The Inspired Teachings and Wisdom of Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Now that you've read some of Dr. Estes' work, let me tell you a little more about her. Her career speaks to me about what one person can do to make a difference in this world.

Over the course of her lifelong psychoanalytic career, she has developed expertise in the area of post-trauma recovery--dealing with issues such as childbearing loss, surviving families of murder victims, critical incident work, etc. This includes ongoing work with the families and survivors of the Columbine High School massacre, which occurred in 1999; developing the post-trauma recovery protocol for earthquake survivors in Armenia and working with foreign war veterans with regard to loss of limb, mobility and post traumatic stress disorder.

Lest Dr. Estes' background and work sound psychologically complex and send you scurrying for the proverbial door, remember that she is also a gifted storyteller. It is through tales and myths that she conveys concepts about psychological archetypes--which in Jungian theory is a collectively inherited unconscious idea, pattern of thought, or image--in order to cultivate healing and wholeness. In essence, as she aptly states, she uses story as medicine.

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The story that follows is found in Clarissa Pinkola Estes' book, Women Who Run With the Wolves. For brevity I am paraphrasing it and the commentary by Dr. Estes for the purpose of further connecting the concept of archetypes. As I've indicated before, Dr. Estes is a gifted storyteller, and I highly recommend taking the time to read these stories out of her book. They are wonderful and wonder-filled!

Vasilisa the Wise. The tale Dr. Estes regales us with is a version told to her by her aunt Kathe. It is a tale of a young mother laying on her death bed. She calls her beautiful child, Vasilisa, to her to say good bye and presents her with a little doll dressed exactly like Vasilisa. The mother says, "Should you lose your way or be in need of help, ask this doll what to do. You will be assisted. Keep the doll with you always. Do not tell anyone about her. Feed her when she is hungry. This is my mother's promise to you, my blessing on you, dear daughter." And with that the young mother dies.

Later her father remarries and she acquires a nasty old stepmother and two wicked stepsisters. Her stepmother sends Vasilisa out to search for fire for their hearth--but her hope is that Vasilisa will be eaten by the evil witch, Baba Yaga. Off Vasilisa heads into the woods and eventually meets up with the scary Baba Yaga. Vasilisa explains that she's there for fire, so Baba Yaga puts her to work doing unrealistic tasks. But each time Vasilisa gets ready to open her mouth and tell Baba Yaga she can't possibly complete the task, the little doll in her pocket jumps up and down to get her attention and reassures Vasilisa that it will complete the task as she sleeps. Task after task is completed, as Vasilisa feeds her doll like her mother instructed.

Finally one day she tells Baba Yaga she has arrived at her house because of a blessing and Baba Yaga doesn't like the sound of that one bit. So she takes a fiery skull off of her fence, places it on a stick, hands the stick to Vasilisa and sends her quickly on her way. Vasilisa finally returns to a house that had been dark since her departure and goes to bed as the skull watches the wicked stepmother and stepsisters. And when Vasilisa awakes the following morning, she finds that her three wicked steps have been burnt to a crisp.

Dr. Estes' interpretation of the story is that it is a tale of how mothers hand down the blessing of intuition to their daughters, from generation to generation. "This great power, intuition, is composed of lightning-fast inner seeing, inner hearing, inner sensing, and inner knowing." Anywhere along the way, the psyche can be sidetracked, damaged, or buried. However. the goal of a healthy psyche is to move into a trusting relationship with the part of ourselves that is called, "the knowing woman"--or as Dr. Estes' refers to her as "the essence of Wild Woman."

To understand this story in Jungian terms, we need to look at every component of the tale as representing a single person's psyche. Intuition is derived from a process of initiation, and this story outlines nine separate tasks for a psyche to complete in order to be fully intuitive. They are:

1. Accepting self responsibility for protecting and nurturing ourselves.
2. Developing the best relationship we can with the darker aspects of our nature.
3. Being willing to venture inwardly and learning to rely solely on our inner senses.
4. Becoming familiar with the other worldliness of the wild and thereby becoming a little odd ourselves in the process.
5. Staying with the learning process as our intuition teaches us how to be true to ourselves.
6. Learning fine discernment and making distinctions between the good and the bad.
7.Learning to understand and be at peace with the natural rhythm of life--which Dr. Estes refers to as "the life/death/life cycle.
8. Heeding and and following the exact directions provided by our intuition.
9. Learning how to use our intuitive ability to react to our own negative shadow psyche or negative people/events in the world.

Nowhere is this seen more clearly than in an article Dr. Estes wrote in 2008 entitled, "You Were Made for This." It is a beautifully inspirational piece focused on not losing heart in the midst of these trying, confusing and frightening times. In a nutshell, her solution is to focus on our purpose for being in this world--what we're here to do--rather than on what's happening in the world around us. Although that may be easier said than done, so much of what Estes writes still manages to help us acknowledge the challenge while at the same time propel us into action. She always seems to ignite the spark of hope inside a reader, which somehow springs eternal.

Even in this one page article, Estes manages to propose a few key areas of focus to keep yourself afloat in difficult times:

Focus on Your Realm of Power
Empower yourself by focusing on what you have control over--your thoughts, words, actions and choices. The second part is releasing preoccupation with the things you don't have control over, which are people, places and things outside your self.

Restoring Calm with Simple Peaceful Actions
This second key is powerful. It advocates not just focusing on taking small actions to assist others within your reach--but encourages you to do it in a way that brings peace and restores calm.

Let Your Light Shine
It's difficult for me to even attempt to paraphrase what Dr. Estes says about this one so I'll just let her speak for herself. It's one of my absolute favorite quotes of hers. "One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these - to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity."No Wallowing
There are times you will feel despair, but you're to acknowledge it but not allow it to remain in your conscious awareness. When you know your purpose and the God who sent you, Dr. Estes believes there's no way you can remain in a place of despair.