Sometimes I read a book that speaks to me so clearly that I just can’t stop myself from sharing it with others. This is one of those books. I am somewhat reassured by the fact that this book has, to date sold over 2 million copies and been a #1 NY Times Bestseller, I hope some of you will find it interesting, useful, enlightening and encouraging.
By the time I’d got to page 4, which is actually only the second page of the first chapter, I had found myself needing to reach for a pencil so that I could begin the process of underlining or otherwise marking the sentences & paragraphs which leapt out at me from the page and continued to do so throughout the whole book !
In this book, Glennon shares with us how she survived and eventually broke free, escaping from the cage into which she had believed it was her duty to fit and confine herself to. As she says right at the beginning of the book
“What follows are stories about how I got caged and how I got free” (p.6)
I read this book as a woman in search of understanding my place in the world and trying to navigate my own creative path while consistently and relentlessly feeling the pull of the path previously laid out for me (not unlike Tabatha in the book) which, while safe and predictable, nevertheless, never really felt like it ‘fitted’ or fulfilled me. The book is clearly written by a woman on her own path of self-exploration and discovery and so while I recognise that these experiences are not limited to that of women, I cannot apologise here for my emphasis of the female experience in this recommendation of her work.
Untamed… Stop pleasing, start living, is an intimate memoir which dares to tell us what might be possible if we were able to step out of our own cages. It explores the process by which we become ‘tamed’. How we lose and betray ourselves as we succumb to the formal ‘taming’ which society and culture imposes upon us as it moulds us into the people the world expects (and needs) us to be. It explores the world that women experience and inhabit and how that limits our potential and necessitates the betrayal of ourselves in order to fit in and be accepted
Reading a book which evoked such a strong visceral response in me, with echoes of ‘Oh my god…Yes’! ‘Thank god it’s not just me’! resounding in my head, was so affirming and empowering…we are not alone in our struggle for voice, for space, for strength, for independence, for creativity, for the need for support and confirmation that we are ‘enough’.
This is not a ‘heavy’ or dry theoretical discourse, what it is, is a brave sharing of one woman’s story that offers us relatable confirmation of our own experience and that empowers us to embrace our own ‘wild’, to reclaim our own authenticity and integrity, to live the life we need to live in order to be the best version of ourselves we can be.
Glennon’s book invites us to ask ourselves so many questions….
What or who have you been trained to believe you are ?
What is happening inside you right now…does something feel off ?
Do you feel restless and frustrated ?
Do you feel certain that you were meant for ‘more’ and yet feel that you don’t even deserve what you have ?
Do you admonish yourself for wanting ‘more’, for feeling ‘too much’ for being ‘selfish’ ?
Here’s the brave question I might ask…. How would you be showing up in the world, what would you be creating if you were ‘untamed’, if you were to stop pleasing and start living your authentic life ?
There’s a great link for you to explore which has lots of information about Glennon, her work and this book, ‘Untamed, stop pleasing start living’ including where you can buy it, wherever you are in the world.
Scroll down to the bottom of the link to find a You Tube video of a cartoon interpretation of the analogy Glennon Doyle makes at the start of the book about Tabatha the Cheetah …check it out below….
Enjoy !
Untamed – by Glennon Doyle (untamedbook.com)
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