Chapter 16THE NATURE OF SURRENDER
When the frigid woman, using the methods described in this section, has divested herself of the destructive fears and false convictions that have been left over from her childhood; and when, in all honesty, she is able to view her husband with new eyes, knowing him to be the hard-beset but loving human being he is rather than an abstract power she had conjured up in his image—when these things are achieved, a profound change begins to take place within her.
This change is not a direct product of her conscious will. Forces which have the character of a tide suddenly freed of long-standing barricades now begin to move irresistibly within her. She feels a new potentiality inside, intimations of an emotional richness she had not dared dream of.
When such a process is loosed within a woman, we say that she is ready to surrender; that, indeed, surrender has already started within her. What does this mean?
It means, in the broadest sense, that at long last she is prepared to become a woman. It means that she is ready, indeed anxious, to yield to her biological and psychological destiny. She has ceased to fear her real role, mentally,spiritually, and physically; ceased to resist it and ceased to resent it. Now she is ready to glory in it. She is ready to love.
When a woman is ready for this final step she no longer needs any urging, any coaxing or coaching. Since this ultimate surrender to her true nature is so natural to a woman, she is often not entirely conscious of its varied manifestations. It is slow, cellular, tidal, certainly unsubject to the conscious will.
Though change is now largely going on outside one’s awareness, I should like to emphasize, however, that this phase is very much a part of theprocessthat was initiated with the first two steps—of airing one’s emotions and fantasies and of revaluating one’s husband. We have found that, for a woman whose whole mind and body are, for the first time, taking the path nature intended, it is wise to be as conscious as possible of the process that is going on within her. Many of the feelings are new and powerful and run counter to much of what she has experienced and believed in before. New convictions, new insights, new prospects open up before her. This novel proliferation may be confusing or even frightening. Therefore, the more she understands the nature of her brave new inner world, the more thoroughly and swiftly can she claim it for her own.
For this reason I should like to urge that those who are trying the techniques advocated here continue with the regular daily sessions I mentioned at the beginning. At this point much of the mental activity in such sessions with oneself will be a simple matter ofwatching—of watching the process unfold in oneself, even of celebrating these advances of the unconscious.
In this role of constant observer, however, the conscious mind can also be ready for more aggressive activity. Any tendencies of the old pattern to reassert itself, for angers, fears, fantasies to come out in new guises, can thus be notedand dispensed with before any real damage can be done. Such pullbacks are not only possible but usual, and it is well not to abandon the sessions with oneself until they have disappeared entirely—or as entirely as they’re going to.
The process of inner growth that follows when a woman is ready to surrender to her real nature, we have found, traces a rather clear pattern. Some of the new feelings overlap, but mostly they emerge in a given order, each unfolding separately but related to the other as petals to a bud. Let us take them in the usual order of their coming.
As the woman who has suffered from frigidity explodes her groundless fears one by one and explores a new attitude toward men, toward love, toward motherhood, feels a new esteem for her husband—as all these things happen, her lifelongrestlessnessbegins to depart. For the first time she realizes justhowrestless she has been, how unsatisfied; she feels how precariously balanced her life, inwardly and outwardly, has always felt. Now something deep within her relaxes, lets down. When this happens she is beginning to experience the essential attribute of all that is truly feminine, spiritual tranquillity.
The arrival of this tranquillity, or even the arrival of intimations of it results from the fact that she is really allowing herself to trust her husband in a very deep sense. It means that she finally realizes that she no longer has to fear or to oppose his strength, but that she can now rely on it to protect her, to give her the secure climate necessary for the full flowering of her femininity.
Feminine tranquillity of spirit is a grace and a beauty of the first order. It is the psychological cornerstone of the happy family. Based on an abiding faith in the goodness and loyalty of her husband, it emanates from a woman who has found herself and pervades those about her, giving them unity and strength. The children of such a mother are strongagainst the neurotic restlessness of these difficult times. The husband of a wife who has achieved such tranquillity returns from his work to his home as to an oasis, redoubles his loving efforts to make her ever more secure.
Because she can trust no man, the frigid woman’s approach to the tasks of life has a difficult, painful, frenetic quality. She feels responsible for everything; guiltily responsible. Details and trivia overwhelm her. She has no unity and has to fight herself, her resentment, her self-rejection to get the simplest things done—her household work, planning the dinner, carrying and fetching the children. Everythinglooms.
With the development of the new quality of tranquillity those details of life that once seemed so difficult become simple. And because they are feminine tasks, household work, planning or getting dinners, keeping the children busy or in line—whatever life demands—soon lose their irksome and irritating quality and become easy, even joyful.
As tranquillity moves over to serenity, becomes more and more a part of her psychic character, a woman begins to realize what a miraculous and wonderful thing womanhood is. Most frequently this realization is ushered in by a sudden awareness of the miracle that her body is able to perform: the miracle of childbirth.
