BOOK NERD : Kickass Quotes from Women Who Run With The Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PhD (Part 3 of 4)...

My copy of Women Who Run With The Wolves is literally falling apart!

But- I've grown so attached to my notes & highlights & dogears that I just keep taping & clipping & patching it back together.

I do wish I had gotten a larger version though.

I bought the cheapest mass-market paperback available, because- at the time- I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

So now- I have to wear magnifying glasses to read it's cheap mass-market print.

You'd think I'd just get a new, bigger, less-falling-apart copy, right?

But nooooo....

I have worked with this book. I have baked in it, soaked in it, brewed & stewed & stood in it for a very long time. And now- as tattered as it is, it feels as though it's become a part of me...



★ "Your family thinks you're an alien. You have feathers, they have scales. Your idea of a good time is the forest, the wilds, the inner life, the outer majesty. Their idea of a good time is folding towels." -Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PhD 

★ "...I always worry for those who are too well behaved; they often have that 'faint soul' look in their eyes. Something is not right. A healthy soul shines through the persona on most days and blazes through on others. Where there is gross injury, the soul flees." -Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PhD

★ "It is tough to spend years among those who cannot help you to flourish. Being able to say that one is a survivor is an accomplishment. For many, the power is in the name itself. And yet comes a time in the individuation process when the threat or trauma is significantly passed. Then is the time to go to the next stage after survivorship, to healing and thriving." -Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PhD

★ "Discontent is the secret door to significant and life-giving change." -Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PhD

★ "Sneaking a counterfeit soul-life never works... It's better to get up, stand up, no matter how homemade your platform, and live the most you can, the best you can, and forgo the sneaking of counterfeits. Hold out for what has real meaning and health for you." -Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PhD

★ "You can try to have a secret life, but sooner or later the superego, a negative complex, and/or the culture itself, will hail down. It is hard to hide an unsanctioned something that you are ravenous about. It is hard to hide stolen pleasures even when they are not nourishing ones." -Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PhD

★ "Courage means to follow the heart." -Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PhD

★ "In the instinctive psyche, the body is considered a sensor, an information network, a messenger with myriad communication systems- cardiovascular, respiratory, skeletal, autonomic, as well as emotive and intuitive. In the imaginal world, the body is a powerful vehicle, a spirit who lives with us, a prayer of life in it's own right." -Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PhD

★ "The body remembers, the bones remember, the joints remember, even the little finger remembers. Memory is lodged in pictures and feelings in the cells themselves. Like a sponge filled with water, anywhere the flesh is pressed, wrung, even touched lightly, a memory may flow out in stream." -Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PhD

★ "Substance abuse is a very real trap. Drugs and alcohol are very much like an abusive lover who treats you well at first and then beats you up, apologizes, gives you nice treatment for a while, and then beats you up again. The trap is in trying to hang in there for the good while trying to overlook the bad. Wrong. This can never work." -Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PhD

★ "The instinctual nature tells us when enough is enough. It is prudent and life-preserving." -Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PhD

★ "Sometimes it is difficult for us to realize when we are losing our instincts, for it's often an insidious process that does not occur all in one day, but rather over a long period of time." -Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PhD

★ "Nothing makes the light, the wonder, the treasure stand out so well as darkness. The 'dark night of the soul' has almost become a catchphrase in certain parts of the culture. The recovery of the divine is done in the dark of Hel or Hades or 'there'." -Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PhD

★ "What is homing? It is the instinct to return, to go to the place we remember. It is the ability to find, whether in dark or in daylight, one's home place." -Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PhD

★ "There are many ways to go home; many are mundane, some are divine... Spending even a few minutes near a river, a stream, a creek. Lying on the ground in dappled light... Greeting sunrise... Sitting by a window in a cafe writing. Sitting in a circle of trees. Drying hair in the sun. Putting hands in a rain barrel. Potting plants, being sure to get hands very muddy. Beholding beauty, grace, the touching frailty of human beings." -Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PhD

★ "What are soul needs? They lie in two realms: nature and creativity." -Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PhD



★ FOLLOW THiS LiNK for more kickass quotes from my favorite books! #BookNerd