Book Review- Love Warrior
As I was walking through the airport about to catch a flight back home, I was captured by Glennon Doyle’s memoir Love Warrior at the concession store. I couldn’t get a sense of what the book was about from reading the back, but one thing was for certain she had tons of celebrity accolades. The author shares her personal story of her battle with bulimia and alcohol from a very young age. Fast forward she overcomes her past struggles and seems to be living the perfect life with her children whom she absolutely adores and this man who has stuck by her side and has witnessed firsthand her transition from an unstable drunk on the verge of rock bottom to an award winning definition of a mom. Although, the love has dulled between the two of them and their marriage seems to have reached the status of convenience only. I felt a strong pull towards the author as she describes how she sat down at her lap top one day and poured out her raw and unapologetic thoughts. Quickly after sharing on Facebook, she received message after message from women thanking her for honesty and admitting they had similar feelings when it came to their marriage and parenting. She was fueled by sharing her thoughts, as it was her moment to step away from the labels of wife and mother, and just be Glennon. Soon after, her husband’s infidelity comes to the forefront and she is completely devastated. She has flash backs to 10 plus years ago when she truly thought she was at the end of the road, and she gathers the strength that it wasn’t over then, and it still isn’t. As the aftermath of her husband’s cheating continues to derail her once perfect family she says “my anger is the ocean. There are moments of calm and stillness and then, without warning, the disturbance begins beneath my skin, churning, gathering power until there is nothing I can do but surrender and ride it out”. I too, have been in this exact scenario while in the beginning stages of my separation. I had a promising outlook that everything would settle perfectly as is it was meant to and then without warning my positivity switch to intense anger. I hated those moments, because I felt so out of control. Glennon comes to the realization that she will take this situation and show her children, especially her daughter her strength; “she needs me to shower not how a woman pretends her life is perfect, but how a woman deals honestly and bravely with an imperfect life”. She accepts the pain that comes with this storyline. She reminds herself to let it come and let it go. It will ultimately be the fuel to accomplish her life’s work. Almost two years after the initial destruction of her husband’s betrayal she adopts tools and uses her wicked journey to transform into the Love Warrior that she is.
“Hello soul. I am learning what you love. I will get more of this for us. I promise. I have met my self and I am going to care for her fiercely. At least as fiercely as I care for everyone else in my life. I will not abandon, ignore, or lose myself again”
Next up on my reading list, "Rise Sister Rise: A Guide to Unleashing the Wise, Wild Woman Within" by Rebecca Campbell