Books · Confidence & Anxiety
Book summary and verdict
Untamed
Glennon Doyle says your inner voice matters, even after years of volunteering as everybody’s unpaid crisis department. Listen to it, set one boundary, and disappoint a grown adult on purpose. Just don’t let your sacred Knowing strand somebody after surgery.
Should you read it?
Read it if being easygoing has turned into a full-time unpaid position. Skip it if you already know how to set a boundary, or if polished revelation makes you check the exits.
L.If peace requires one person to have no needs, that is not peace. It is staffing. Your inner voice may be wise. It may also want snacks and revenge. A boundary is letting an adult look disappointed without calling yourself an ambulance.
The ideas
I · Identity
Maybe you are not easygoing. Maybe you are furious and very good at customer service.
At a zoo, Glennon Doyle sees a cheetah trained to follow a Labrador, running when the dog runs and stopping when it stops. Nature built a missile, and people put it under the supervision of a dog that eats tissues.
At the zoo, Doyle watches a cheetah that has been trained to follow a Labrador, and she recognizes the deal women get: be powerful, but keep it pleasant and easy to manage. Even the cheetah must be thinking, I can outrun a car. Why am I taking orders from something that drinks out of toilets?
The book argues that a role can become so familiar you mistake it for your personality. You call yourself easygoing, but privately you are pricing apartments and imagining a home where nobody asks where the scissors are while holding the scissors.
L.Your family says they cannot function without you. That is not praise. That is a staffing confession.
II · Knowing
Your feelings contain information. They do not get to make every decision just because they arrived crying.
The rest of this idea is in the app.
III · Disappointment
Somebody will be disappointed. It does not always have to be you. Let another adult discover the feeling.
The rest of this idea is in the app.
IV · Motherhood
A mother can keep five people alive all week and still get booed because tonight's pasta is shaped wrong.
The rest of this idea is in the app.
V · Boundaries
Loving someone does not mean letting them rent your nervous system and keep a drum kit there.
The rest of this idea is in the app.
What to actually do
Name one thing you keep saying yes to because no might make another adult mildly annoyed. A favor, a visit, or a chore everybody quietly promoted you into owning.
Smaller: Say no once, without presenting a documentary about your reasons.
L.The room may become uncomfortable. Rooms recover.
Move that load by one inch tonight. Ask somebody else to handle bedtime. Decline the invitation. Delay the reply. Say, “I can’t do that this week.”
Smaller: No seven-paragraph apology. No blood sample proving you are tired.
L.A complete sentence has occurred. Everyone remain calm.
Let someone be disappointed for ten minutes without fixing their face, changing your answer, or offering snacks.
Smaller: They wanted something. You said no. Civilization remains operational.
L.A frown is not a medical event. You may leave it untreated.
Give one household job back to another person who lives there. Dishes, laundry, bedtime, or the towel they have stepped over since Thursday.
Smaller: Choose the job and name its new owner.
L.Anyone who can find a streaming password can find the hamper. Allow the investigation to proceed.
If saying no could make someone violent, do not confront them alone. Contact trusted people, qualified help, or a domestic violence service and make a safety plan.
Smaller: Arrange a safe place, money, transport, medication, documents, keys, and a specific time to leave.
L.Skip the perfect farewell speech. You are leaving danger, not accepting an award. Tell someone who can actually come get you. Courage matters, but it cannot drive the car.
Still in the app
- What happened when people tried them
- Bullshit?
- Where readers disagree
- The one thing worth remembering
The rest of this book is in the app.
Skip the Book reads the self-help books so you don't have to: what each one argues, what happened when real people tried it, which claims are exaggerated, and what to do tonight. 108 books and counting, new ones most days.
Get it on the App StoreFor iPhone and iPad. Three books free, no account.
