Abby Wambach: You were never Little Red Riding Hood. You were always the Wolf.

This week I'm reading Abby Wambach's book called Wolfpack: How to come together, unleash our power, and change the game. I wasn't certain if it would be for me (not being a soccer lover) but I love her wife, Glennon Doyle and the early days of her Momastary blog. Glennon is busy writing her own books (also great) but if you need a laugh and an, "Oh my God! Me too!" moment, go check out her early days of blogging. Anyway, back to Abby's book—I love it, go read it, and then let me know what you think!

I love how she got me thinking and doing a little research from the very first chapter. I know society has it's ways of keeping women in line but I never realized it was in those old stories too. In it she says:

"Like most little girls, I was taught to keep my head down, stay on the path, and get my job done. I was freaking Little Red Riding Hood.

You know the fairy tale—it's just one iteration of the warning stories girls are told the world over. Little Red Riding Hood heads off through the woods having been given strict instructions: Stay on the path. Don't talk to anybody. Keep your head down and hidden beneath your Handmaid's Tale cape.

And she follows the rules...at first. But then she dares to get a little curious and she ventures off the path. That's, of course, when she encounters the Big Bad Wolf and all hell breaks loose.

The message of these stories is clear:

Follow the rules.
Don't be curious.
Don't say too much.
Don't expect more.

Otherwise bad things will happen."

This had me doing a little research on LRRH and how it ended. I remember something happening to the wolf, not the girl! In the first published version by Charles Perrault, the wolf eats the grandma, then eats LRRH and falls asleep! Bad things indeed!

When I look, I see women around me who are showing all of us that stories like this aren't true. Good things happen to women who don't conform. I see women who are curious, taking risks, speaking their truth, and expecting the moon—and they are getting it.

Abby says if she could go back and tell her younger self one thing it would be this:
Abby,
You were never Little Red Riding Hood.
You were always the Wolf.

Amen to that. The wolf inside is who we really are, you know, before the world told us who we should be. The wolf is our dreams, power, talent. Our voice. Our courage. Our ability to be open to own emotions, to connect to others, our empathy.

All of this reminds me of my favorite painting of my own. The wolf inside of us, or in this case, the wolf giving birth to us—either way, empowering us to be ourselves:

Love to all from the Mother Ranch,

Julia

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