A New Book by Brené Brown

I’ve posted quite a few times (understatement) about how much I admire the author and shame expert, Brené Brown.  You can check out her site here.  She is an amazing woman who never fails to reach right in and squeeze your heart with her words.  I’ve even been lucky enough to have her comment on here a couple of times!  Obviously, that meant a lot!

I think she’s had a couple of books out, but this is the one that I have read that is now one of my favorite books. And it was a happy accident that I stumbled across it in the bookstore one day:

Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about where I’m at in my life and if I’m where I want/need to be.  I’ve also been struggling with my anxiety a lot.  I am starting to think that maybe the doctors were right in that a lot of my physical problems are manifesting from the amount of stress and anxiety I unintentionally put myself through.  I never relax.  And when I say never, I mean never.  Not even when I’m sleeping.  Half the time, I wake up with my teeth clenched.  I constantly feel on edge, like my skin is going to leap off my body.

My doctors tried me on a few medications – all of which gave me terrible side effects.  A new doctor I saw put me on another medication that isn’t technically an anti-anxiety medication and I’ve been taking that for six months, but I don’t think it’s really helping.  I haven’t had any major side effects with it that I’ve noticed, but the horrible anxiety is still there.  I think he said that there might be something else I can try, but I hate the thought of risking more side effects.  I hate being on drugs at all.  But I don’t know how much longer I can take this.  I’ve tried so many relaxation techniques, but nothing works. I’d go to a therapist, but it’d probably just cause me more anxiety.

I’ve always had problems with anxiety – ever since I can remember.  I’m sure that it doesn’t help that I’ve always been a perfectionist, and just about any situation you can imagine makes me nervous. But over the years, it has gotten worse. SO much more so after my brother died. Our mortality – of which I was always fully aware – became that much more of an active, living being my life. Instead of enjoying whatever I may be doing, I’m constantly thinking of all of the other things I want to be doing, should be doing, because, well, you never know if there will be a tomorrow. It’s gotten to the point where I have almost straight-jacketed (ha) myself into being unable to do anything at all.

So while I was thinking about my life in the past few weeks, I’ve been thinking about how I’m not where I ever imagined I would be.  I feel like I’ve let a lot of dreams and plans fall to the wayside because of fear and anxiety (which, of course, just causes more anxiety).  I’ve also wondered how much of where “I wanted to be” was actually where I “thought I should be.”

So to bring this all back around to Brené Brown, I was catching up on some of my blog reading (SO far behind) and saw that she has a new book coming out.  I believe it comes out this April, but it is available for pre-order on Amazon.  You can guarantee that I’ll probably be doing that soon.  Ironically, the title is “The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are.” I say, perfect timing. Yay, Brené Brown!