Radical self-acceptance is refusing to measure yourself against standards that were never yours.
 
Last week, LinkedIn had a plethora of posts protesting against another plethora of posts criticising what Marie-France van Heel looked like in a powder blue dress as she and her husband entered 10 Downing Street.
 
I’d watched the news coverage, and I’d seen a gorgeous womanly woman, the swell of her belly and her curves declaring someone comfortable and confident in her own skin.
 
And so she is. You can find out more about her here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie-France_van_Heel

But there they were, the critics, men AND women colluders, spewing up the same-old-same-old misogynistic stuff. The stuff they’d throw at any of us women…

They wage war against your body, your age, your sensitivity, your ambition, or any damn thing they think is fair game.

No wonder women have spent decades trying to earn the right to like themselves. I know I certainly did!
 
Lose weight, sit like a lady, laugh at his jokes, get the promotion, be more confident, be less emotional, don’t be “bossy”, keep everyone happy, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And then…
 
Finally then, and only then, you just might be good enough.
 
Bullshit!

Wild womanhood isn’t about trying to be and look like the kind of woman other people think you ought to be…

IT’S REFUSING TO ABANDON YOURSELF, TO DENY YOURSELF, ANY LONGER!

After 40-plus years working with women, I know that the one who accepts herself most deeply is the one who’s done the work…

The one who’s finally free to speak her truth, to choose how she lives life, to be outrageous if she wants to, or not, to lead in a womanly way, to love with passion, and to reclaim the woman she was designed to be… Who she really is when conditioning gets stripped away.

I suspect we have a full-blooded woman in Downing Street at last!

Radical self-acceptance IS refusing to measure yourself against standards that were never yours.
 
Your soul never asked you to become someone else, woman.
 
Your Wild Soul never asked you to become someone else…

(First appeared as a LinkedIn post 28 July 2026)

Love and wild warm wishes…

Sharon Eden, The Wild Elder

For midlife women feeling out of sorts, disconnected and

who’ve reached, “There has to be more to life than this!” 

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