Let’s face it—the Wild Woman is scary.

There is a part within us that we suppress, but liberating the Wild Woman within ourselves liberates our souls.

I had an encounter with a wild woman from the Jawara tribe on the Andaman Islands a few years ago.

I was sitting in a bus full of Indian women in saris. A man with a gun rode up front, protecting the bus from attacks from the natives (the Jawara people). They had started attacking traffic in protest when the Indians built a road through their territory. I felt horrible, like an intruder, sitting on this bus with an armed guard, invading the Jawara’s lands.

And then I saw her.

She was standing there, naked, red flowers around her hips and a spear in her hand. Proud and strong, wild and free. Something inside me stirred when I saw her. But she didn’t even turn her head to look at me.

The Wild Woman is scary, because she doesn’t care about what others think.

Within every woman lies a wild, free and authentic powerful nature. She is connected to her instincts, which guide her every step she makes. She leads from an authentic root of her being. She is non-apologetic, non-pleasing and feels free to take space for herself. She stands up to defend her lands against intruders.

The Wild Woman knows her power.

She is strong but at the same time naked, because there is no need to cover herself up. She wears red flowers around her hips to symbolize her connectedness to nature and to her sexual power. She holds a spear in her hand to protect her truth and to symbolize her fierce presence.

To understand the Wild Woman, you need to understand her motives.

Instead of packing the children’s lunches like a nice Stepford wife, the Wild Woman just might just burn the house down. What kind of mother would do that? Well, no kind of mother would do that. That’s the point.

The mother is a different archetype. The lover is a different archetype.

I am talking about the Wild Woman archetype, one of many different archetypes we all carry within us. People say the archetypes have their origins in ancient Greek, but I think they could be even older.

C.G. Jung, the famous psychologist, used the concept of archetypes to explain the human psyche better. He believed that there are universal, mythic characters within all of us that reside within the collective unconscious of all humans on this planet.

When a woman is nurturing children, she is not the Wild Woman—she is the mother. When a woman is being seductive, she is not the Wild Woman—she is the lover.

Even the Wise Woman, who can be quite scary, because she sees right through everyone’s act and says it like it is, the wise woman is still basically interested in the welfare of the tribe and the community.

The Wild Woman would burn everything to the ground, and not regret it.

Women are scared of the Wild Woman inside them. We know, subconsciously, that there is a part of us that could possibly lay waste to everything we have worked for if we let it loose.

Men are scared of the Wild Woman. She ignores them, doesn’t care what they think of her, and might even destroy the basis of their power. Men in positions of power have killed thousands of women over the centuries, simply to stop them manifesting the Wild Woman.

As a result, we have learned to imprison the Wild Woman within us. She scares people, because she is willing to destroy whatever is “normal.” She causes change. She rocks the boat. She shakes things up.

Our “normal” culture relies on women being constant, responsible, caring, and sexually available. The Wild Woman is none of those things. So, we do our best to keep her caged.

We all know, deep down, that the Wild Woman is a threat to the established order of things.

That scares us.

And it should.

Why work with the Wild Woman?

What if we could let go of those “mental” bars that keep the Wild Woman locked up? And finally start leading our life and tribe from a place of authentic power, instinct, and freedom? What if we could sweep away the “normal” limitations of our culture, and set people free?

There is a place for destruction. There is a place for selfishness. There is a place for growth, even when it requires something be burned.

If the established order was never threatened, there would never be any progress.

If the old constraints were never burned away, the new power and freedom could never emerge.

When we try to suppress and deny the Wild Woman, we suppress and deny our own power. When she is suppressed, the Wild Woman can turn dark.

Instead of providing creative destruction in the service of growth, the denied Wild Woman goes underground. She manifests as passive aggression, sabotaging of relationships and projects, and even physical illness. She kills off our sexual desire, our aliveness, and our enthusiasm.

Liberating the Wild Woman liberates our soul.

That’s not to say you should burn down your house! You need to be the lover, the mother, and the wise woman as well as the Wild Woman. However, if you don’t make space for the Wild Woman, she will make her own space, and you might not like the way she does it.

How to work with the Wild Woman:

1. Acknowledge her existence.

The first, most important step to claiming your feminine power is to admit that you have the Wild Woman in you. Own your occasional desire to destroy everything and walk away, free.

2. Give her space.

Make times and places where you can safely explore your Wild Woman. Clear your calendar, send the family away (or go away yourself), get a supply of food, and let yourself do whatever comes naturally.

3. Find avenues for expression.

Once you have connected with the Wild Woman in you, find ways to allow her some expression in your day-to-day life. Perhaps a drama class, camping and living off the land, smashing balls of potter’s clay, or chopping wood, could give your Wild Woman a chance to shine. The more you allow space for the Wild Woman, the less she will need to sabotage things from the shadows.

4. Seek the meaning in the messages.

Notice what things set off your Wild Woman. Maybe it is being in crowds of people in the city. You might find it more nourishing to live in the countryside. Maybe it is the constant whining of small children. You might need to build connections with other mothers, so that you can get some time off for yourself.

Maybe you are infuriated when your lover rolls over and goes to sleep after just a few minutes of lovemaking. You might want to suggest attending a Tantra workshop together! The Wild Woman points squarely at whatever in your life needs to change. Pay attention. Make the changes. Watch your energy levels and satisfaction soar.

5. Be willing to walk away.

The most frightening aspect of the Wild Woman is her complete independence. She is always willing to walk away from anything that doesn’t serve her. This detachment, as you develop it, will allow you to set strong boundaries, and hold people to high standards of behavior. Women are generally trained to hold on, not walk away. We are taught to adapt ourselves to make any situation workable, at great cost to ourselves.

The Wild Woman allows you to shake off this conditioning, to stop being a doormat, or a people-pleaser. The Wild Woman allows you to make your life your own. And that might just be the scariest thing of all.

To sum it up, go beyond, give space to that part of yourself, connect to your powerful independent nature and stay true to yourself. You see working with the Wild Woman within is not easy, but I promise you it’s worth it to get to know this part of you.

What do you think about the Wild Woman? Have you met yours already?

Author: Mariah Freya

Image: Pixabay 

Editor: Sara Kärpänen