In this session of the Women Who Run with the Wolves book club, we enter Chapter 8, where Dr. Estés offers her haunting and unforgettable interpretation of The Red Shoes. This story speaks to the moment when a woman is pulled away from her authentic rhythms—when she is pressured to perform, achieve, please, or prove, even at the cost of her inner life. The red shoes symbolize compulsions that look beautiful from the outside but carry a hidden price: exhaustion, disconnection, and the loss of instinctual guidance. Dr. Estés explores how cultural expectations, internalized perfectionism, and unrelenting productivity can drive us into a kind of psychic over-dancing—where rest feels forbidden, stillness feels unsafe, and saying no feels like failure. And yet, within the story is also the path back: discernment, humility, and the willingness to choose soul over spectacle. This session is for those who sense they have been navigating past the boundaries of their limits for too long and are ready to step out of the red shoes and return to themselves. Please feel free to join our group, Women Who Run with the Wolves, here on Insight Timer and connect with other souls traveling through the text. We discuss one chapter each month. After we discuss the theory of the chapter, we will have a biweekly meditation on the material at the midpoint of the next chapter. Men and women are welcome.