My 3 Favorite Books of 2020
Writing prompt
My 3 Favorite Books from 2020
It’s always a challenge for me to pick my top choices of anything. I’m like my sister, who needs categories within categories. So, I’ve created a category of my 3 favorite books that “helped me find myself during a year of losing much of my identity.”
2020 was a year that all of us lost something and many lost a lot. I fell somewhere in between. I haven’t lost nearly as much as many, but have experienced loss this year, mostly identity. I was unemployed for 3 and 1/2 months, made many shifts and adjustments to try to return safely, and have taken less work since returning. I find a big part of my identity in helping people, and my job is one way I do that. Some other ways are visiting friends, volunteering, trying to be active in the community, all things that involve close contact with others. As all of that was stripped away this year, I was searching for who I was when I couldn’t help in the ways I had. And, I was needing and wanting to find connection and friendship. One way I did that was by starting a virtual book club. Our first book is my first choice:
1. Untamed by Glennon Doyle
Our book club was a small group of women from across the country and Canada. We were 20s-40s discussing our life experiences as we went through Untamed. Glennon’s writing puts words to experiences in ways I hadn’t been able to do for myself for much of my life. I spent the majority of my life not trusting my intuition or emotions or myself at all, often believing there was something wrong with me because of how I saw the world and responded to it. Untamed opened me up to a new way of interrupting how I’ve interacted with the world and those around me. It showed me my emotions are communicating with me and teaching me. There aren’t “bad” emotions. They are all there to expose, teach, and create learning and growth experiences. Of course, this does not mean I can allow my emotions to harm others. But, it does mean that I can honor the feelings I have and set boundaries if and when needed. Learning to trust my intuition has also been a big step, in learning to go deeper and listening to what I know to be true. I can seek wise counsel from people I trust, but I have to trust myself as I make decisions. By listening and loving who I am and trusting myself, I live a freer, more open and expansive life. And now I actually love and connect with people in a deeper way than I did. I don’t need to abandon myself to love others, as I have believed in the past. I can love more fully when I love and know myself more fully. In all the years I thought something was wrong with me, I abandoned who I was. I wanted to throw her away and start over with someone that would be better at life. Say and do the right things. Wasn’t so emotional. Never messed up. Was funny, smart, pretty…the perfect person. I believed the voices around me telling me I wasn’t enough because I wasn’t her and I made that my inner dialogue. This book and discussion with these women has been a huge catalyst to change my inner dialogue to know that I am enough the way I am. I can accept others for who they are, knowing we are all enough. We can grow and evolve, but we are fully deserving of love and acceptance as we are. The more we love others and ourselves where we are, the more freedom and safety we create for growth and change for all of us.
Our second book club book is my second choice:
2. Circe by Madeline Miller
This book being a story about goddesses, gods, and mortals, to my surprise brought up so much discussion about the life of being human. The pain and growth and time it can take to learn to fully live. Life is full of ups and downs. As my coach told me recently, “grief and change always go together.” Grief brings change and change can bring grief. Life is not easy. But, allowing life to come and being open to it, brings so much beauty. Realizing there are people out there who will love you even while knowing all your darkest parts. You never know what turn of events might change the course of your life. What mistake you might make, love you might find, person you might meet, or decision you choose that creates a shift for you or someone else. It can be overwhelming to think about, but it can also be beautiful as our lives play out and we embrace the pain and the joy, taking it all in as a way to learn and live a beautiful and full life.
3. Still Me by Jojo Moyes
This was a fun read. I really enjoyed this book, but I choose it basically for one idea that was so powerful for me.
“I thought about how you’re shaped so much by the people around who surround you, and how careful you have to be in choosing them for this exact reason, and then I thought, despite all that, in the end maybe you have to lose them all in order to truly find yourself.”
Both parts of this really affected me. There are the people in your life who are your team. They are there for you and love you no matter what and this is reciprocated. And, there are people in life who end up playing roles other than being on your team and having your back. Sometimes it might be neutral and sometimes it’s toxic. As I choose the people I bring into my life- friends, dating relationships, colleagues, I ask myself, “Do I want to become more like this person? Are they someone I admire and want to rub off on me?” And, I also ask myself, “Am I someone that others would want to be more like? Do I have qualities that others want to rub off on them?” When you spend time with people, little things start to rub off…I want the people in my life to help me grow and expand. And, I want to do the same for them.
The second part of this line, “that you may have to lose them in order to truly find yourself,” was also really powerful for me. I have mixed emotions as I read this because what came to my mind was the loss of my husband 7 years ago. That has been a grief like none other and yet because of this journey of grief and pain and such severe heartache, I connected deeper with myself and the pain that is shared in being a human. I know myself better now. I have deeper love and appreciation for life. I’m not afraid of what life might bring because I know I can survive. I would do anything for him to still be here, but since that is not an option, I am grateful for what I have learned and the growth that has come. Even before he was sick, life had gotten really hard and I was dying inside emotionally. Going through the experience of his illness together and the intense love we shared for each other, and then the grief of his death, having years of therapy, hard work, extremely patient and loving family and friends, I finally found my life. I found deep joy and hope. I started to truly love being alive in a way I never have before. Even if I would never wish for it to have happened the way it did, I did truly find myself. Nothing makes the loss less of a loss, but I do hope that with so much loss in 2020, that we will all find a truer version of ourselves in 2021.
