May was a big month for me, people!
I read Brené Brown's "I thought it was just me" and "The gifts of imperfection". Both books are about shame and what it takes to live a wholehearted life and after being in love with her book "Daring Greatly", I just had to check out those two books as well.
These are my personal highlights:
"I thought it was just me" talks a lot about identifying and speaking shame, as well as building shame resilience. We all carry around "unwanted identities", instilled by our families of origin - it's what we believe to be true, because we heard it over and over again, but it's not necessarily what we need to life a fulfilled, joyful life.
The part of the book that was the most meaningful to me was an exercise called the "Life Shuffle" : for any given situation (new job, giving birth etc.), think of 10 expectations / best case scenarios and write each on a card. Shuffle the cards.
Now comes the tricky part - 5 of those expectations will work out, 5 won't.
It's a great exercise to ask yourself if you're prepared to handle what life throws at you and also to recognize how much emotion we have attached to our expectations.
Pretty great stuff, huh?
When I read "The gifts of imperfection" I had a HUGE aha-moment. I'm talking Oprah-sized, like when she says: "Somebody ring a bell, this is BIIIIIIG!"
It's about love and Brené Brown writes: "We can only love others as much as we love ourselves". BOOM. Seriously, that sentence hit me like a truck. And it explained so much.
Dwell on that a bit, will ya?
A lot of people say they love their children more than themselves (is that maybe even expected?), but is that really true? If you're not happy and in love with yourself - unconditionally - is it even possible to love another person wholeheartedly?
I thought a lot about this, picturing different scenarios with my family, at work and around friends. And those feelings of despair and animosity, of frustration and guilt? That's exactly what that is - not loving myself unconditionally.
To be able to say I love myself and I am enough - that's pretty fucking hard.
So - after reading those two books and dwelling on my revelations, I was pretty exhausted; and I decided June needs to be a month with more fun and less work.
I'll be making summer bucket lists and reading lists with the kids (for myself (thanks Galit Breen for the great ideas!) and for them), taking lots of pictures and playing with my new photo apps, writing and submitting some queries, camping and just being enough.
Mmmhh - that sounds like so much fun, maybe I'll do that for July and August as well...