Book Club: Singing Over the Bones (Intro, Women Who Run With the Wolves)

This is our monthly Book Club episode where we discuss a chapter from our current book choice: Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes.

We are starting with the “Introduction: Singing Over the Bones”. We invite you to read along with us. Each Book Club episode will include a detailed synopsis so you can listen whether you’ve read the chapter or not.

You can follow us on Instagram: @FullHeart_FreeVoice_Podcast


Podcast Episode Summary:
In this episode we begin our journey through Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ 1991, best selling, feminist classic, “Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype”, starting with the introduction entitled “Singing Over the Bones”, which introduces us to the terminology and purpose of the book. Caitlin and Emma start the episode by sharing why they are excited to be reading this book as well as what they thought of the chapter. Caitlin and Emma also share their individual approaches to reading this often intimidating book. Emma then shares her synopsis of the chapter, offering plain, approachable language to the author’s writing. Caitlin and Emma each take turns sharing what they thought of the chapter as well as insights from one quote that spoke to them while reading.

They discuss:

• What it feels like to be inauthentic.
• Their journeys of reconnecting with their true selves.
• How to get the most out of this non-traditional self-help book and how to approachably dive deeper into this complicated text, and more.

Timestamps:

• 0.32: About the book
• 2.09: Why we're excited to read the book
• 15:00: What Caitlin thought of the book
• 20:50: What Emma thought of the book
• 28:04: Caitlin's quote discussion
• 37:40: Emma's quote discussion

We would love to know:

• What did you think of The Introduction?
• What is one quote from The Introduction that stood out to you that you would like to explore more?

Other works mentioned during this episode: 

• “Finding Your Own North Star” written by Martha Beck 
• “The Artist’s Way” written by Julia Cameron 

How to Connect with Emma:

• Find out more about Emma Veritas at https://www.enchantedwriting.com/

How to Connect with Caitlin:

• Find out more about Caitlin Bosshart and schedule a free consultation at: https://caitlinbosshart.com/
• Follow Caitlin on Instagram: @caitlin_bosshart 
• Follow Caitlin on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/caitlinbosshartlifecoaching/

Attributions:

Theme music: A special thank you to these incredible artists, who created the music featured in our podcast: Wally Ingram, Stevie Blacke and Tom Freund. You heard portions of their tracks “Shine a Light” and “Udu ULove” from their record Spadé. 

Original cover art created by: Caitlin Bosshart

*All links to bookshop.org are affiliate links*

Transcript

Emma Veritas and Caitlin Bosshart:   0:02
Welcome to the Full Heart Free Voice podcast. I'm Emma Veritas, a writer and writing coach for women who want to share their truth through writing. And I'm Caitlin Bosshard, a life coach for the multipassionate at heart and wedding coach for couples planning non traditional weddings. We read books that inspire you to live with a full heart and a free voice.

Emma Veritas:   0:35
The first book we're studying in our Full Heart Free Voice Podcast is Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype, written by Dr Clarissa Pinkola Estes and published in 1992. Women Who Run With the Wolves is a feminist classic that teaches women how to reclaim their instinctual nature through the study of the symbols, metaphors and archetypes contained in myths and stories. Each chapter of Women Who Run With the Wolves focuses on a theme related to recovering your wild woman archetype. The wild woman archetype can also be called your true self or your instinctual nature. The themes presented in the chapters will be things like creativity, finding community, loving your body, how to work with anger and forgiveness, how to create your soul life, how to be safe in the world, and so much more. For each theme Dr. Estes offers a fairytale like "The Ugly Duckling", "The Red Shoes", "Vasalisa the Brave" and "Blue Beard", and then she analyzes each symbol of the story and shows us what that symbol has to teach about recovering that particular aspect of your wild woman. The idea is that reading this book helps you to become more alive, more vibrant and more authentic in your life. It really is all about empowering you and teaching you how to live a life that fills up your heart and frees your voice in the world. So, Caitlin, what are you excited for about reading Women Who Run With the Wolves on our podcast?

Caitlin Bosshart:   2:17
Well, this is a book that has come up over and over in my life over the last several years. It's a book that is kind of intimidating, and I'm just excited that this time I'm actually taking a really different approach. I have started to read the book before and then got tripped up for one reason or the other, so I'm taking a little bit different approach and it feels really good. So I'm just excited to dive into all these different aspects around, you know, just living that authentic life. Over the last couple of years, really more than a couple of years, probably the last 7 to 10 years, that's been really a personal quest of mine to live with a full heart in a free voice. It's what I do in my business as a life coach. I have really wanted to connect more and more and understand more of who I am and all the multifaceted pieces that make up, you know, who I am as a person. And so I just think this book actually offers a lot of amazing insight and opportunities for reflection that I'm excited to explore, and I'm an external processor. So this modality of, you know, getting to talk about it with you, Emma, is so fun.

