Introduction

Nobody is perfect, and discovering that you don’t have to be perfect at everything is a lesson I recently learned. I mean, call me a perfectionist, but I saw it more as striving for what I wanted to achieve in life, such as love, success, and keeping my relationships perfect. It wasn’t until this past summer that I learned this isn’t very feasible. After having the most treacherous summer to date, I learned that life is going to throw colossal boulders at you, and you’re going to have to learn how to take the hit and get back up on your feet. When I came across Brené Brown’s book, The Gifts of Imperfection, I was needing a guide on how I can deal with the struggles I face and turn them into opportunities to grow into a more complete person. Brown’s book fell into my lap at the most perfect time in my life, a time I needed reassurance that it is okay to be imperfect and that we can use imperfection to our advantage.

A Personable Take on "Self-Help"

As Brown’s book serves as a sort of “self-help” book for readers, the style choice Brown uses for her writing is very personable, and she uses first person for most of her book to connect with her readers. For example, Brown tells stories throughout her book to relate to her topics of discussion, such as relating her narratives to the concept of shame. While examining shame, she mentions that it is important to practice courage, compassion, and connection, especially with others who are feeling a sense of shame, if we want to practice “wholehearted living” and embracing our imperfections. Shame is a natural human feeling, and in Brown’s story, she felt shame simply because of a speech she made in front of an auditorium full of high school parents. As Brown was met with fiery glares from a sea of a hundred parents, she felt embarrassed and shameful that she didn’t know how to correct the situation at hand. Using courage, she reached out to a compassionate individual in order to turn her shame that she faced into strength. Reading stories throughout her book such as this one inspired me to act on my own experiences of doubt and turn them into my own strengths. If I’m unsure of myself, I can dig deep and find the courage, compassion, and connection to achieve what I want to achieve.

Guideposts to Wholehearted Living

Throughout Brown’s book, her content relates to her overarching theme of “wholehearted living,” which is engaging in our lives from a place of worthiness. She uses ten guideposts as a sort of rule book to practice this art of wholehearted living, but after reading the book, I have learned that it is not easy and takes a process to be able to practice and embrace. One of my favorite guideposts she uses is cultivating authenticity and letting go of what others think of you. Authenticity is not a characteristic. There are not authentic people and inauthentic people, but rather it is a choice to practice authenticity or inauthenticity, and the easiest way to be authentic in yourself is embracing what makes you unique from other people. Instead of wishing you could be thinner, embrace the body you have, and then make healthy choices if you want to be healthier. Don’t make those choices because you want to look like someone else or you want to be the typical “beauty standard” that society promotes. Especially for a college student like me, that’s hard to practice! I am frequently catching myself engaging in comparisons, measuring my own progress against others whether it be with social media or career achievements like the amount of internships someone has gotten. Brown also mentions how important honesty is when it comes to authenticity. To be authentic, you have to be honest with yourself and be honest with others. If something upsets you, know that you can fix it so that you can be honest with yourself and to others around you.

Another guidepost I found myself gravitating towards was cultivating calm and stillness and letting go of anxiety as a lifestyle. My mother has anxiety, and so do I, so as I was reading this chapter, it really hit home for me how much I let anxiety control my life and how important it is if I want to practice wholehearted living. Anxiety is very real, and for some, there is no definite answer on how to resolve anxiety. In fact, Brown even says that most people she interviewed about anxiety knew that anxiety was very much a part of their everyday lives. However, what contributes to wholehearted living is recognizing your anxiety and not making it your lifestyle, which can be done by practicing calmness and stillness. Being calm is creating a perspective and mindfulness while managing emotional reactivity. It’s about feeling the emotions you or someone else is having, but not reacting to heightened emotions such as anger and fear. Brown says, “a panicked response produces more panic and fear. Anxiety is contagious, but so is calm” (Brown, 2022, p. 106). Practicing calmness, such as counting to ten before responding to someone, not only affects you but will also affect the people around you, creating less anxiety. Stillness on the contrary, can be related to anything from giving yourself time to meditate and pray or even giving yourself time to be alone. It’s about creating a clearing and opening up an emotionally clutter-free space to focus and think. Most of the time, anxiety can be traced back to busy schedules and never having a break. Creating stillness for yourself can combat anxiety so that it doesn’t rule your lifestyle.

Overall

Brené Brown is an extraordinary behavioral researcher and sociologist when conducting her data. We can see this in her book, where she mentions that she conducted over two hundred interviews ranging from 45 minutes to 3 hours (Brown, 2022, p. 63). Not only is she a research professor, but she has been studying the concepts of shame, vulnerability, courage, and empathy for decades. So, it is safe to say that an author who has five New York Times bestsellers, including this one, knows what she is talking about. I would give this book five out of five stars because of the way she creates a self-help book that is not urging you to change, but that she is changing with you while you read the book. Brown does a great job expressing her own struggles and imperfections which makes the book so relatable. Reading this book will give you insight on how to turn qualities that you always thought of as weaknesses into strengths to become a person full of love, compassion, and courage. I especially recommend this book to young adults, particularly college students, who are still figuring themselves out. For myself, I’m still finding out who I am as a person, as many of us still are. This book shows readers that it is okay to be imperfect and that recognizing those imperfections can create a version of yourself that values the worth in you and those around you.