Girl, Stop Apologizing

Girl, Stop Apologizing: A Shame-Free Plan for Embracing and Achieving Your Goals by Rachel Hollis             Audio Book: 8 hrs., 10 mins.     Hardback Book: 240 pages            

  

I really like Rachel Hollis’ style.   She delivers her words like she and the reader are sitting across from one another and Girl, let me tell you, she discusses everything and doesn’t back up from any topic.   She is so funny and quirky, her books are refreshingly honest and she calls the reader out on things when she can turn it in to a lesson to make you grow in your journey through life.    She cites her own mess ups often as examples to the reader so you won’t be humiliated taping into your own.   She talks about women’s voices and how women have been made to feel they should be everything to everybody and go 24/7 and be 100% at everything without ever asking for help.   She assures the reader and all the women that attend her seminars and read her books – it is o.k. to ask for help in fact it is mandatory!   Why burn yourself out trying to be Svengali – know all, see all when she personally believes the Internet can teach you anything you want to know.    Women do not come out of their mother’s wombs with a skillset of knowledge on how to do everything and do it well and we don’t need to apologize for that.   We also don’t have to do everything there is in life and wait on people hand and foot, clean up after them and go bake cookies and go on our kids fieldtrips when we don’t want to.  It is also o.k. to say no without apologies.   She says she HATES to volunteer at her kids’ schools.   She absolutely loathes it so after the first few years of going along with whatever the schools asked of her, she finally came to a point that she hated it so much she asked herself WHY was she doing it?   After that first No, it got a lot easier.    Now her schedule is so packed already that when someone comes up and asks her to do something for them, she tells them nicely, “I’m sorry, my schedule is so packed now that if I take on one more thing, I will have to take time away from my family and my family comes first so I’m sorry but the answer is no.   She swears when you bring up family no one wants to take you away from your family and they will leave you alone.   She says the other mothers at school give her snarky looks and make remarks, but, she isn’t going to let that bother her.   Their opinion of her is none of her business and if they want to volunteer, power to them.    Maybe they like it, she doesn’t.   That doesn’t make her a bad Mom that makes her a Mom that knows her own mind and doesn’t let others force her into their trick bag.   She says women have to stop identifying themselves by what other people think she ought to do or be.   “Own who you are and what you want, Sister,” Hollis says.   She has a lot og great stories and is an inspiration women in how to be the confident creatures God made us all to be.   Really good book.   I like Rachel Hollis’ attitude and she clearly says some things in this book that I bet she gets a lot of flack for on her website.    But she is so right, we women have got to take our stand on who we are, and while its o.k. to love and do, we also matter and we have to take that into consideration, too.    Power to you, Rachel Hollis.   You are my favorite feminist.  Yes, yes, Women everywhere, read this book, you will nod and agree with what she says.

 - Shirley J