Emma Veritas:   3:35
I agree. I think it's going to be really fun. I'm curious now, though, to hear more about the approach you're taking with reading the book. Like, how was it the first time you read it? And what is the different approach you're doing this time?

Caitlin Bosshart:   3:48
So the first time I read it, I felt this pressure to understand and fully absorb every single sentence of the book, and it was just too much. And I realized that not necessarily every aspect of the book is necessarily going to resonate with me or resonate with me in this moment in time. So this time, what I've decided is that I read through the chapter, and I just underline any piece of the book that really stands out to me, that speaks to something really like a deeper truth for me. And then I set the book aside and I go back and then I only read what I've underlined. And for me that ends up being this really cohesive and digestible approach to understanding what I need to get out of the book, and I just don't worry about the rest of it, and it's really, really helped me to actually want to stick with this.

Emma Veritas:   4:45
I love it. I think that's a brilliant approach because, especially if you haven't read Women Who Run With the Wolves before, it is just chock full of information. And there's a lot of both information processing when you're reading it, trying to understand what she's saying. And then there's also understanding it on the emotional level and trying to sift through it to see what's really there for you, for your personal growth or your emotional healing in your life right now.

Caitlin Bosshart:   5:22
Yeah. Well, and I think that you're also touching on something which is that it can really, what's the word, like, poke at really sensitive parts of ourselves, some of these stories. It is emotional to process some of this stuff, and so I think that's just a good reminder for readers to take care of yourself through this process and know that sometimes it's gonna bring up some tough things and that's okay. Just do what you need to do for yourself throughout the book.

Emma Veritas:   5:57
So what I'm excited for with doing the podcast is having the community around that process. This is the type of book you read but you also try to take what you're reading into your life, and having a community and knowing that other people are going through the same thing with reading and understanding and figuring out how to just live in the world can be really helpful. So with our podcast, we have both the episodes Caitlin and I will be presenting to you. And then we also have a facebook community that you can join called full heart free voice podcast community, where you can find out just how everyone else is doing with everything we're talking about here.

Caitlin Bosshart:   6:45
Yeah, I love that. And I think it's so important that we do connect with other people on journeys like this, and that's what I love so much about the Facebook community (and hopefully the community of podcast listeners) is that we can support one another and don't have to feel like we're alone in this because we're really not.

Emma Veritas:   7:07
Yes, exactly. And I'll say that for the past three years I've been leading a Facebook group where we've actually been reading a chapter of Women Who Run With the Wolves every month, just for the past three years. So we've read the book twice through, and I asked everyone at the end of our last reading, what was the most important thing to you about our group? Like, what was it that they really got out of it, and hands down, everyone said it was the community. It was knowing that they weren't alone. Especially if you live somewhere where you don't feel like you know people who really think like you or have the same interests as you. Maybe if you are interested in personal growth sometimes it's kind of hard to find a kindred spirit who is also interested. And so having that kind of community going on could be really helpful.

Caitlin Bosshart:   7:58
Yeah and really, there's so many sensitive topics throughout this book that might not feel comfortable to just bring up to any person. So to know that there's this safe space where we are inviting this conversation is really cool. So I'm so excited.

