Untamed - Glennon Doyle (37 of 2023)

Stop pleasing, Start living. 

For every woman resurrecting herself.

For the girls who will never be buried.

Mostly, for Tish. 

Interestingly everything begins in small letters in this book, and not even the book name, author name or chapter names are in capital:

Here's to 'The Untamed:

May we know them.

May we raise them.

May we love them.

May we read them.

May we elect them.

May we be them.

The book is divided into three parts:

Viz. Caged, keys, free.

Prologue says Cheetah and epilogue: human.

'caged' covers: sparks, apples, blowjobs, directions, polar bears, tick marks, algorithms, gatherings, rules, dragons, arms. 

'keys' covers: feel, know, imagine, let it burn.

'free' covers: aches, ghosts, smiles, goals, adam and keys, ears, terms, erikas, beach houses, temperatures, mirrors, eyes, gardens, vows, touch trees, buckets, attendants, memos, poems, boys talks, woods, cream cheeses, bases, island, boulders, bloodbaths, racists, questions, permission slips, concessions, knots, decals, girl gods, conflicts, streams, lies, deliveries, invaders, comfort zones, elmer's, luckies, buzzes, sandcastles, guitars, braids, seconds, ideas, sidelines, levels

Forceful and tender. Untamed is both an intimate memoir and a galvanizing wake-up call about what is possible when we step out of our cages and say:

Here I am. 

For many years Glennon Doyle denied her discontent. Then one day, at a conference, she glanced up at a woman and three words flooded her mind: There. She. Is.  This was the voice she had buried beneath her, and she decided to let go of the world's expectations of her and reclaim her true untamed self. 

The book is divided into three parts:

Viz. Caged, keys, free.

This reminded me of the book 'Unlocking the Golden Cage : 7 Simple Steps to Designing The Life You Love ~ Puja Puneet'; where she writes about the cage, finding the key, opening the lock and freeing oneself. 

As mentioned in the first chapter:

10 is when the world sat me down, told me to be quiet, and pointed towards my cages:

These are the feelings you are allowed to express.

This is how a woman should act.

This is the body you must strive for.

These are the things you will believe.

These are the people you can love.

Those are the people you should fear.

This is the life you are supposed to want. 

---------------

Poem: The Secret of Life

It becomes what you'd most protect

if the government said you can protect

one thing, all else is ours...

it's what 

radiates and what can hurt

if you get too close to it. 

------------------------------

Dropping Keys

The small woman

Builds cages for evryone

She 

Knows.

While the sage,

Who has to duck her head

When the moon is low,

Keeps dropping keys all night long

For the 

Beautiful

rowdy

Prisoners.

~ Hafiz.

--------------------------

Emotions

Intuition

Imagination

Courage

Those are the keys to freedom

Those are who we are. 

Will we be brave enough to unlock ourselves?

Will we be brave enough to set ourselves free?

Will we finally step out of our cage and say to ourselves, to our people, and to the world: Here I am. 

Key 1:Feel it all- You can feel everything and survive and You can use pain to become. First pain, then waiting, and then rising. pain is not tragic but magic. Suffering is tragic, it happens when we avoid pain and miss our becoming. 

Key 2: Be Still and Know - Go within, do'nt go for outside validations. 

Key 3: Dare to Imagine - A lifetime is exactly how long we have.

Let's conjure up, from the depths of our souls:

The truest, most beautiful lives we can imagine.

The truest, most beautiful families we can fathom.

The truest, most beautiful world we can hope.

Let's put it all on paper.

Let's look at what we've written and decide that these are not pipe dreams; these are our marching orders. These are the blueprints for our lives, our families and the world.

May the invisible order become visible.

May our dreams become our plans. 

Key 4: Build and Burn

Destruction is essential for construction.

What kind of life/relationships/family/world might I have created if I'd been braver?

I cannot hold too tightly to any riverbank. I must let go of the shore in order to travel deeper and see farther. Again and again and then again. Until the final death and rebirth. Right up until then.

Be Free: 

To be really free, we need to be free from many things . Bulimia is private. We need to be free of aches, ghosts, smiles, goals, adam and keys, ears, terms, erikas, beach houses, temperatures, mirrors, eyes, gardens, vows, touch trees, buckets, attendants, memos, poems, boys talks, woods, cream cheeses, bases, island, boulders, bloodbaths, racists, questions, permission slips, concessions, knots, decals, girl gods, conflicts, streams, lies, deliveries, invaders, comfort zones, elmer's, luckies, buzzes, sandcastles, guitars, braids, seconds, ideas, sidelines, levels. 

Each of us have our own stories around these.