Review: The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be

Did you know that when our embarrassments and fears lie, we often listen to them anyway? They thwart our gratitude, acceptance, and compassion—our goodness.


They insist, “I am not worthy.” But we are worthy—of self-discovery, personal growth, and boundless love.

With BrenĂ© Brown’s game-changing New York Times bestseller The Gifts of Imperfection—which has sold more than 2 million copies in more than 30 different languages, and Forbes recently named one of the "Five Books That Will Actually Change Your Outlook On Life"—we find courage to overcome paralyzing fear and self-consciousness, strengthening our connection to the world.

A motivational and inspiring guide to wholehearted living, rather than just the average self-help book, with this groundbreaking work BrenĂ© Brown, Ph.D., bolsters the self-esteem and personal development process through her characteristic heartfelt, honest storytelling. With original research and plenty of encouragement, she explores the psychology of releasing our definitions of an “imperfect” life and embracing living authentically. Brown’s “ten guideposts”  are benchmarks for authenticity that can help anyone establish a practice for a life of honest beauty—a perfectly imperfect life.

Now more than ever, we all need to cultivate feelings of self-worth, as well as acceptance and love for ourselves. In a world where insults, criticisms, and fears are spread too generously alongside messages of unrealistic beauty, attainment, and expectation, we look for ways to “dig deep” and find truth and gratitude in our lives. A new way forward means we can’t hold on too tightly to our own self-defeating thoughts or the displaced pain in our world. Instead, we can embrace the imperfection

Review:

Brene begins with a few introductory chapters on what wholehearted living is, and then she moves into discussing the ten guideposts of a wholehearted life. Her experience researching these topics results in an abundance of definitions for each guidepost, but these definitions are shaped directly from her research and are given through storytelling, rather than verbose jargon.

Brene Brown is a researcher and professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work.

Brown is also a writer, who has a good sense of story and a bit of wit to lighten the work. Brown has managed to find a good balance between the research and its analysis, and the interpretation of that into the behaviour we see and experience every day.

Brown has managed to find a way into really complex patterns of behaviour, often buried so deeply under layers of other behaviours that it is really hard for us less trained people to work out what is going on, let alone what is driving it.

At the heart of it is the idea that wholehearted people embrace their tenderness and vulnerability. Brown takes her own journey of vulnerability and reveals her mistakes, and patterns, and lets us in on how she goes about understanding and then changing them. It is her bracing honesty, and her vulnerability, that shows us by example some of the ways we can change ourselves.

This book contains so much insight about understanding some of the behaviors and thought patterns that hold us back in life. While it is abundantly clear, as with all books by this author, that she is an experienced and highly adept researcher, her gift for story telling shines through even stronger. She genuinely connects with the reader by sharing her own “imperfections” and life experiences.