soul-self

“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.... too many serious wounds are carelessly written off as ‘nothing but shyness’....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."
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~Clarissa Pinkola Estés - Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype.