

I think another important aspect I should mention is that I didn't discover this whole idea of an "interior woman" until reading this book. I've always known there's a soul core to my being that both expressed and hid herself.. but never knew a term for it.
I've lost touch very often, far too often, with my interior woman out of putting her aside to tend to a man's needs. It's not until they left me, that I was able to reconnect with my interior woman. I've had to meet "Skeleton Woman" many times and be my own fisherman (see Estés chapter on "Skeleton Woman" following "Interior Woman").
I think that's important to emphasize to anyone. Losing touch with yourself by becoming immersed in a romantic relationship is normal, but know you can find them again if it doesn't work out. Know that Skeleton Woman is not to be feared, but rather embraced, to grow from a time of hardship and blossom again.
Another way to think about this is a quote that says, "Rather than think about why they left, think about what you can create in the space they no longer occupy."
And that's important not just for romantic relationships, but for any toxic relationship that may be hindering your personal growth and development.
Frankly, I've realized that my ideal romantic relationship involves me, my partner, my interior woman, and my partners "wild man."

MeerderWörter wrote: "Hm, my interior woman probably likes the gender revolution. The gender as a spectrum instead of two opposing ideals. The fact that "woman" is a social construct, not something that is given.

Yes, ..."

YES I had exactly these issues with notions of intrinsic femininity / masculinity when I started reading, as I too think gender is socially constructed, so I felt like it was problematic for a while.
But eventually I felt ok just reading it as allegorical myth and fairytale, maybe as not-quite-right ways of describing different elements of the psyche. Jung/Estes label certain things / parts of the psyche as masculine or feminine, but I just read them as different parts of the self and try to look at the labels as just for ease of reference.

Emma wrote: "Sara- that reminds me of a quote from Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy: "Why didn’t you tell me there was danger? Why didn’t you warn me? Ladies know what to guard against, because they re..."

Yes! Me too! (& I love Hardy)
There are certain folkloric and mythological echoes in hardy too like Tess as Persephone...

Emma wrote: "My interior woman desires freedom. Freedom to express myself in all the ways I am. Freedom from feeling the need to constrain my thoughts and actions to a man's expectations or to societies norms. ..."

I love this!!!!! Thanks for sharing. I need to go and collect bones. I've definitely created selves that others /society wants and this book really spoke to me in terms of trying to get back to authentic selfhood, creativity etc... I think your true authentic self or selves is what the interior woman idea means to me.
I also found this book very comforting as I definitely relate to a lot of the mistakes she discusses, and I suffer from depression, and this book gave me a new way to look at it and the idea of stories as medicine is just lovely! <3

Briony wrote: "MeerderWörter wrote: "Hm, my interior woman probably likes the gender revolution. The gender as a spectrum instead of two opposing ideals. The fact that "woman" is a social construct, not something..."

Hm, I'd say that gender identity is innate, but gender expression is a social construct.
I don't have a problem with the woman she portrays, but I always feel excluded if there's only cisgender, female woman. Or I have missed something, that I have yet to discover, and that she speaks to all women. But, as I said, I haven't found such paragraph yet!

I think Estés is speaking to all women in this text. Whether you're a biologically born woman or identify as one.

MeerderWörter wrote: "Briony wrote: "MeerderWörter wrote: "Hm, my interior woman probably likes the gender revolution. The gender as a spectrum instead of two opposing ideals. The fact that "woman" is a social construct..."

Agreed, that's a better way of putting it. I guess the identity is innate but I mean traits/expressions/actions/choices whatever aren't (I don't think) inherently masculine/feminine, that bit as you say is the social construct.
No I finished it last night and didn't find such a page either, however I'm sure perhaps it was intended to be open to all who identify as women.... that's how I have to read it anyway for it to sit more comfortably.

Emma wrote: "I think Estés is speaking to all women in this text. Whether you're a biologically born woman or identify as one."

I think you might be right. There's nothing in it that suggests it would exclude those who identify as women but werent born as women in terms of external biology.

I think initially as a woman I felt like it was celebrating typically "feminine" traits - mothering, caring etc which as yet I don't identify with and centre my life around and I felt like they were being pushed on me, or excluding me from her identification of 'woman' but I now think that's my misreading and she's celebrating all aspects, options and potentialities of womanhood.

I understand what you mean! It's interesting. I guess that would leave the book open for interpretation for anyone! It may be directing the biological gender of women with the aspects of motherhood and generations passing traits, but a non-biologically born women may feel these aspects pertain to them as well. I think Estés worded this text in such a way where gender identified women may be able to take it in as well.