— Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run with the Wolves
Women Who Run with the Wolves (Clarissa Pinkola Estés, 1992) is about the "Wild Woman," the instinctive, creative, truth-telling part of us that gets buried by expectations, routine, and other people's rules. Estés is a Jungian analyst and a storyteller in the oral tradition, so she teaches through old tales and then unpacks them like a therapist would.
Each chapter takes a myth or fairy tale (La Loba, the bone woman who sings dead things back to life, Bluebeard, Vasalisa and the skull lantern, the Skeleton Woman, the Red Shoes) and reads it as a map of the psyche. The stories show how we lose our intuition, what that loss feels like (exhaustion, numbness, people-pleasing, creative drought), and how we find our way back.
It's a long, rich book, meant to be read slowly. Some chapters will hit hard and some won't, and that's fine. It fits a yoga setting because it speaks to what we teach: listening to the body, trusting your inner knowing, and making space for both rest and wildness.
A note for the group: the book speaks mostly to women, but the core ideas (instinct, creativity, boundaries, renewal) apply to everyone.
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• Which story or chapter stayed with you most, and what part of your own life did it touch?
• Estés writes about the part of us that goes quiet when we try to be "good" or "easy." Where in your life do you mute your instincts, and what would change if you didn't?
• Many of these tales are about rest, solitude, and going into the dark before something new can grow. How do you feel about that kind of pause, in your own life or in your teaching?
• Where do you feel the "wild" in your body? Think about your practice, a class you've taught, or a moment when you felt fully yourself.
• What is one thing from this book you could carry into your classes, your students, or your own practice this month?
