Recently I was feeling very low. I was feeling depressed, unhealthy, ugly, too obedient, too whatever and too little of the opposite. You might know what I’m talking about. It went on like this for some time and then I thought, hey, why don’t I read Pippi Longstocking again? No idea where that came from, there was just this memory of the red haired girl from Sweden, super strong and not following any rules. 

And you know what? It worked. Pippi Longstocking is such an unconventional character who eats whatever and sleeps whenever she wants, who screams when she shouldn’t, who is not going to school because no thank you. A rascal, one might say. A no-good. But also: Pippi Longstocking knows herself to the tips of her red braids. She knows what she wants and what not; she knows how she has fun, what her interests are and she keeps an open mind and heart for the next interesting thing or person that will cross her way. If she wants something she makes it happen. Impossible doesn’t exist for her. She knows by which rules she wants to live her life: her own. How inspiring is that??? How empowering??? For me it was a freakin’ epiphany! And that in a children’s book? Oh yes. 

Generally speaking every story has the same characters, or let’s say archetypes. There is of course the hero, there is the bad guy, the helper of the hero, the fool and so on. The hero breaks out of the known world on a quest crossing the border to the unknown world and then, after having fulfilled the quest, returning the the known world as an even bigger hero. The amazing part here is that this so called “hero journey” can be read as our own story of development and each archetype represents a different part of our personality. They can also be described as the inner child, the inner perfectionist and so on. 

My point with this explanation is that apparently I needed to strengthen and support my wild crazy inner girl who is making sure that her life is packed with tons of magic and pancakes, self-confidence and self-love, adventures and laughter; who is not running away from bullies (who might be all part of myself…) or other challenges; who has the courage to take full responsibility for her life even if other people are not understanding it or are making fun of her. And that part of myself was starving! 

So feel inside and see which book your inner child is recommending you to have a look at. Reading between the lines can be very soothing and might give you a good insight into what you need right now without knowing it. I mean, I feel better with having Pippi by my side. It’s going to be a lot of crazy fun! 

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Thank you for allowing this post into your life. I hope and I wish you a beautiful journey of learning and loving yourself!