Another lovely piece of writing by one of my favorite authors, Clarissa Pinkola Estes:
“There is probably no better or more reliable measure of whether a woman has spent time in ugly duckling status at some point or all throughout her life than her inability to digest a sincere compliment. Although it could be a matter of modesty, or could be attributed to shyness–although too many serious wounds are carelessly written off as ‘nothing but shyness.’ More often a compliment is stuttered around about because it sets up an automatic and unpleasant dialogue in the woman’s mind.
If you say how lovely she is, or how beautiful her art is, or compliment anything else her soul took part in, inspired, or suffused, something in her mind says she is undeserving and you, the complimentor, are an idiot for thinking such a thing to begin with. Rather than understand that the beauty of her soul shines through when she is being herself, the woman changes the subject and effectively snatches nourishment away from the soul-self, which thrives on being acknowledged.”
“I must admit, I sometimes find it useful in my practice to delineate the various typologies of personality as cats and hens and ducks and swans and so forth. If warranted, I might ask my client to assume for a moment that she is a swan who does not realize it. Assume also for a moment that she has been brought up by or is currently surrounded by ducks.
There is nothing wrong with ducks, I assure them, or with swans. But ducks are ducks and swans are swans. Sometimes to make the point I have to move to other animal metaphors. I like to use mice. What if you were raised by the mice people? But what if you’re, say, a swan. Swans and mice hate each other’s food for the most part. They each think the other smells funny. They are not interested in spending time together, and if they did, one would be constantly harassing the other.
But what if you, being a swan, had to pretend you were a mouse? What if you had to pretend to be gray and furry and tiny? What if you had no long snaky tail to carry in the air on tail-carrying day? What if wherever you went you tried to walk like a mouse, but you waddled instead? What if you tried to talk like a mouse, but instead out came a honk every time? Wouldn’t you be the most miserable creature in the world?
The answer is an unequivocal yes. So why, if this is all so and too true, do women keep trying to bend and fold themselves into shapes that are not theirs? I must say, from years of clinical observation of this problem, that most of the time it is not because of deep-seated masochism or a malignant dedication to self-destruction or anything of that nature. More often it is because the woman simply doesn’t know any better. She is unmothered.”
Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Love to you all,
Jeane
So very true. And often if you look closer you will find that that woman’s mother was unmothered herself. So very important for mothers to tell their daughters how beautiful and special they are so they don’t have to spend a lifetime in Ugly Duckling status.
What you say, Sue, is so true. And if our mothers have not been mothered, how will they know how to mother us? And it goes on and on and on…
This is such a truth for at least the culture I have grown up in. I was trained both that I was limitless and loved and simultaneously told to be humble and all things opposite of vain. To a small child vain is a mysterious word, hard to grasp. And so the young child thinks it means do not ever believe you are to accept praise as it shows you might (god forbid) believe what the one who saw the gift you were, was offering you. Such deep things for a child to get their minds around and while not able to, still they try to “act” appropriately. Patterns are set early and deep… but can be altered:)
As well Sue’s post was very much a part of the training that we may have received.
I hold you as at peace with life’s treasures, today and always.
Thank you Jeane:)
XOXOX
It is such a confusing cycle. You’re so right Grace. All we can do is grow and practice and learn to love and appreciate the beings we are and then give that love and acceptance outward as well.