Top 6 books for Personal change (written by women)
Language of Emotions by Karla McLaren
The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown
Maybe You should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb
Untamed by Glennon Doyle
Mindset by Carol Dweck
Playing Big by Tara Mohr
Struggling to express your emotions?
As a child I was not allowed to express my emotions so I have fought them and dismissed them as an adult. When I started working with a parent coach, she kept saying “if you’re sad you need to let something go, if you’re angry you need to set boundaries”. What on earth was she talking about? How did she have this handbook for her emotions? She recommended I read the book Language of Emotions by Karla McLaren. She did a wonderful job of explaining how we should not fight our emotions but rather used them as a guide to help us take action. I had to start recognizing my emotions as a guide to what I wanted to keep in my life and what I wanted to let go of. I now let my husband know when I am feeling emotions, just so he has a better sense of what I am experiencing and can better understand where I am coming from.
Feel like whatever you do is not enough?
I constantly feel like this, but I had no idea that this was perfectionism. I never felt perfect so I certainly did not think I was a perfectionist. One of my students who struggled with perfectionism shared that she had watched Brene Brown’s Ted Talk. I watched it and followed up by reading all her books, but started with The Gifts of Imperfection. I learned that never being satisfied with what I did is perfectionism. That blew my mind! I was a perfectionist. She also said the feeling that you are never good enough is shame. Shame is thinking I am a bad person, guilt is feeling bad about doing a bad thing. The latter is a good guide that you need to take responsibility and change. Shame lives in the dark and thrives when it is pushed down. Vulnerability is expressing the emotions you feel during moments of shame. It is not weakness. When I burned out I felt so much shame and thought that admitting how I felt was weakness. Brene told me I was brave. It was transformational. In particular, she addressed letting go fears about what other people thought about you. If they are not also being brave about their feelings then you don’t have to pay attention to their criticism. Another great piece of advice was not labeling your kids e.g. you’re not messy, you’re making a mess. I have found this extremely helpful. You focus on the behaviors not the person. It’s the behaviors that you want to change. Of course as a behavior change scientist, that appealed to me.
Feel like your head is ready to explode with the constant self criticism?
I could not quieten the constant self criticism in my head. It was like a ball of noise and weighed me down. There was no relief from the voices of doubt. It was exhausting just being me. I found Lori Gottlieb’s Maybe You should Talk to Someone extremely enlightening. I was intrigued by her career path in journalism and counseling. She provides a wonderful description of the process of therapy from a patient and therapist perspective. She described how hiding your feelings just makes you ‘uninteresting’; there’s nothing of value to discuss. She asked one lady, who regretted how she had acted as a mother, when do you think you will have punished yourself enough? Even most criminals are given a punishment with an end date. Why would a mother, who had done no physical harm, deserve a life sentence? This was such an important question for me. When would I stop punishing myself for not being good enough? It had to end. I had to face my inner critic and start focusing on positive things I did believe about myself. It has been a long struggle and I have adopted many different techniques to help me let go of old beliefs. My favorite technique is to write the belief in the past tense: I used to be a person who was never enough, now I am someone who is practicing doing nothing (for others) and choosing things I enjoy.
Fed up being a martyr to your family’s needs?
Glennon Doyle’s Untamed was a heartfelt account of becoming the woman you want to be. I know many women have read this and pasted post-it notes into the pages that included moving advice. Most books end up fluttering with endless notes! Glennon poses her advice in the form of searching questions which are very appealing. She encourages you to break out of the cage of female expectations, she provides examples of setting boundaries (with her mother for example), trusting your feelings, and being brave. One of her clearest take-aways for me was to be a role model instead of a martyr. To show your children a life of living your dreams, not self sacrifice.
Stuck in a rut and can’t see your way out?
I didn’t even realize how fixed my thinking was, it was how I had been brought up. It was such a relief to learn to embrace a growth mindset. To add ‘yet’ to every can’t and to add ‘and’ to positive and negative feelings. Carol Dweck’s Mindset was so helpful in allowing me to let go of the labels that haunted me ‘you are not smart, you are a bad speller, you are bad at maths’. Instead, I evolved to say, sometimes I am a good listener, but not always. Learning new behaviors is possible! I am learning to be a better listener when I am busy with work. While talent plays a role in some people’s success, even very talented people have to work incredibly hard. This book not only helped me be more open to seeing myself on a continuum with potential for growth, it also helped me think about my parenting and how to support the kids in seeing the grey, not just black and white. When I hear words like ‘never, everybody’ it is an alert for me to fact check with them and discuss the specific situation that is the problem, not the whole world.
I have also written blogs about Tara Mohr’s Playing Big, and Eve Rodsky’s Finding Your Unicorn Space
