Daring Greatly Book Review
If you followed me on Instagram during the 2020/2021 lockdowns, then you’ll know I did lots of reading, and held a live book club series on there!
I absolutely love to read, so that I can keep my brain strong and also stay in touch with my feelings. Reading is an escape from reality, and that’s what I loved about Daring Greatly-it encouraged me to embrace vulnerability and imperfections I feel about myself, so that I can reflect and live wholeheartedly. Whilst most of the book was anecdotes of Brene’s children, I found myself relating to A-LOT of what they went through.
A prevalent quote has stuck with me since reading this book. “Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen.” I talk a lot about ‘showing up’, but I truly believe that it can lead to success, by enabling you to reach your fullest potential. It’s a powerful habit that will serve you; you’ll achieve your goals and live a happier life. Showing up encompasses the philosophy of acceptance. When you commit to showing up in life, you accept any outcome that happens.
“One of the biggest surprises in this research was learning that fitting in and belonging are not the same thing. In fact, fitting in is one of the greatest barriers to belonging. Fitting in is about assessing a situation and becoming who you need to be in order to be accepted. Belonging, on the other hand, doesn’t require us to change who we are; it requires us to be who we are.” Now this is a really long quote, but I think it speaks volumes. Belonging is a basic human need. We all need to feel like we are connected to people and groups larger than ourselves. Belonging is incredibly important to healthy human development and the core is about love, acceptance and connection. The innate pressure to ‘fit in’ sets in shame in most cases. It sends painful and damaging messages to people that they are not worthy or “good enough.” As social beings, we crave the need to not only be part of a tribe but to feel part of it. We often feel inclined to change our behaviour so that we can transform into whoever we need to be in order to fit in and be accepted into a group. This desire to belong can make us perform in a certain way so that we can live the experiences and feelings that come with being in that group. But, if we just perform in order to belong, we’re not being accepted based on our true selves - this is a false sense of belonging which will only add to the pressure to conform and mask our true identity.