In her frightened heart the frigid woman has always detested and feared her capacity to become pregnant. To her this faculty has seemed onerous and burdensome, a curse. In pregnancy she feels trapped, sick at heart and in body during it, increasingly frightened of delivery as the day of confinement approaches. She views all this as woman’s burden; men, those enviable creatures, are free of such a frightening duty. Indeed, has she not heard that men use pregnancy as a technique of keeping women subject to them! Thus she frets and rages and trembles, rejecting her destiny.
But with her new evaluation of her husband, the deepening of her sense of security, and the growth of her tranquillity, all this childish frightened protest against the miracle of motherhood washes away. Now the scales really fall from her eyes and she feels the full meaning and majesty of what it means to be a woman.
What a privilege it is, she realizes, to be the carrier of the race, the agent of its immortality. What fate could be richer, more beautiful, more filled with wonder and with awe.
I am not exaggerating the importance of this realization. Pride in it, joy in it are the very most central characteristics of the feminine woman. To me its highest expression is in the Madonna paintings which the great Renaissance artists took, over and over again, as a major subject. The Alba Madonna by Raphael catches the essential quality of femininity, expresses it for all to see—and to revere.
Now, with this realization, the last vestiges of her envy of the male and of his role in life disappear. How, she may wonder, with this marvelous capability of hers, inimitable by man, could she ever have depreciated the role of woman, wanted what men have?
At this juncture, or closely following on it, a woman begins to feel her full power, the power that comes to her for her surrender to her destiny. She now realizes that, far from being in a weak position in relationship to man, her position is so strong that she must be careful not to exploit it. One of the deepest and strongest psychological needs of man is his poignant desire for immortality through his children. She could deny him this, or she could make his life miserable while granting him it. Or she can make it the most beautiful and meaningful thing in her life and in his.
What this new realization means to a woman was stated very beautifully in a letter I received from a former patient. We had been able to work only two weeks on her problem,for she came from a different section of the country and could spend only that amount of time in New York City. We worked quickly, and she had been able to surface the hostilities to and misapprehensions about men that had plagued her grown-up life. I had been able also to give her a thumbnail sketch of the problems and changes she might encounter within herself in the future—much as I have described them here. Within six months I had a letter from her. It described the step-by-step process I have depicted: the change in her feelings toward her husband, the incredibly swift growth within her of the new and wonderful serenity. And then she had come to the point where she realized with her whole emotional being the miraculous nature of the female body and the feeling of power and glory that it gave her.
But [she wrote] this feeling of power was quickly followed by an intense feeling of humility. I thought of how I held within me, within my body, the power to bring him the greatest of joys; or to deprive him of it. And then I realized the terrible thing it would be to ever misuse this power. And now I felt really for the first time, despite my former lip service to the idea, the reason why marriage must be considered sacramental. The relationship between husband and wife which results in the unsolvable mystery of birth goes far beyond human understanding. To participate in this mystery really requires a consecration by both. Any lesser attitude toward it is like the laughter of mockery in a holy place.
But [she wrote] this feeling of power was quickly followed by an intense feeling of humility. I thought of how I held within me, within my body, the power to bring him the greatest of joys; or to deprive him of it. And then I realized the terrible thing it would be to ever misuse this power. And now I felt really for the first time, despite my former lip service to the idea, the reason why marriage must be considered sacramental. The relationship between husband and wife which results in the unsolvable mystery of birth goes far beyond human understanding. To participate in this mystery really requires a consecration by both. Any lesser attitude toward it is like the laughter of mockery in a holy place.
With this kind of acceptance of her central role, changes now come rapidly to a woman. As she feels the unity of need and goal between her husband and herself, any remaining contentiousness leaves her. In the marriage, consensus now becomes her aim. She is no longer afraid of losing an argument, fearful that she will be forced to do something that is repugnant or humiliating to her, for she realizes that to her husband her welfare is the dearest of all things. And,conversely, his happiness and peace of mind become her first desire.
And now she has tapped in on the greatest psychological joy of woman—her capacity to give. If you remember, in an earlier chapter we called this “essential female altruism,” a characteristic rooted in every woman’s biological nature. Women who are really secure within themselves and in their roles have an inexhaustible store of this altruism. Frigid women fear this basic characteristic, feeling as they do that men will exploit and abuse their desire to give.
As she reaps the rewards of her new capacity to give of herself unstintingly and fearlessly to her husband and her children, the very appearance of a woman often begins to change. Drawn expressions relax, anxious forehead wrinkles disappear, thin-lipped mouths soften. Indeed, her whole body rounds and softens, taking on the look associated with a tender and giving femininity.
Physical difficulties often disappear. I have known women who had been plagued with intense pre-menstrual and menstrual pains all their lives to lose such symptoms in a matter of weeks. I have known women whose irregular periods have become regularized. And I have also known women with one or two desperately difficult pregnancies behind them who, becoming pregnant again, went through the entire nine months not only without discomfort but with a highly accelerated feeling of pleasure and well-being.
These, then, are the results, or some of them, that a woman who is willing to give up the things of childhood and yield to her true self may expect. The return on such an investment of self is enormous. It is paid in the coinage of love returned for love given; love from one’s husband and children, love from friends, new and old, attracted by the endless largesse of the woman who has surrendered all to find all.