I love to read. Instead of long stories, with plot twists and characters and timelines and such, I thoroughly enjoy reading books that will help me in some way. I don't read to escape - although an awesome reason to read - I read to improve some aspect of my life that I know needs some fixing. I love a self help book, or a true story, or a recount of someone's mistakes and how they fixed them so that I too can make changes in my life, business, and work. But, lately, and especially in my world of yoga teaching, there is a surge of books on abstract ideas like manifesting, and attracting, and healing one's self through energy work alone, that I'm not connecting with as I did before. As I've stated in previous posts, I have become disenchanted with this world of coaches and leaders and teachers talking in this realm of intangible because of where I am in my life. I need hard evidence right now. I need the acknowledgement of the sludge and the dirt and the grit of life, and I need to see the triumphs of the changes taking place. I need to not coat words in sugary sweetness in order to make them pretty. I want the stories of women and men who were in the trenches and came out renewed by making real, tangible choices and changes.
While I completely understand (and needed to hear) that connection between mind, body, and soul, and positive beautiful thinking - the books I am most drawn to right now, the people I am following and listening to at the moment, are the raw, truthful, sometimes messy, authors and speakers who talk realistically with a calm kindness and understanding. I don't need the Gary Vaynerchuks of the world either - the harsh "realists" who want to smack you in the face with their words and stun and shock and swear you into success. I am not in a place where I connect to the "If you have to cry, go outside" way of thinking from Kelly Cutrone (although that book resonated with me in a season of my life, for sure). I need the me's, the in betweens, the more average than extra. The people who talk the talk and walk the walk long after the book is written and the podcast is finished because they are doing something realistic, and they admit their faults without being harsh. Too often, after reading and listening to the latest life coaches and authors and speakers, I am left with a feeling of "do you really act like that in real life, when the computer is off and the podcast is done? Is that your life when the Instagram filter isn't there? Do you ever have a bad day? Do you ever cry it out and take a nap instead of meditate and manifest a good mood? Is this possible for someone like me? Are you real?" So many of their words are so syrupy and foreign that I cannot connect, and I am left thinking "no way, no way you think like that all the time" in my head.
It's hard to find those relatable, everyday authors, those speakers, those coaches - because we as a whole are attracted to extremes. We love the glitz, the perfection, the glamour, the filtered, altered, photoshop beauty found in the extremes. Or we think the only way to really thrive and survive is to hustle. Hard. To do all the things and to feel none of the things and to push when you want to sleep and run when you need to rest. We want one or the other and we will hardly settle for the middle - so those real-life, real-people authors get lost in the shuffle of the louder voices. However, I've found a book that has changed my life, written from a point of view that feels so relatable I could swear it was me, told in short stories that fit perfectly into my schedule and my cluttered mind, without needing to remember what happened in the previous chapters. The way the book reads, the way it is written, the words, the life, it all feels tangible, realistic, truthful. Shauna Niequist's Present Over Perfect rocked my world, stopped me in my tracks, and felt like it was God himself coming down, handing me the book, and saying "You need to hear this." I couldn't put it down. I couldn't stop turning the pages, quickly moving from one chapter to the next, rooting for the relatable author in hopes that I too could make these changes. I flew through it in one week, waking up thirty minutes earlier than usual to make time for this book, carrying it in my bag to yoga classes and commitments, hoping to find a couple minutes here or there to finish a chapter real quick.
If you are in the majority of the people in this world that overbook, say yes to everyone, help when you're at your wits end already, and try to fit "just one more" thing into the day before crashing into bed, I urge you, I encourage you, I beg you to read this book. If you need to hear it from the everyday, average woman - the mom, the wife, the friend, the daughter, the YOU - this book is for you. If you can't handle the manifesting, the meditating, the vision boarding and the saccharine sweetness of the recent batch of law of attracting type thinkers and coaches and authors - this is for you. If you read the title of the book and thought, hmm that looks like something I should read one day - this is for you.
Go to Amazon, your nearest bookstore, or any website selling books and buy, download, or pick-up "Present Over Perfect", by Shauna Niequist. I swear it helped me so much in a time when life really is wonderful, I just need a reminder of how to keep it wonderful, and make it even better.
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