Emma Veritas:   8:17
Me, too. I think it's going to be amazing. So the way how our podcast works is that we are going to study one chapter at a time from Women Who Run With the Wolves until we're done, and then we'll pick a new book that will help us to live with a full heart and a free voice. And for each chapter that we read, there will be two episodes which we're going to publish bi-weekly. The first episode of each chapter will be our Book Club episode, which is where we'll study the text. The second episode for each chapter will be our Life School episode, which is where we'll talk about the theme of the chapter and how to work with this theme in a practical way in your life. The episode we're doing today is our Book Club episode, where we'll be studying The Introduction of Women Who Run With the Wolves. In the Book Club episodes, I'm first going to offer you a synopsis of what's happening in the text. The reason I'm doing this is because this really is a challenging read, and I think it can be helpful to have some plain language explanation of what's going on. So I'm going to do the best I can. Of course, you might still have questions even after my synopsis, which you can feel free to go into our Facebook group and ask away, like ask all the questions you have. So what is happening in "The Introduction: singing over the bones"? First and foremost, this chapter is about giving the reader the lay of the land. It really does serve as an introduction, in that it introduces you to the terminology of the book, the purpose of the book and the methodologies used to fulfill this purpose. The biggest piece of terminology Dr. Estes introduces here is the term wild woman. And she offers a lot of beautiful, poetic and metaphorical descriptions to describe what the wild woman is. So I'm gonna read a quote from the chapter where she does this. But if it's hard to grasp, like intellectually what she's saying, I recommend letting go of trying to understand and instead try to feel what she's saying. See if you can catch a feeling of what this wild woman is as I read. "When women reassert their relationship with the wildish nature, they're gifted with a permanent and internal watcher, a knower, a visionary, an oracle an inspiratrice, an intuitive, a maker, a creator, an inventor, and a listener who guide, suggest, and urge vibrant life in the inner and outer worlds. When women are with the Wild Woman, the fact of that relationship glows through them. This wild teacher, wild mother, wild mentor supports their inner and outer lives, no matter what." So if I were to offer you the most simple explanation of Wild Woman as I've come to understand her than what I would say is, Wild Woman is your true self. It's who you would be if no one ever told you you couldn't be that, and I would also say your true self includes every part of who you are. It's your personality, your soul, your emotional life and your physical life. It's both very practical, like when my body feels tired, I take a nap, and it's also spiritual. It's listening to the tugs and pulls and gut knowings inside of you to make decisions. What Dr. Estes explains in the chapter is that when women are connected to their wild woman, meaning they listen to and honor their true selves in their daily lives, then life feels vital and interesting. Sure, it might be messy because nature itself can be messy, but it's also vibrant, real, and awake. However, when women are disconnected from their instinctual nature, which is a state of being Dr. Estes calls being tamed, then they tend to feel dull, fatigued, life takes on a gray hue, and they lose their vitality. The purpose of Women Who Run With the Wolves is to answer the questions: How do you claim your wild woman? How do you revitalize your true self? How do you live a life that feels free, vital, interesting, empowered, and vibrantly alive. The methodology she offers in the book to answer these questions is something Dr. Estes says calls story as medicine. The idea here is that myths and stories contain ancient patterns and symbols for how to be a human on the planet. These patterns and symbols are called archetypes, which is a term that Carl Jung modernized and brought into the field of psychology, and Dr. Estes is a Jungian analyst. So that's the type of psychology she's presenting here.  For Women Who Run With the Wolves, the idea is that the wild woman archetype is a pattern of being which exists in the psyche of all of us, of every human, no matter what your gender identification is. This pattern is held in something Jungian analysts call the collective unconscious. The collective unconscious is the part of you that basically just knows how to be a human. This means there is an unconscious part of you that already knows how to be the wild woman. Through the process Dr. Estes offers in Women Who Run With the Wolves, this wild woman part of you can become conscious and therefore more enhanced through the study of myths and stories that actually contain all the knowledge of how to be a wild woman. The biggest thing I get out of this chapter is what a gift this book is. Dr. Estes has done this work of choosing specific stories to share, stories that she knows contain elements of that pattern of the wild woman. And she's done this work that she calls fairy tale forensics to show us exactly what these stories are saying about how to live freely, with vitality, and with a full heart and a free voice. All right, so, Caitlin, what did you think of this chapter? What did you get out of it? How was the whole experience of reading "The introduction: singing over the bones"?

Caitlin Bosshart:   15:10
So what she's talking about in this chapter really resonated a lot with me. And at the end of it, the best way I could sum it up in the shortest way is that it feels like this beautiful rallying cry, for not just women but all people to break the chains of anything that is preventing us from being our biggest, brightest, most powerful forms of who we are. And that the way to do that is to connect more with that true self that you were talking about. So I think in so many ways this chapter is summing up in a lot of ways what I have been trying to do for myself over the last several years as well as what I do with my clients. And it's this idea of really breaking down the social structures and the expectations and the limitations that feel like they are put on us throughout our whole lives, and really starting to question that, like, is this really true? And is this serving me? And if it's not, being able to be empowered to let it go, because we can instead really lead our lives from that space of our heart and connect to who we really are and build our lives in that way, and that's something that I really believe in. So that's what I love about this chapter, is that she's sort of setting that up and showing that this book is a way to connect to all these different aspects of who we are, so that we can really reclaim our inner wild woman, wild person, and revitalize our true self.

