The most bizarre thing happened after I started listening to Glennon Doyle’s book – Untamed.

Something about listening to it with her voice, telling her story, I was just enthralled. Having her or any author in my head is always a trip. That’s why I choose them wisely.

I always try to get an audiobook spoken aloud by the author, not a voiceover person. It gives it a whole different experience.

In the Prologue, Doyle describes a story about a cheetah named Tabitha who lives in a zoo. And she carries on an imaginary conversation with the cheetah, who she knows must long for a better, more untamed life in the wild. 

In the end, if the cheetah faces her decision, maybe she’d decide to stay and be happy with life in the zoo, the one she’s only known.

Doyle exclaims, “She’d sigh and say, I should be grateful. I have a good enough life here. It’s crazy to long for what doesn’t even exist.”

Then Doyle hits it home by saying, “Tabitha. You are not crazy. You are a goddamn cheetah.”

Wow, that struck a cord in me. I want more out of life. I want to be more like a cheetah.

Back to the bizarre thing that happened during the time I was listening to this audiobook…

I was walking with my spouse early one morning with the dogs, and my inner voice suggested I turn my head and look to the right. Once I did, there was a little plastic baby cheetah on the ground.

Wild right?! 

I picked it up and just laughed. There were some other plastic animals, and I lined them all up, hoping their young owner would find them.

For the next several days, only the cheetah was left sitting there all alone. I thought that was my sign to take her home with me. She was pretty tiny and fit into my hand.

She still sits proudly on my desk today as a reminder of my untamed self. Her legs are a little shorter cuz my little pup found it and nibbled off her back legs. I had to rescue her. 🙂

So my cheetah is always here, sitting and watching me type. 

That’s what it meant to connect with this book – to be “Untamed,” be more like the cheetah.

A Book Summary to Inspire You To Read It!

Quick Summary: This book is written in such a conversational tone with many brilliantly written stories about Doyle and her life through her many challenges – navigating divorce, coming out, blending a new family, and more. It’s not just an intimate memoir. It’s also an enlightening view for women to find their voice, honor themselves and break the mold to be the person they were meant to become all along.

I promise after you read or listen to this book, you will find a piece of yourself that will be challenged, heard, and awakened.

WHO Ought to Read this Book: If you’re a woman who longs for something more, who wants to grow and discover how to set boundaries, make peace with your physical body, and honor your feelings of anger, grief, and love, then you gotta read this book. And if you love stories that are gutwrenchingly honest, laugh-out-loud funny, and sometimes just raw with inspiring meaning, then this is your next read.

Why Read this Book? I’ve read many books about standing up for myself, setting boundaries, dealing with fear, and honoring my emotions. Books more from the ‘self-help’ point of view. This book breaks that mold because it’s not only Doyle’s journey, it’s also how she subtly teaches and shares with you how there’s another way to break free of your current mold and start to live the life you were meant to. Not the life that others told you to live.

Things You Will Discover:

This book is broken up into three parts:

Part 1: Caged – Doyle describes her journey of discovering that she’s caged. There are eleven stories from Sparks, Blow-Jobs, to Polar Bears.

Part 2: Keys – The core of how she transformed her life (and you can too) with these tools – Feeling, Knowing, Imagining, and Letting it Burn.

Part 3: Free – What it’s like to venture out into the wild and be free. This is by far the largest section, with fifty stories from Ghosts to Gardens, Racists to Comfort Zones.

Each part has inspiring stories with equally connecting wake-up calls – “What if I don’t need your permission slip because I’m already free?”

Her stance on God and the church –

She started out as a blogger and identified as a “progressive Christian.” Her first books had faith themes of honesty and authenticity. And then, her subsequent writings shifted away from a core religious focus.

What she shares about her journey of the church and God is – “You chose yourself and God, instead of church. When you chose yourself, you chose God. When you walked away from the church, you took God with you. God is in you. And tonight, you, me, and God – we’re just visiting the church… When we’re done tonight, you and I will go, and God will go with us.”

And I’d like to add that God (or if you’re more comfortable with – Higher Power, Divine Power, or Source Energy) has always been in you since the day you were born. God has nothing to do with religion. That’s a man-made institution that contains attitudes and beliefs about God that oftentimes foster a sense of separation and exclusion, not of connectedness and inclusion.

INSPIRING BOOK QUOTES:

Fear & Courage – We got This:
“I see your fear and it’s big. I also see your courage, and it’s bigger. We can do hard things, baby. We are fireproof.”

The Blueprints of Heaven:
“If women trusted and claimed their desires, the world as we know it would crumble. Perhaps that is precisely what needs to happen…”

Our Deep Desires Are Wise, True, and Beautiful:
“If your desire feels wrong to you: Go deeper. You can trust yourself. You just have to get low enough.”

What’s Wrong With Me?:
“The only thing that was ever wrong with me was my belief that there was something wrong with me.”

Love Is The Opposite of Control:
“We only control what we don’t trust. We can either control ourselves or love ourselves, but we can’t do both.”

Abandon Everyone’s Expectations of Me:
“I’ll abandon everyone else’s expectations of me before I’ll abandon myself. I’ll disappoint everyone else before I’ll disappoint myself.”

The Challenge With Adam & Eve:
“When a woman wants more, she defies God, betrays her partner, curses her family, and destroys the world. We weren’t born distrusting and fearing ourselves. That was part of our taming.”

It’s Time to Unleash & Take Our Rightful Place:
“We will keep shuffling and competing for a seat at their table instead of building our own tables. we will keep banging our heads on their glass ceilings instead of pitching our own huge tent outside. We will remain caged by this work instead of taking our rightful places as cocreators of it.”

Don’t Look Away:
“What is it that affects you so deeply that whenever you encounter it, you feel the need to look away? Look there. Where is the pain in the world that you just cannot stand? Stand there. The thing that breaks your heart is the very thing you were born to help heal. Every world changer’s work begins with a broken heart.”

What Scares Us:
“It’s not the cruel criticism from folks that hate us that scares us away from our Knowing; it’s the quiet concern of those who love us.”

The Big Decision:
“My mother loves me …. and disagrees with me about what is best for me. I’m going to have to decide who I trust more: my mother or myself.”

The Definition of Family:
“Family is: Whether we’re falling or flying, we’re going to take care of each other through the whole damn ride..”

About the Author: Glennon Doyle:

Glennon Doyle, Author, Activist, Founder of Together Rising, and Host of the We Can Do Hard Things Podcast. She is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller UNTAMED, a Reese’s Book Club selection, which has sold over two million copies. She is also the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller LOVE WARRIOR, an Oprah’s Book Club selection, and CARRY ON, WARRIOR. An activist and “patron saint of female empowerment” (People), Glennon hosts the WE CAN DO HARD THINGS Podcast. She is the founder and president of Together Rising, an all-women-led nonprofit organization that has revolutionized grassroots philanthropy – raising over $35 million for women, families, and children in crisis. Glennon lives in Florida with her wife and three children.

Where I Would Recommend Getting Your Copy:

Untamed by Glennon Doyle

Other Like-Minded Books:

The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go Of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are by Brené  Brown

Atlas of The Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience by Brené  Brown

Eat, Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay

Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun, and Be Your Own Person by Shonda Rhimes

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch

The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer