Hi, dear readers,
Thank you for your patience. I know I haven’t written in a while. For the last two months, I have been immersing myself in stories and myths which I have been using as medicine after a few very challenging events in my life. Throughout this time, I have been working with Maria Souza, a mythologist, as her mentee. Around two years ago, I took her program based on the book Women Who Run with Wolves, and I deeply appreciated how the program not only brought me closer to my multifaceted feminine nature but also into a community of like-minded women who were also doing the deeper work and wanted more out of life than the mundane existence.
This summer, after my breakup, I wanted to find a home for my grief. Grief, to me, is LOVE looking for a home, and my intuition led me to immerse myself in Maria’s work once again. So, here I am, almost at the end of my journey with Maria and closer to launching my creative project, which has been birthed with love, hard work, perseverance, and deep gratitude for all that has happened and for all that is to come. I know I have many male readers, but this article is written for women, so if you have a good friend who is a female or a wife, partner, older daughter, or sister, please forward it to them so that they, too, can reclaim their female power and wisdom with the help of the course I designed.
The project that I gave rise to during this time of introspection is called “RECLAIMING YOUR WILD FEMININE” and aims to explore, harness, and help you embody your feminine wisdom through the power of the archetypes and symbols presented in traditional tales. Our map during this program is the book Women Who Run with Wolves, written by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes.
Clarissa, Ph.D., is a Jungian psychoanalyst, poet and storyteller who tracks the wild woman archetype throughout her book. There are 16 chapters in the book, and each story is related to a different facet that the wild woman archetype embodies. We will look at the archetypes of the Seeker, Maiden, Mother, Wise Woman, Worrier, Animus, Shadow, Spirit Child and many more.
Archetypes are images or symbols used in myths and stories to help us understand our experiences as humans. Archetypes are especially helpful in navigating our inner world and understanding the unconscious parts of ourselves that affect the way we view ourselves and the world. A few examples of archetypes that you may already be familiar with include the Hero, the Inner Child, the Inner Critic, and more. Each of these archetypes lives inside of us, which is why when we see them in films or read them in stories, we find these characters captivating. Although archetypes are universal and live in the collective unconscious within our psyche, they show up in different ways depending on the culture, the time in history and the stories around us.
The reason Dr. Clarissa decided to write this book is that, as a psychologist herself, she wanted to support women in their deeper healing and provide a compass that would guide them throughout their own journeys. According to her, traditional psychology lacked female archetypes and the most inspiring archetypes were male ones. The main characters and symbols in the stories she compiled provide systematic guidance to recover what was seemingly lost, tools to reclaim sovereignty, and ways of coming home to yourself, so that living a feminine soulful life where your authentic and unique gifts can be fully utilised and you can fully become the CEO of your own life.
The course created is not a book club; it is so much more than that... Together, we are going to embark on a journey of many initiations that will help you find medicine for each of your own journeys reflected in these stories.
Now, let’s look at the RECLAIMING YOUR WILD FEMININE course in a bit more detail.
What will you gain from committing to this course?
The integration of your instincts and intuition into your daily life
Reclamation of feminine rites of passage through exploring the themes of initiations and life/death/life cycle
A support network of likeminded women
Tools to gracefully transition from one life phase to the next
The integration of the feminine and masculine within
Learn ways of bringing the drive of the masculine to the heart of the feminine
Who is this course open to?
Women who are seekers and want to understand themselves better and live more soulful lives.
What will happen during each session?
In each session, I will retell a story from the book and interpret the archetypes and symbols, after which we will have a discussion on how these are showing up for us in our inner and outer world.
Facilitator
A little bit about me: I'm Iza Misiuk (WeChat: izabella_m), a coaching psychologist (GMBPsS & MSc), relationship coach (Gottman’s Method certified level 1& 2), ICF-accredited holistic health coach, women’s circle facilitator, self-discovery through myths and archetypes facilitator, and the founder of thriveinshanghai.com, a wellness blog, as well as the co-creator of selfgrowthcourses.com, where I share my wisdom and knowledge to help others design a soulful and fulfilling life.
When:
Wednesday, starting 14th September 2022
Time:
7 PM - 9 PM (China time)
each session is 2 hours long
(if you miss a session, there will be a recording available for you)
Where: Online via ZOOM
Program Fee:
15 sessions: $600
The Program will be divided into 4 parts. You can register for the full programme or pay for each parts separately
Online support during the course
Contact:
WeChat: izabella_m
email:izabela.misiuk@gmail.com
Overview of the course and topics covered:
Part 1
14/09. Session 1 - Introduction to the course and the story of La Loba, The Wolf Woman - Meeting the Core of the Wild Women Archetype.
21/09. Session 2 - The story of Bluebeard - knowing the predator that lives inside our psyche. The story teaches us to be curious and helps us shed nativity.
5/10. Session 3 - The story of Vasalisa the Wise - the importance of listening to your intuition as a key element that allows the Wild Woman to thrive in life (she is not following her mind/intellect but her intuition), a way to be discerning and let the Too-good Mother archetype die.
12/10. Session 4 - The story of Manawee - the power of keeping the ego and soul-self integrated and looking at the most common distractions that take us away from our soul-work.
Part 2
23/11 Session 5 - The story of Skeleton Woman - learning about life/death/life nature. Looking at different phases of love in our romantic relationships.
30/11 Session 6 - The story of The Ugly Ducking - the power of endurance to keep going despite the harshness and not settling until one finds the community they belong with. The archetype of the mother and that of the unmatched child.
7/12. Session 7 - The story of the Butterfly Woman - understanding the wisdom of the body and valuing the body as a feeling body rather than the looking body.
14/12. Session 8 - The story of the Red Shoes - knowing that a woman needs a handmade life. A wild woman has to have a life made by the soul and for the soul. When our life is not made by or for the soul, we become trapped and develop unhealthy addictions. The story serves as a warning of what not to do.
Part 3
4/01. Session 9 - The story of Sealskin, Soulskin - the wild woman knows the importance of soul life and knows to create the time to spend there. It’s a story of integrating the soul and the outer life.
11/01. Session 10 - The story of La Llorona - the importance of nurturing your creative life; a wild woman has an integrated animus (masculine) who cares for and protects her creative life.
18/01. Session 11 - The story of Baubo: The Belly Goddesses - all about sacred sexuality and how to come closer to it.
25/01. Session 12 - The story of the Crescent Moon Bear – righteous rage as a teacher; knowing when to be enraged and draw boundaries, end relationships, etc. The deeper understanding that no magic pill/no single solution will save you.
Part 4
01/02. Session 13 - The story of The Woman With Hair of Gold - the wild woman does not carry shameful secrets as a wild woman cannot live in the psyche with a dead zone that shameful secrets create. The story of secrets, the matrilineal lineage, and turning wounds into scars.
08/02. Session 14 - The story of the Handless Maiden - the complete journey of women’s life and the integration of the feminine with the masculine.
15/02. Session 15 - The Wolf’s Eyelash - story as a medicine.
And here is feedback from my recent participants to the session on LaLoba:
I hope you will join me on this beautiful journey of reclaiming your creative, authentic and passionate life.
With love,
Iza
Coaching Psychologist and Relationship Coach
selfgrowthcourses.com thriveinshanghai.com