BRIDES ADDICTION OF HAVING A PERFECT BODY

Marion Woodman is a Jungian analyst, teacher and author of The Owl

Was a Baker's Daughter, Addiction to Perfection: The Still Unravished
Bride, The Pregnant Virgin: A Process of Psychological
Transformation, The Ravaged Bridegroom: Masculinity in Women,
Leaving My Father's House:

Suggesting that many men and women are addicted in one way or
another because the patriarchal culture emphasizes specialization and
perfection, Woodman proposes the recognition of the Jungian ideal of
wholeness rather than perfection as the goal of psychological
development. The self in Jungian theory is one of the archetypes. It signifies the coherent whole,
unified consciousness and unconscious of a person - 'the totality of the psyche. The Self, according
to Jung, is realised as the product of individuation, which in Jungian view is the process of
integrating one's personality. For Jung, the self is symbolised by the circle (especially when divided
in four quadrants), the square, or the mandala.What distinguishes Jungian psychology is the idea
that there are two centers of the personality. The ego is the center of consciousness, whereas the
Self is the center of the total personality, which includes consciousness, the unconscious, and the
ego. The Self is both the whole and the center. While the ego is a self-contained little circle off the
center contained within the whole, the Self can be understood as the greater circle.

She examines the rituals of compulsive consumption and the split between body and spirit,
whose healing requires the recovery of a feminine ground of being in which the language of the
body itself must be heard. Her topics include :

sacred and demonic ritual;

addiction to perfection;
obesity and anorexia;

Awa tribe in New Guinea

Prior to 12th century Europe the world's partners married based on the matches chosen by parents
and matchmakers. Marriage was to strengthen kinship lines and improve family status. Then -
romantic love arrived. Marriage then tried to combine into one ceremony love, sex, life-long
commitment, procreation, and the continuance of society as a whole.

Young Awa women must also go through a special ritual at the time of their bethrotal.Their noses
are bled by their mothers’ brothers to strenghten them and to stimulate their life force, and they are
instructed about their sexual obligations and responsabilities. The intented bride waits in the house
of her future female in law. After the bethroted young man has completed his rituals, he joins his
bride in public.The completion of the ceremony takes place at night. The bride is taken to a special
ritual site where she engages in intercourse with a group of her husband’s relatives while a group of
older women (their wives) look on. The copulation are to force harmful fluids out of the bride’s
vagina and to increase her reproductive potential.

Perfection is in the Eye of the Beholder

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Striving for perfection is admirable. Obsessing with it will leave you stressed and anxious. So aim
for a happy medium. Set the bar on the things you consider to be really important and accept that
there may be instances where you just have to relax a little with what you want.Instead of
complaining about the things we don’t like about our bodies, let’s do something to hide them by
accentuating the parts we like! Somehow we have acquired the false belief that just being who we
are is not enough to merit love and appreciation from the people who matter in our lives. Instead we
believe that if only we could be more perfect, then we would finally receive the attention we had
always longed for. But perfection is like a drug - the more we achieve, the hungrier we become.
Depending upon external perfection and approval from others never seems to fill the gaping
abyss.When we become obsessed with perfection, we abandon the deeper aspects of ourselves,
mainly our relationship to the “still, small voice” within - the intuitive, instinctual,feeling part of the
self which ultimately leads us to wholeness and self-mastery.

Addiction

Addiction is a catch-all
term for a complex
behavioral disorder. The
most obvious symptom is
that addicts reach a point
where they cannot control
their own actions. Even
when they can see the harm,
they continue the
compulsive behavior. The
inability to stop, more than
any other attribute, marks
addiction.For this reason, addiction was first described as a failure of will power. We now
know this is incorrect. Addiction is a real disease with psychological, genetic, and
psychosocial aspects. It is not a character flaw or a failure of morality. There are actual
changes that occur in the brains of addicts and treatments for addiction must address the
biology behind the behavior.
Addictions can be physical (of the body), psychological (of the mind), or both. In fact,
almost any behavior can be termed an addiction if it becomes the primary focus of a person's
life, and especially if it results in harmful effects to one's physical health and well-being. The
term addiction is most commonly associated with a person's compulsive and habitual desire to
consume a chemical substance, such as alcohol or other drugs. The addict's life is eventually
dominated by the craving. It is estimated that up to 25 percent of the population displays some
form of addictive behavior.
The withdrawal ( giving up) act symptoms (usually unpleasant) are caused by
psychological, physiological, and chemical reactions in the body that are brought on as the
amount of the addictive chemical in the blood begins to fall.
Symptoms of addictin: Denial, Justification, Coping, Lying, Physical Changes(drastic
mood swings, between euphoria and depression; exhibit obsessive behaviors), Personality
Changes(Irritability and aggressiveness; paranoia)
Abrupt withdrawal from alcohol can result in uncontrollable bodily shaking,
hallucinations, and seizures. Withdrawal from cigarettes can cause irritability and intense
craving for nicotine. A coffee drinker may experience headaches and mood changes without the
beverage.