Emma Veritas:   16:48
I love the term revitalize, and I'm really curious what you thought when she talks about not being authentic or not being your true self as losing vitality. And I'm curious if you've had that experience in your life like have you lost vitality when you've been inauthentic?

Caitlin Bosshart:   17:09
Oh, 1000%. I feel like any time I'm not being authentic, my energy is drained. I feel like this dulled down version of myself. I feel like after a while there's this part of myself that sort of wants to burst because I keep shoving down parts of who I am. I'm basically...I'm stuffing my own truth down that it's so uncomfortable. But at some point, you know, it's like you can no longer do that. It's not...You can't do any more, and there will be these little sparks in your life that start to revitalize you, start to bring you back to life and realize, oh yeah, I don't have to live this way anymore.

Emma Veritas:   17:52
So I had a big revitalizing experience back a few years ago, almost probably like six or seven years ago now, where I was working in a dull gray cubicle job, and my whole life felt dull and gray, and it was not  vital at all. Like I just didn't feel alive. And I did The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. And one of the exercises was to go out on an artist date once a week, which meant that you, by yourself, just did something you enjoyed for one or two hours, and it had to be authentic, like it had to be something you authentically enjoyed for real. And what I love doing, one of my favorite authentic practices for me, is to just sit and stare at nature. And so I was living in the woods at the time, and I would just take my chair out to my back porch and stare at the woods once a week, and that was a practice that brought me back to myself because it was something I was doing that was authentically enjoyable for me, and I hadn't been doing that because I thought it was frivolous. And I thought I really should be doing anything other than this thing that has, like, seemingly no point. But the point was that it made me come alive again. And now my whole life is different, like I can really look back at that as the trigger that kind of changed everything for me 'cause I just started to feel like myself again. And I love that that's wild woman, like that's a wild woman practice, to do something just for yourself that makes you feel alive.

Caitlin Bosshart:   19:32
Yeah, and to do something that doesn't have necessarily a concrete purpose that we would maybe categorize as being logical or productive, although it is, and having that inspired action for you to pick up that book, and there was something deep within you that was intuitively saying that was something that you needed. And so I think that's really amazing. Over the last couple of years, I've felt that a lot about making art, that's something where I felt kind of like frivolous and almost like this is pointless. Why am I spending time doing artwork when I could be doing something more productive? But in those moments when I'd actually allow myself to sit down and paint or draw or just create anything, those were the moments that I did feel the most alive. And I was amazed by the way that it energized me in the rest of my life. I could think more clearly. I was more creative at problem solving in other areas. So it's such a cool practice to be able to connect with those parts of yourself that we often ignore. So how about you? What did you think of the chapter?

Emma Veritas:   20:54
Yeah, so, like I said at the beginning, I've actually read Women Who Run With the Wolves a few times, because I've been leading that book club, where we read it twice, and I read it, also, back in my late twenties as well. That was my first time reading Women Who Run With the Wolves. And so it's been really interesting. This is now my four reading of this book, and I have to say what struck me the most about reading the chapter this time was how much it is a different art form from self help. Like, I am definitely a reader of self help books. Martha Beck's, Finding Your North Star, is one of my favorite books in the world, and Martha Beck's, Finding Your own North Star, is kind of a classic self help book for finding your purpose, if you don't know, and it really has amazing exercises and instructions and step by steps. And that is not at all what Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes offers in Women Who Run With the Wolves, right? Like she is not offering step by step instructions for what to do and what, this time, with reading it, I was thinking, you know, this book is an act of poetry. Like, it's not a prescriptive how to really do this. I feel like it's a book that wants to speak to your heart directly through the feelings you get from metaphors and from poetic language and from beauty, like it's incredibly inspirational. And I don't have to understand all of it intellectually. And I do have to say that with this fourth reading, I noticed exactly what we talked about at the beginning that there are certain things that just pop out at me. And even now, like I could have read a paragraph the second time I read it and been blown away by that paragraph, and this time reading it I, like, skip over it. I don't even notice that paragraph, and something else really, really pops out at me. And that's why I think it's just such a different type of art form, because it's one of those books that speak to you directly in the moment, like you hear what you need to hear today. And so that's really what I was thinking about, mostly, as I was reading it and how much that is, like the wild woman or your true self. Like, your true self, if you're being truly authentic, you're being true to yourself, like right now, to who you are in this moment, not to who you were five minutes ago or to who you're going to be five minutes from now. Like if I'm going to be a wild woman reading this book then I'm going to be authentic to who I am. in the moment that I'm reading it.

