The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown

I'm a huge fan of Brene Brown and the real, honest stories she shares in her writing. Building off of her extensive research into difficult emotions such as shame and vulnerability, this book muses on: What is a wholehearted life? How do we cultivate it? What does it take to live from a place of worthiness and embrace imperfections?

Her section on letting go of perfectionism resonates with me. Especially in the culture we live in now with the whole of the internet seeming to share only the work successes, the happy moments, the perfectly styled photographs. Stories of failure are far less frequent so you find yourself thinking that you are the only one who experiences down moments and failures (aside: her new book, Rising Strong, deals with just that and I am so looking forward to reading it). But we cannot compare our insides with somebody else's outsides. And it's hard.

Brene Brown describes herself as "a recovering perfectionist and an aspiring good-enoughist". Perfectionism is toxic to our lives - it is not about healthy growth or being the best you can be, it's about trying to earn approval from others. Perfectionism cripples us from putting anything out there in the world, because it could be - gasp! - imperfect and we're afraid. When we become more kind toward ourselves, we will be able to acknowledge this feelings that everyone experiences, and slowly become more resilient to this. This is something to practice a little bit every day.

I read this book after Daring Greatly, which she published a couple years later, and I think I would've gotten more out of this had I read it before. While I liked The Gifts of Imperfection, I found that Daring Greatly delved deeper into some of the topics introduced here. If you haven't read her work before, though, this would be a great place to start.