42
" Women have been trained to be deeply relational creatures with "permeable boundaries," which make us vulnerable to the needs of others. This permeability, this compelling need to connect, is one of our greatest gifts, but without balance it can mean living out the role of the servant who nurtures at the cost of herself. Referring to this feminine script in her essay "Professions for Women," Virginia Woolf describes the syndrome and offers a drastic remedy: "She was intensely sympathetic. She was immensely charming. She was utterly unselfish. She excelled in the difficult arts of family life. She sacrificed herself daily. If there was chicken, she took the leg; if there was a draft she sat in it - in short she was so constituted that she never had a mind or wish of her own, but preferred to sympathize always with the minds and wishes of others...I did my best to kill her. My excuse, if I were to be had up in a court of law, would be that I acted in self-defense. Had I not killed her, she would have killed me." At the very least we need to disempower this part of ourselves, to relieve ourselves of the internal drive to forfeit our souls as food for others. "
― Sue Monk Kidd , The Dance of the Dissident Daughter
56
" The fears and concerns I'd had earlier about how my journey would affect my children were long gone.
I was learning that when it came to my children, I simply needed to pursue my journey in an open, quiet way. When the moment arose naturally, I mentioned my new awareness about things, but I tried never to push it onto them, to struggle to get their approval, or to insist that they embrace my views. And most important, I realized I must not contaminate them with my anger. I let them know that patriarchy and the suppression of the feminine caused my angry feelings, but I tried not to spew that emotion around or say things that would color their own religious experience. More and more I was learning that they were on spiritual journeys of their own, and I could trust them to pursue those journeys in their own ways. "
― Sue Monk Kidd , The Dance of the Dissident Daughter
58
" I recall that whenever I struggled, doubted, wondered if I could pull my thread into this fabric, someone or something would always appear--a friend, a stranger, a figure in a dream, a book, an experience, some shining thing in nature--and remind me that this thing I was undertaking was holy to the core. I would learn again that it is all right for women to follow the wisdom in their souls, to name their truth, to embrace the Sacred Feminine, that there is undreamed voice, strength, and power in us.
And that is what I have come to tell you. I have come over the wise distances to tell you: She is in us. "
― Sue Monk Kidd , The Dance of the Dissident Daughter