The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

by Brene' Brown
Amazon purchase, paperback, 130 pages
genre: non-fiction, wholeheartedness

This wasn't quite what I expected, but there were some interesting observations. Brown is a researcher and down-to-earth person who started studying the areas of guilt and shame, but turned to wholeheartedness as she interviewed more and more people and saw some interesting connections.

Although I underlined a lot, I want to give it to someone else for whom I think it will resonate more than it did for me. I just want to record her "guideposts" here.

1 - Cultivating Authenticity (Letting go of what people think)
2 - Cultivating Self-Compassion (Letting go of perfectionism)
3 - Cultivating a Resilient Spirit (Letting go of numbing and powerlessness)
4 - Cultivating Gratitude and Joy (Letting go of scarcity and fear of the dark)
5 - Cultivating Intuition and Trusting Faith (Letting go of the need for certainty)
6 - Cultivating Creativity (Letting go of comparison)
7 - Cultivating Play and Rest (Letting go of exhaustion as a status symbol and productivity as self-worth)
8 - Cultivating Calm and Stillness (Letting go of anxiety as a lifestyle)
9 - Cultivating Meaningful Work (Letting go of self-doubt and "supposed to")
10 - Cultivating Laughter, Song, and Dance (Letting go of being cool and "always in control")

One part I marked is page 90 - "I also learned that it's not always the scientists who struggle with faith and the religious who fully embrace uncertainty. Many forms of fundamentalism and extremism are about choosing certainty over faith." As a Christian, I am okay with "not knowing" all the answers . . . yet at the same time, there are things about life that I am extremely confident in because of my faith in God.

I like her guideposts, but this was not a book that resonated deeply for me. I feel as though I'm in a different place in my life right now . . . and this might have been more helpful a decade ago. I had also thought that it was a Christian book, and though she talks about spirituality and prayer, it's not quite what I had expected.