Avoid the Traps and Create Your Ideal Life
Lessons from Women Who Run With The Wolves
I began reading the viral Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D. a few months ago. I’m picking my way slowly through it in the mornings before work. I’m highlighting and tagging pages while I drink my coffee and it’s one of my favorite habits I’ve created for my post-pandemic life.
In one chapter, the author dissects the story of The Red Shoes. You know the one- a girl is enticed to get a pair of red shoes and becomes obsessed with them before being cursed to dance until she dies? The author puts forth that this is what happens when a woman pushes down her own needs for too long, that she becomes starving for the life she wanted and, in that starvation, is susceptible to taking bait that will only trap her.
I’ve thought a lot about this chapter. In particular, what “traps,” as the author calls them, have I allowed myself to fall into.
As mentioned in this article, I’ve done a lot of soul-searching this past year and it’s led me to some big realizations about my own life. Reading this book has been serving as a foundation for those realizations.
I decided to look into this idea further. Namely, I separated the ideas into questions for myself. I asked what my ideal life looked like, what the key takeaways or focuses of that life were, how I could begin moving towards that life, and what traps I may have fallen into.
What does your ideal life look like?
Be honest with yourself. When you think about your happiest and most fulfilled self, what does that life look like?
I had to dig away at this for some time to strip away the things I wanted from the things I’d been conditioned to want.
For example, when I first started thinking about this, there was a lot of wealth involved. I wanted luxury, I wanted penthouses and expensive restaurants and travel. But I started to doubt that vision when I realized that I like staying in more than going out. I noticed that while I enjoy big cities and the energy they give me, I like to retreat somewhere quiet. Soon, a completely different life began to emerge.
Your life goals can change. It’s your production to run. Your vision.
Write down what your ideal life looks like and revisit it often. Edit, adjust.
What are the main takeaways?
Boil down and condense your ideal life into a few key points.
This helps you focus on the big picture rather than the details.
For example, I came away with:
-Creativity
-Community
-Home as an oasis
What can you do to start achieving that life?
What are realistic steps you can begin taking to create the life you want? How can you build up to your goals in a way that is authentic to you and your current situation?
A lot of my ideal life had to do with a community of creatives and a home.
So, I made a list of ways I can begin creating that life. Writing every day, joining feedback groups, romanticizing the editorial process of novel writing. I set about trying to find the ideal location for my future home, taking into account what I want now vs what I wanted when I was younger.
I joined some writing groups in my area.
One of the writers I met mentioned that while editing, she prints out a few chapters at a time and carries them around with her for months, line editing at cafes or waiting for a meeting to start.
I liked the image and so I went home and printed out some pages to stuff into my bag and carry around.
What traps have you fallen into? What are the traps you could fall into?
I’d fallen into traps in the past. Creatively bankrupt, lonely, and living a shadow life, I was baited by a man who meant to trap me. It worked for almost four years and in that time, I fell further from my true self.
I mean for that to never happen again.
But traps aren’t always bad relationships. In The Red Shoes, one of the traps is a gilded carriage that carries the story’s heroine off to a luxurious but too-tame life.
A trap is anything that is keeping you from living your ideal life. Often, it is something hard to resist. A job that takes up too much of your time or energy but pays too well to let go. An opportunity everyone says you can’t pass up. A friend group who occupies your time but drains and demoralizes you. The perfect opportunity for fame and success but without originality or passion.
The hardest part of this for me was deciding if money was a trap. Was I playing it safe in life due to a desire for financial stability? I ultimately decided it wasn’t. Knowing I’m financially stable leads to living a fuller life. With it, I can get that dream house. I can travel to gain inspiration and new world views. I can let the financial stress fall away knowing I’m secure.
It’s easy for what we truly want to become trapped by things we’re expected to want. By learning to follow what truly makes us happy, we can better avoid the traps in life.
