I read this yesterday on Ronna Detrick’s blog, RENEGADE conversations, and was completely blown away. So she has graciously granted me permission to post this piece here so that you can be blown away too.
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Over the weekend I had some rare spaces of times to sit in the sun and read. First on my list – trying to make it through a few more pages of my new Sacred Text: Women Who Run with the Wolves
To take pleasure in a world filled with many kinds of beauty is a joy in life to which all women are entitled. To support only one kind of beauty is to be somehow unobservant of nature…There cannot be one kind of baby, one kind of man, or one kind of woman. There cannot be one kind of breast, one kind of waist, one kind of skin.
Why have I believed the lies that there is only “one kind” that matters, that’s good enough? Enough!
In essence, the attack on women’s bodies is a far-reaching attack on the ones who have gone before her as well as the ones who will come after her.
I’m not OK with my own longstanding contempt for my body to even remotely impact my daughters. Enough!
Destroying a woman’s instinctive affiliation with her natural body cheats her of confidence. It causes her to perseverate about whether she is a good person or not, and bases her self-worth on how she looks instead of who she is. It pressures her to use up her energy worrying about how much food she consumes or the readings on the scale and tape measure. It keeps her preoccupied, colors everything she does, plans, and anticipates. It is unthinkable in the instinctive world that a woman should live preoccupied by appearance this way.
How is it that I became this preoccupied with my appearance; that I stopped living in the “instinctive world?” Enough!
Suppose…the body is a God in its own right, a teacher, a mentor, a certified guide? Then what? Is it wise to spend a lifetime chastising this teacher who has much to give and teach? Do we wish to spend a lifetime allowing others to detract from our bodies, judge them, find them wanting? Are we strong enough to refute the party line and listen deep, listen true to the body as a powerful and holy being?
Why have I spent a lifetime chastising a body that is “a God in its own right?” Enough!
I am strong enough to listen deep, listen true to my body and a powerful and holy being. I am enough!
copyright 2010 by Ronna Detrick
Love that you found this helpful. You cannot go wrong with Clarissa Pinkola Estes. I’m just honored to be in the mix!!!