Girl and Woman

“Of course the indispensable condition is that we have an archetypal experience and to have that means that you have surrendered to life. If your life has not three dimensions, if you don’t live in the body, if you live on the two-dimensional plane in the the paper world that is flat and printed, as if you were only living your biography, then you are nowhere. You don’t see the archetypal world, but live like a pressed flower in the pages of a book, a mere memory of yourself.”

– Jung, in Nietzsche’s Zarathustra -

I provide support and help to girls and women through the life span to fully and authentically come into themselves. I understand how complex it is for women to be strong, caring (of others and themselves) and assertive in our society. Also for young women, how difficult and confusing that journey into adulthood can be. Woman have many more challenges today with balancing family, work and self nurturance. I understand that challenge well with being a mother of three children and having a career while also being true to my ongoing self development.

Peggie Orenstein states in her book, School Girls (1994) that:

“In spite of the changes in women’s roles in society, in spite of the changes in their own mothers’ lives, many of today’s girls fall into traditional patterns of low self-image, self-doubt, and self-censorship of their creative and intellectual potential. Although all children experience confusion and a faltering sense of self at adolescence, girls’ self-regard drops further than boys’ and never catches up. They emerge from their teenage years with reduced expectations and have less confidence in themselves and their abilities than do boys. Teenage girls are more vulnerable to feelings of depression and hopelessness and are four times more likely to attempt suicide.

Without a strong sense of self, girls will enter adulthood at a deficit: they will be less able to fulfill their potential, less willing to take challenges, less willing to defy tradition in their career choices, which means sacrificing economic equity. Their successes will not satisfy and their failures will be more catastrophic, confirming their self-doubt. They will be less prepared to weather the storms of adult life, more likely to become depressed, hopeless and self destructive. In order to raise and nurture healthier girls, we must look carefully at what we tell them, often unconsciously, often subtly, about their worth relative to boys’. We must look a what girls value about themselves-the “areas of importance” by which they measure their self-esteem-as well as the potential sources of strength and competence that, too often, they learn to devalue.”

I believe that modern women are in a crisis of identity and self development. We are now able to participate in all aspects of life. We often need affirmation from the external world to affirm ourselves but the splitting of ourselves in so many areas/roles are too confusing and overwhelming. How do we find a stability of self, accept all aspects of ourselves as they arise at different phases in our life and nurture those parts of the self. Girls and women need reciprocal, emotionally connected relationships to continue to grow emotionally individually and relationally.  Clearly women are suffering in our fast paced, media influenced and materialistic society and the dilemma or tug of war is predominately the split between internal needs and authentic expression of self over societal/cultural pressures.  This dilemma is articulated through food and weight obsessions, melancholy, anxiety, perfectionism, envy and competition with other women and so on.


web design by elementfortytwo