The addict

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 The single characteristic common among all addicts—whether their addiction is chemical or
nonchemical—is low self-esteem. Some experts believe that certain people are born with the
predisposition (tendency) to become addicted to drugs or alcohol, particularly if one or both of the
biological parents was a substance abuser. Social and psychological factors also may lead an
individual to addiction. A desire to fit in, an attempt to relieve anxiety, an inability to cope with the
stresses of daily life—all of these factors have been cited as possible springboards to addiction.

Every woman wants to look beautiful on her wedding day. The pattern we see on tv nowadays,
is that women are told they need to be thinner, wear certain kinds of clothing, which in Western
countries helps sexualize women.It tells them there’s something wrong with them, with the person
they are and the body they were born into. If you are a strong, intelligent woman who wants to
make her own way through life, who wants to be head of her class, who wants to exert her
intelligence in some way—these things are downplayed when women are emphasized for their
sexuality and allure. This new-found obsession with weight loss and perfect body image is a
change in the way that girls think. Nowadays girls are no longer focused on keeping their virginity,
but are instead worried about losing weight, and being as sexually free as boys. Young girls, who
were once modest and happy about themselves, are now developing eating disorders in an attempt
to have a perfect body, while sharing that body casually through sex. Living by principles is not
living your own life. It is easier to try to be better than you are than to be who you are. If you are
trying to live by ideals, you are constantly plagued by a sense of unreality. Somewhere you think
there must be some joy; it can't be all "must," "ought to," "have to." And when the crunch comes,
you have to recognize the truth: you weren't there. Then the house of cards collapses.

By exploiting that idea, E! has created a horrific new reality show that will give brides the
chance to compete for a free plastic surgery procedure so they can look like (in the show's words,
not mine), "the perfect bride."On "Bridalplasty," budding brides will compete in wedding-themed
games ranging from writing wedding vows to planning their honeymoons. After each round, a
woman will be voted off by the other brides until only one is left standing, according to Hollywood
Reporter.The winner of the competition will not only receive her "dream wedding" but also have
one procedure from her "wish list" before the ceremony. The bride will reveal her transformation at
the end of the season, during the televised nuptials."Viewers will witness [the groom's] emotional,
possibly shocked reaction as she stands at the altar, and he lifts her veil to see her for the first time
the following her extreme plastic surgery."

By simply competing in various wedding-themed challenges that range from planning the
perfect honeymoon to writing vows, contestants can win plastic surgery procedures from their wish
list. The show, called Bridoplasty, was recently announced by E! Entertainment Television and will
feature contestants fighting for a new procedure every week. Centering a show on plastic surgery is
nothing new for the network as they already treat viewers to the Beverly Hills’ drama of Dr. 90210.

In a culture where younger women are going under the knife as a quick fix to solve their
discontent with body image, introducing a show that promotes plastic surgery as the icing on the
cake is simply fueling society’s ever-growing fascination with superficial beauty.According to the
American Society of Plastic Surgeons, the top five surgical procedures of 2009 were breast
augmentation, nose reshaping, eyelid surgery, liposuction and tummy tuck.The women getting these
procedures have all developed a distorted image of beauty and become obsessed with the highly
praised hour glass figure. A figure that the media has brainwashed young women to believe will
give them the confidence they need while keeping the husband happy.The problem with plastic

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surgery is that it is never just one procedure. Much like tattoos, once you commit to getting the
tattoo, it is not long before you’re back in the chair getting another one.

I doubt the show is going to spawn a bunch of Heidi Montag clones or

Frankenbrides, however it is certainly going to give young women the illusion
that the perfect bride is just a scalpel and breast implants away.

“The true feminine is the receptacle of love. The true masculine is the spirit that goes into the
eternal unknown in search of meaning....Without the true masculine spirit and the true feminine
love within, no inner life exists. If we try to make perfection outside, try to concretize our
unconscious inner ideal, we kill our imagination. We are left holding life in our rigid molds. to be
free is to break the stone images and allow life and love to flow.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yY0EoyS0Yfk&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_L57pZSUv4&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tu6TdZRQpSE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HvFmV_UMeQ&feature=related