Untamed by Glennon Doyle

 genre: memoir, self-help

From the moment I started Glennon's book, I felt like she did have something to teach me.  I liked her self-deprecatory style and quirky humor but I especially liked her metaphor about the tiger not knowing it's caged, from that moment I was ready to open my mind and heart and try to learn some stuff.  There are a lot of longer metaphors in here which others might find trite or juvenile but for me, they hit the sweet spot where my brain just GETS it, that really important idea she's explaining to me.  And she explained some REALLY big ideas to me that are important to where I am in my life, right now.  Ideas about living in our own truth and stillness.  Ideas about how we can learn to trust our own Knowing and how to work our way back when we forget and start living in a way that pleases everyone around us but not ourselves.

She inspires me to let the good inside me spread to not just my family and community but to MYSELF. As I read I remembered how important it is to give myself the grace and honor that will allow me to listen to the deepest part of myself and allow my behavior and how I show up in the world to be in line with what I know.  She even talked about "integrity," which is a word and idea that was drilled into my head as a young woman in the LDS faith but which has morphed for me as I've become a more nuanced adult who is actively deconstructing a lot of my inner world.  That word, integrity, still rings really important to me within the context of what Glennon talks about in this book.

I highlighted entire pages sometimes.  This was the right book for me at the right time.  Three years ago, I'm not sure it would've hit the same.  But right now, the stuff that doesn't apply or feels sorta braggy, I was able to just breeze through without feeling annoyed.  All the rest made my heart feel on fire with the YES THAT IS IT, THAT IS WHAT MY HEART HAS KNOWN AND TRIED TO ARTICULATE.

So that's a great way to start 2024.