Love Warrior
I think we can all agree that I am not the self-help-book reading, mushy, love everyone type of person. I am actually the exact opposite. That said, I am just about through the book Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle, and never have I ever read something that has been a mirror reflection of myself, from the way I feel, to the way I think, to the way I behave. Love Warrior is in no way a self help book. It's one woman's struggle with herself, her identity, how she interacts with the world, and how the world tells her she should interact with it. It is exactly everything that I feel and have ever felt, and I find myself saying "YES. YES!" on almost every page.
I have always, always, always been a self conscious individual. I can remember being 4 years old and not knowing how to act, feeling inferior, incompetent, and painfully out of place. I retreated inside myself and put up this shy shell of an exterior that was "cute" when I was young, but as I aged prevented me from living my life. I still put up that person. She's no longer shy, but she is aloof. She is armored and I am peeking out through a small window, afraid to show the world who I really am...not that I know who I really am. The book refers to that as a "representative", the person you turn on for public and command to act in a certain way to give off the impression that you fit in because that is what the world has told you to do. But I don't fit in. And Glennon Doyle doesn't fit in, either.
I highly encourage my female friends to read this book. It has not so much been empowering as it has been something that makes me feel like I am not alone, and that, my friends, is a glorious thing. For so long I have been pushing my pain down, stuffing my anxiety into every corner of my being, afraid of feeling it, letting it show. That's wrong. What this book has taught me...is teaching me...is to feel my feelings and to not be ashamed of them. It has taught me to let myself fall apart, to be a hot mess, and continue on regardless. Pain and depression and loneliness and anxiety are a part of my process as a human. This book has inspired me to fade out my representative, to be more honest with people about where I am at mentally, and to be okay with people not accepting that. This will be a lifelong journey for me because that journey is my life. It's one that I can no longer put off, one that I need to take now. I can't continue to live behind my armor, peeking out in fear. I will now let people know that I am afraid. That I am hurt. That I don't belong. And that's okay.
Read this fucking book.
I have always, always, always been a self conscious individual. I can remember being 4 years old and not knowing how to act, feeling inferior, incompetent, and painfully out of place. I retreated inside myself and put up this shy shell of an exterior that was "cute" when I was young, but as I aged prevented me from living my life. I still put up that person. She's no longer shy, but she is aloof. She is armored and I am peeking out through a small window, afraid to show the world who I really am...not that I know who I really am. The book refers to that as a "representative", the person you turn on for public and command to act in a certain way to give off the impression that you fit in because that is what the world has told you to do. But I don't fit in. And Glennon Doyle doesn't fit in, either.
I highly encourage my female friends to read this book. It has not so much been empowering as it has been something that makes me feel like I am not alone, and that, my friends, is a glorious thing. For so long I have been pushing my pain down, stuffing my anxiety into every corner of my being, afraid of feeling it, letting it show. That's wrong. What this book has taught me...is teaching me...is to feel my feelings and to not be ashamed of them. It has taught me to let myself fall apart, to be a hot mess, and continue on regardless. Pain and depression and loneliness and anxiety are a part of my process as a human. This book has inspired me to fade out my representative, to be more honest with people about where I am at mentally, and to be okay with people not accepting that. This will be a lifelong journey for me because that journey is my life. It's one that I can no longer put off, one that I need to take now. I can't continue to live behind my armor, peeking out in fear. I will now let people know that I am afraid. That I am hurt. That I don't belong. And that's okay.
Read this fucking book.
I love that you love this book! She has made me feel like a much more normal human in so many ways. I love how she talks about how you can't earn or lose love by being the way you are. That part hit me hard. I don't struggle with the same stuff that she has had to deal with, but the idea that if I acted a certain way, people would either love me more or love me less has been with me my whole life. I am trying to be a helper to all the people who are trying to be themselves and throw their representative away.
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