Caitlin Bosshart:   23:48
It's cool to hear that reflection from you because you've read it so many different times. And for me, who hasn't even made it through one full time...you know, we're coming from such a different perspective. And I love that reframing of it being like poetry and speaking to the heart. And that just makes it more approachable and digestible. So thank you for offering that, because I think that's gonna help me through this, hopefully first full time reading.

Emma Veritas:   24:21
I can't wait to be talking about every chapter with you because it really is like, it's something that I've done so much with. So being able to just talk about it in depth with you here on our podcast is so fun for me and refreshing and it is revitalizing. I feel like doing this project with you is an au...it's an authentic wild woman practice for me, like it makes me feel alive. I think that's probably the big thing about this chapter is that she's saying, like, what makes you come alive is the wild woman for you. Like, that's what the wild woman is calling us to. This archetype is just how to be alive in the world and not deadened. You know, like when people have jobs, or, I said when I had my old job, all of the time, "my soul is dying". Like, my soul was withering away within me, and the whole point is to say, no, like, that's not the purpose of life. The purpose is to be alive, fundamentally, when we get right down to the root of it. So it's finding what is it that makes you come alive.

Caitlin Bosshart:   25:37
Yeah, and I relate to that so much. We were kind of going through similar things at that time. I also felt like my soul was dying at my job at the time. And it's amazing how much things have shifted for both of us over the last couple of years as we've went through our life coach training and we've been really dedicated to this self work...it has just been really cool to just get to follow along on your journey and have you along on mine. So that's been really cool. And I love thinking about this podcast as a wild woman practice because having conversations like this is something that really lights me up and makes me feel connected and connected to that wild woman. And getting to hear your insights offers amazing reflection for me. And so anyway, again, just excited to be doing this with you.

Emma Veritas:   26:38
Me too! Okay, should we move on to our next segment?

Emma Veritas:   26:45
Today's episode is brought to you by me, your host Emma Veritas. You've been working at your dull gray cubicle job long enough to know you need to change your life. But actually putting the time, energy, and enthusiasm into searching through job websites feels impossible. You have no idea what you'd rather be doing. You feel totally disconnected from the person you used to be. If this is you, I invite you to check out, Find Your True Self Again. This course is a safe, wonderful space where you can reconnect to peace, life, joy, and wonder. It's where you can foster a deep connection to your most authentic self by following a clear process that will guide you step by easy step to a life that feels interesting and inspiring again. Find out more at wild authenticity dot com forward slash true self. The link is in the show notes.

Emma Veritas:   28:07
Okay, so in each of our book club segments, the segments are that we do a chapter synopsis. Then Caitlin and I talk about what we thought of the chapter. And then with this last one, we each pick one quote to focus on, because, like we've been saying, this book is chock full of information. And so what we want to practice with the podcast is diving into one very particular part of the book that we want to explore more and that we want to walk away with that after reading the chapter. So it's the one thing we really want to take into our lives. And so we both have picked a quote to have a discussion about and we invite you all to do the same thing in our Facebook group and post one quote for exploration where the group and the community can explore with you what that quote means and specifically, you know, for you and what's happening for you in your life right now. Okay, Caitlin, which quote do you have for us?

Caitlin Bosshart:   29:12
Okay, so the quote that I have relates to the ways that stories can get changed over time. So I'm gonna read this section "Sometimes various cultural overlays disarray the bones of stories. For instance, in the case of the brothers Grimm (among other fairy tale collectors of the past few centuries), there is strong suspicion that the informants (storytellers) of that time sometimes "purified" their stories for the religious brothers' sakes. We also suspect the famous brothers continued the tradition of old pagan symbols overlaid with Christan ones, so that an old healer in a tale became an evil witch, a spirit became an angel, an initiation veil or caul became a handkerchief, or a child named Beautiful (the customary name for a child born during Solstice festival) was renamed Schmerzenreich, Sorrowful." So this quote in particular stood out to me the first time that I read the introduction. And it's still...it's hung with me over the last couple of years. For me, it's this realization that as a child, a lot of the stories that I consumed are maybe so different than how they were originally meant to be told, and that the messages that were intended, are lost, changed. And just to think that the healer woman, the wise woman, the intuitive or magical women in these stories are often turned into the witches and the... they are the, um, what's the word? Um, the villain! Yes. That's the word. The villain. They're turning to the villain of the story. And I just found that so fascinating and also tragic in a lot of ways. So, really, that part just really hit me.

