Sublime

correcting for one side by dancing with the other.

This last phrase is interesting given the comment by pediatrician and psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott, who said that the mother “holds the child’s bits together.” She is his glue, his container. When the mother is really there, lovingly holding the child, it gives the child something to hold on to. Ultimately, that is the mother’s heart.

She had been stricken from her marriage, rendered near penniless by the events, and was now an older and disregarded woman. It’s a harrowingly common feeling, even if the details of her experience and solution are particular. We women age, eyes sweep over us in obvious disregard, our moments of confusion are mocked, our knowledge makes us schoolmar

A woman arrives in this world-between-worlds through yearning and by seeking something she can see just out of the corner of her eye. She arrives there by deeply creative acts, through intentional solitude, and by practice of any of the arts. And even with these well-crafted practices, much of what

Your parents don’t see or know the real you, as you are today.

So I started trying to help my clients listen to their troublesome parts rather than fight them, and was astounded to find that their parts all had similar stories to tell of how they had to take on protective roles at some point in the person’s past—often roles that they hated but felt were needed to save the client.

If you’re a mom reading this, it’s important to remember that your experiences as a girl are both your greatest gift and biggest liability as your daughter navigates her own friendships. They’re a gift because they enable you to empathize. They’re a liability if your past makes you so anxious or reactionary that you can’t separate your experiences

Then there’s developmental psychology, which maintains that our basic nature is dependent on the kind of parenting we received. If you were fortunate to have “good enough” parenting during certain critical periods in your early development, you emerged from childhood with a certain amount of “ego strength.” If you didn’t, you were out of luck. You

At first it will be mortifying to see that she is not always good, understanding, tolerant, controlled, and, above all, without needs, for these have been the basis of her self-respect.