The work of Brene Brown has been inspiring me since I first listened to her TEDtalks. I read Daring Greatly back in December and loved it too. Suffice it to say, that I knew I was in for good things when I opened this book and I was not disappointed.

In The Gifts of Imperfection, Dr. Brown presents us with the reasons it's important to let go of what the world tells us. She reminds us that trying to be everything to everyone in the world is not the way to be our best selves. For me, the reminder is welcome. I feel like I need to read or re-read one of her books every six months just so I don't lose hold of the encouragement to do the hard parts. Be vulnerable, put my creativity out there, set boundaries. Those are the hard ones for me. 

In this book, she offers 10 Guideposts to help the reader DIG deep (Deliberate, Inspire, Get going) and get to Wholehearted living. The book is listed as a self-help book and she addresses that a few times. They're guideposts, not how-to's. Different things will work for different people. It's not as cut and dry as some self-help books I've seen where simply getting 8 hours of sleep will make you more productive and live longer. Wholehearted living is more complicated than that. She's not going to trim it down for the reader and take away the authenticity of the message. It's one of the things I love about her. 

As an ardent feminist, letting go of what everyone says you should be and becoming the real you are concepts that I'm faced with a lot. It's uncomfortable to have to tell people about all the girl things I don't like or the feminine things I won't do. They aren't authentic to me. It's hard to defend the choices of others who are simply trying to be their authentic selves, but it's something I try to do. It's part of being an out feminist. It's another part of the me I have to embrace. It's a harder part of it because of all the negativity that people like to throw about women simply wanting to be treated as equals. It can be just as uncomfortable to talk to people about faith, specifically your own. And again, as a feminist, because some people think the beliefs of feminism and Christ are mutually exclusive. I've never thought that. 

Both want us to remember the gifts of imperfection and lean into our true selves. This was one of those times that I got a book at just the right time in my life because I needed the reminder on all fronts. 

Everyone should read this because everyone struggles with who they're supposed to be. It would be great if we could just start being who we are. 

I first heard of Brene Brown when I discovered TED. I know it's been around a while but it really hit my radar in 2012 and I can't even tell you how many talks I've listened to now. Brown's talks are The Power of Vulnerability and Listening to Shame. They've appeared on several Must-See lists on TED itself and other media. They appear there because they are FANTASTIC. 

In addition to her amazing public speaking ability, Brown is a great writer. I have only read Daring Greatly, but I loved it and have planned to read the others ever since. Brown's insights into the necessity of shame and vulnerability are fascinating. They are particularly fascinating to me in the way they contradict traditional notions on how these two concepts relate to our ability to get on in life. 

One of the major themes talked about in a lot of the feminist meme's, books, blogs etc, that I see are about shame, vulnerability, and the insane drive for perfection that is said to be required of women. The first two are to be avoided. They are not to be felt. But really, they are simply not to be given in too, they should not hold us back from feeling worthy and loved. The last one is unattainable. We all know it, but we give in to the drive. Except we shouldn't. Giving in to imperfection was actually something I started to learn from Lean In, which I read shortly after listening to Sheryl Sandberg's TED talk on women in leadership. In her book, she also talks about the futility of perfect. Actually, she puts it "done is better than perfect." I can't tell you how much more efficient that thought has made me. I made myself say it before turning in work items that I didn't feel were ready enough, that are never really ready enough. It's helped. A lot. But I only started to understand with Brown that the quest for perfection is not actually a good thing. not the way some of us are conditioned to pursue it. 

When I was done with Daring Greatly, I wanted everyone around me to read it. I wanted to sit in a world saturated with people who understood that standing in the arena was the most important thing we can do and that we needed to work on being more gracious of those who choose to be there. 

This book is a lot of "what" and not a lot of "how." Brown continually harps on the fact that she's a researcher. Ooookay, that's cool. What else? 

There are lots of anecdotes about the author and her life that didn't do much to show me how you can take any of what she's writing about and use it to make your life better, nor did I find her revelations to be particularly interesting. I've seen (and liked) a couple of the author's speeches online but I just could not connect with this book. On the plus side it's short and helped me deal with my sleep debt (which Brown says is important, because of research that she doesn't go into detail about).