Emma Veritas:   31:16
You know what? That part really hits me, too. And as you were talking, it just made me think of somewhere around that passage. I think she says that you know the same thing that happens to stories, like this cover up, is what's happened to woman through the centuries. You know, just like she makes the correlation between, like, the destruction of the earth and the destruction of the feminine are the same things. And it just makes me wonder... I have another question for you. I haven't prepped you for this one. I'm just gonna throw it out there, which is I'm curious if it strikes you deeply because you felt that kind of cover up in your life?

Caitlin Bosshart:   32:00
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I feel like my whole life there are these images and expectations of what it means to be a woman. And if you don't meet them, you're made to feel bad about that or you're ashamed or you feel like something's wrong with you. To realize that there's this whole other way of being, and that there's actually not even one way.There's not these, like, neat boxes that we're actually meant to fit into. That's why it strikes me. It's like, oh, like, I've been believing or, so much of my life, I believed I needed to fit into these boxes because of the stories that I had been told in the media that I had consumed different ways. And that's just simply not true.

Emma Veritas:   32:56
I love it. I'm like getting chills as you're talking. That just strikes me as so true. And the way how, like, the word woman or the word feminine is defined as well. And we've had conversations in the book club group a lot about how woman won't think they're feminine enough or they'll think they're too feminine, like there's this weird little box of what feminine means. And what I love is all the conversations happening in culture right now that are like the gender bending, non normative like non binary conversations. I think are so kick ass because, it's like screw it. There isn't a box. Like there isn't...Nature does not have a neat check box to put any thing inside of. Like that's not what's going on here. And I love how Women Who Run With the Wolves, where, you know, she doesn't get into the non binary gender discussion, but I think this book still offers, however, a look at how to break the norm, like how to break through the pressures of conformity that can really trap you and feel like such a tight little box that you can't break out of sometimes.

Caitlin Bosshart:   34:16
And giving us permission to redefine what that looks like for ourselves. It's like, really looking within you. Like, what does it mean for me to be feminine? What does it mean for me to be a woman or person in this world, stripping away the definitions that these words have really forced upon us?

Emma Veritas:   34:39
Mmm, yeah, and it is force. I love that. Like these words in this fairy tale, you know, were changed by the patriarchal systems. And it was a loss, right? Like it was a huge loss to women. And right now, like, we're like saying, screw that.  We're reclaiming it. And the work Dr. Estes, when she says fairy tale forensics in the chapter, she talks about the work she did to study story, to study archetypal psychology and to be able to go back and regenerate and re-create these stories and putting their truth back out into the world.

Caitlin Bosshart:   35:23
I think the other thing about that quote that makes me sad is that these storytellers felt like they had to sanitize these stories. I think a lot of times women have felt like they had to hide part of themselves to be safe, and it hasn't always been safe for us to use our voices, to be the full expression of ourselves. And I also love that she's restoring these stories back to their original meaning and message, and I think that's also what's happening in the larger culture. It's interesting that she wrote this book back in 1989. Is that right?

Emma Veritas:   36:00
Uh, yes, yeah, it was published in '92. So I'm assuming she was writing it for years.

Caitlin Bosshart:   36:07
But it's an interesting connection that she wrote this, or published it, in 1992 and that it's very much part of the conversation that's happening now.

Emma Veritas:   36:16
Yeah, I think that's the amazing paradox of delving into ancient wisdom that when you go deep into ancient wisdom, it's always, relevant.

Caitlin Bosshart:   36:29
Yeah, so timeless.  

Caitlin Bosshart:   36:43
Today's episode is brought to you by me, your host, Caitlin Bosshart. I believe that not only does the world have space for the biggest, brightest version of yourself, it needs what only you can create. I'm a life coach for the multi-passionate at heart whose endless curiosity, eclectic interests, creative endeavors and vision for their lives have never quite fit into any one box, no matter how hard you've tried. Instead, we think outside the box. I help you embrace who you are, harness your unique set of talents, and support you as you forge a less conventional path, one that is fulfilling and energizing to your multi-passionate nature. Sign up for a free 30 minute call with me at Caitlin Bosshart dot com and let's see if we would make a good team. The link is in the show notes below.  

Caitlin Bosshart:   37:36
So how about for you? So what was the excerpt or the quote that stood out to you when you read it this time?

Emma Veritas:   37:44
So the quote I want to share with you and talk about and dive deeper in to is actually on the very first page. There is one quick sentence, which is the first paragraph. But in the second paragraph, that's where my quote is. It says: "The spiritual lands of wild Woman have throughout history, been plundered or burnt, dens bulldozed, and natural cycles forced into unnatural rhythms to please others." And specifically, what I want to focus on is the natural cycles forced into unnatural rhythms to please others. Later on in the chapter, she talks about what it's like when you're not connected to the wild woman. And there's this very short phrase in the mix of all the descriptions of that where she says, "When you're not connected to the wild woman, you're not insistent on one's own tempo." And I I love this exploration, especially that Women Who Run With the Wolves offers, of living authentically means honoring your natural cycles. And she talks a lot later on in the book, and even in chapter one when we get into it, where she calls the wild woman the Life Death Life Cycle, and she says that like the rhythm of the wild woman or your natural rhythm of who you are flows the same as the seasons, where there is always times where there is vitality and spring and up energy, and then following that there is always a time of dormancy and quiet, and then, not to worry during the dormant time, because always after the dormant time, there is the spring and there's life and there's up energy again. And what I have struggled with in my life is the feeling like I should be 100% focused and productive all of the time, and that's what success looks like. Like that's what being a good person in the world looks like. That's how you should be alive, like you're doing good if you're always productive. And what I have had to deeply unlearn through becoming an authentic person and living a normal life and going through a massive burnout experience is that like, no, it's not like that at all. You know, it's more like loving those dormant times, and when you're in that dormant time, something really important is usually happening. It's more like when I go through a phase, maybe it's a week or two weeks or longer where I'm more tired, usually there is deep stuff that my subconscious is processing, or I'm just recovering from a period of massive creativity. But that recovery is a really important part of being a human in the world and being just in the world in nature, right? And so I'm excited for reading this book, to go even deeper into that and exploring that even more, because that's been a game changer for me, and I would like the game changing to just continue.

Caitlin Bosshart:   41:20
So I'm curious. What was it for you caused that shift where you started to change your mind and realize that you didn't have to be productive all the time and that you could actually embrace the natural flows of your natural cycles, the flow of the seasons and and how that influences how you feel internally?

Emma Veritas:   41:44
The number one thing that motivates me in life is usually frustration or pain. I had my office job and then I quit my office job, which was a good decision, and I became a life coach and started my business and a writer like I'm a writing coach now and I love it. I love living a creative life, and what I have found is that I'll start off the week, like with a schedule in mind and a list of things I'm wanting to accomplish. And at the end of every week, that plan never happens. Ever. And I get so frustrated and so annoyed. I'm like, Why can't I just do this plan? This is what needs to happen. And finally, through that frustration, I started to accept the fact that, guess what?  from, you know, 1 to 4 in the afternoon I'm not doing anything. I am not focused. I need to rest or it's when I do a different type of focus. I might like go to the gym or go for walk. Like it's when I need to not be creative anymore. And I think it was plain old frustration that my plans weren't working, that I finally chose to seek a new way. And it's still something I'm really unlearning and working with and figuring out, 'cause I'm just a planner like I love to plan things and I love to uphold my plans. Um, but it never works out right? the way how I plan. And so in that frustration and in wanting to live a life that feels good, I started to listen to Dr. Estes, and I decided that I would like accept my natural rhythm and try to go with the flow. And my life is better. I am not that great at it, but even being like 50% okay at it makes my life way nicer, just much, much more peaceful, much less stressful.

Caitlin Bosshart:   43:43
It is interesting to think about how that frustration or anger or even shame that people might feel that comes up when they're feeling like, again they're trying to fit within this system, this model, this expectation... is like the frustration is actually pointing to something like, Hey, this isn't actually working for you and that that's something to pay attention to. It's actually like having that emotion and that reaction is actually helpful to be like, Oh, yeah, I'm not listening to myself.

Emma Veritas:   44:15
I agree. Yeah, I always want my soul to call me with, like, deep, beautiful sounds of "Emma, Come here and do this", but it's usually a painful feeling of I have gone off track. I'm being super inauthentic and that hurts like hell, so go there and do that.

Caitlin Bosshart:   44:37
Yeah,  I completely know what you mean. I've been trying to do the same thing the last couple of years, like, really honoring the difference in the season's. Like  I love...  I'm a spring baby. I was born in March. So there's something about that time of year that I just really love. I love the energy and the sort of like explosion of creativity and all those things. And so I really resist the quieter, reflective months. But I've started to shift that rather than from resistance to being like, You know, actually, this is an incredible part of the process, and if I embrace it, at least the best that I can, I'm not always great at it either, but when I do allow myself to, it's amazing, actually, what I can process and what I come out the other side with. I think I would actually be doing myself a disservice if I didn't take that time. So it's not easy. It's definitely a practice, not a destination.

Emma Veritas:   45:42
Yeah, it is a practice, and I will say, if you're listening and you're thinking, okay, you know, I can do that, or I can practice embracing it because I have my own business, I will say that like, if you're someone who has a regular 9 to 5 job, it sure is more challenging to accept your natural rhythm because you have this external pressure of exactly, like, the hours in the day and what you should be doing with them. But I would encourage you to even just see within that if there's something you can do. Something I noticed when I was at my office job was that I would have a lunch break, and it was almost impossible for me to get back into work when I was done with my lunch break. I just couldn't get back into focusing in the afternoon. And so I remember at some point choosing that time to be the time where I did the stuff that didn't require deep work. Like that's the time when I would organize my task list or organize my email or clean out things. Like I would just do something different during the times that I was tired. So it's challenging, but I think you can still work with it, even if you have a lot of external expectations on your time.

Caitlin Bosshart:   46:58
Yeah, I love that example 'cause I think there's a lot of creativity that we can kind of apply to try to problem solve that. Again, like I'm super empathetic to the challenges of, you know, working in an environment that isn't supportive. But I always feel like there's ways that we can kind of sneak out, or kind of sneak in these ways of staying connected to what we're really needing, even within those systems.

Emma Veritas:   47:24
I agree. I think the wild woman archetype is a little bit mischief as well. Like she's a little bit of a mischief, and so why not cause a little bit of mischief? Do things a little different? And I love how, like, following your natural rhythms is so epically revolutionary, right? It is revolutionary and it is so simple and beautiful and sweet and just being who you are really.

Caitlin Bosshart:   47:51
And the other thing, and again not always super easy, but speaking up. In past jobs, there were definitely things that I had an idea that I was like, I think this is for the well being of everybody. And I just asked. I was like, Hey, could we have... So I worked at a domestic violence shelter and it was really stressful. And I was talking with some of my co workers about the fact that we really needed to process trauma, and we ended up asking if every week we could basically create this intentional space for all of us to come together and just talk and process and offer support. And it was something that we didn't know if our, you know, that the administration would be willing to let us do. But they did, and it was really valuable. So you just never know. If you ask, you might get it, especially if you can connect back to why it's gonna be in everybody's best interest.

Emma Veritas:   48:55
Alright, everyone, Our challenge for you after this episode is to ask yourself the same questions. We just ask ourselves about the introduction to Women Who Run With the Wolves, so you're going to ask what you thought of the chapter. And what is one quote that really popped out at you that you would like to explore more and have that quote be something you take away into your life. And we would love to hear your answers on our Facebook community, which is called the Full Heart Free Voice Podcast community. So come and join us and tell us what you thought of the chapter. Thanks, guys.

Emma Veritas and Caitlin Bosshart:   49:37
This episode was produced by Emma Veritas and Caitlin Bosshart. You can find out more about me, Emma, at my website wild authenticity dot com. And you can find out more about me, Caitlin, at my website Caitlin Bosshart dot com and on Instagram at Caitlin_Bosshart. The nicest thing you could do for us is to subscribe and leave us a review on your favorite podcast player. It really helps our podcast to reach more listeners. And if you know someone who would love the Full Heart Free Voice Podcast, we hope that you'll share it with them. And, of course, join the conversation in our Facebook Group, the Full Heart Free Voice Podcast community. You can follow along with us on Instagram at full heart_free voice_podcast and sign up for our newsletter at wild authenticity dot com forward slash podcast. A special thank you to the amazing Artists whose music is featured in our podcast. Wally Ingram, Stevie Black and Tom Freund. You heard portions of their tracks "Shine a Light" and "Udu Love"  from their Record Spade. And thanks to Caitlin Bosshart for creating our beautiful cover art. And thank you to Kirit Basu for all his audio and technical help. Last but not least, thank you to you, our listeners.