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3.74 AVERAGE
3.74 AVERAGE
Listened to this as an audiobook, as I do for most non-fiction books. It was a really easy read. Being kind to yourself is surprisingly really difficult, especially for women and those who identify as such. We are programmed by society to give and give and give, is captured in this book. I could honestly pick quotes from the whole book, which have great advice and applications in everyone’s lives regardless of gender. One of the most interesting things I learned from “Fierce” is the difference between empathy and compassion, and how even in brain scans those two emotions light up different parts of the brain. “Fierce Self-Compassion” should be on your list, especially if you are on a self-help journey.
funny
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
hopeful
informative
reflective
slow-paced
informative
reflective
medium-paced
****SPOILER alert****
Take the good and toss the rest. Here's what I liked:
* Guided meditations all throughout the book. I copied a bunch of them to my notes so I can do them again later
* Mini lessons on feminism in the western world
* Acknowledgement that this book is written from her cis-female heterosexual pov
* Snippets of Buddhism and framing the book in terms of yin/yang
Here's what I didn't care for:
* The book was longer than it needed to be - it can be summarized in three statements: take stock; remember you are not alone; and be kind to yourself, which can include standing up for yourself.
* I'm still unclear on what constitutes "fierce self-compassion" given most of what's described is self-compassion. (What makes it fierce? Maybe I have too much yang to appreciate it already? But it seems to me what she describes as fierce is really common sense of the importance of standing up for yourself.)
* I'm probably too old school, but while the book has a lot of notes to back up her arguments, there are no footnotes. If you go to the back of the book, there are links that take you back to pages, but you have to sort out where in the page the link is referring to. I much prefer footnotes that are tied directly to the reference so that I can look up the reference on my own without having to take the extra step of trying to search for it by key words either in the notes section or back in the linked paragraph.
* Because of the lack of footnotes, it was sometimes hard for me to tell if some of what she was saying were her own conclusions based on research she read or if these were conclusions presented by the researchers themselves. The difference would be that there's an extra layer of interpretation if they are her own conclusions, which open hers up to fallacies. More than once, I found myself wondering how she came to this or that bottom line, because based on the research described and her arguments, I wondered how much of it was subject to confirmation bias.
Kudos to the author for taking control of her career. UT Austin is a great school, and it's a scary leave behind tenure, but this and some of the other personal stories she shared required a good deal of courage and vulnerability. Brene Brown would be proud (also a nod to her for poking fun of herself a little by comparing herself to Dr. Brown).
Take the good and toss the rest. Here's what I liked:
* Guided meditations all throughout the book. I copied a bunch of them to my notes so I can do them again later
* Mini lessons on feminism in the western world
* Acknowledgement that this book is written from her cis-female heterosexual pov
* Snippets of Buddhism and framing the book in terms of yin/yang
Here's what I didn't care for:
* The book was longer than it needed to be - it can be summarized in three statements: take stock; remember you are not alone; and be kind to yourself, which can include standing up for yourself.
* I'm still unclear on what constitutes "fierce self-compassion" given most of what's described is self-compassion. (What makes it fierce? Maybe I have too much yang to appreciate it already? But it seems to me what she describes as fierce is really common sense of the importance of standing up for yourself.)
* I'm probably too old school, but while the book has a lot of notes to back up her arguments, there are no footnotes. If you go to the back of the book, there are links that take you back to pages, but you have to sort out where in the page the link is referring to. I much prefer footnotes that are tied directly to the reference so that I can look up the reference on my own without having to take the extra step of trying to search for it by key words either in the notes section or back in the linked paragraph.
* Because of the lack of footnotes, it was sometimes hard for me to tell if some of what she was saying were her own conclusions based on research she read or if these were conclusions presented by the researchers themselves. The difference would be that there's an extra layer of interpretation if they are her own conclusions, which open hers up to fallacies. More than once, I found myself wondering how she came to this or that bottom line, because based on the research described and her arguments, I wondered how much of it was subject to confirmation bias.
Kudos to the author for taking control of her career. UT Austin is a great school, and it's a scary leave behind tenure, but this and some of the other personal stories she shared required a good deal of courage and vulnerability. Brene Brown would be proud (also a nod to her for poking fun of herself a little by comparing herself to Dr. Brown).
informative
reflective
slow-paced
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
hopeful
informative
reflective
slow-paced
challenging
informative
medium-paced
This seems pretty sensible, and I would probably benefit from actually doing at least some of the practices (the great crisis in self-help books, lol). Some of them were a little on the woo side for me, but mostly it makes sense, and I have enough people tell me they find them useful.
I think one of the issues I have with this type of book is the author always feels the need to hard sell the benefits for whatever they're talking about, and I'm always like, "I'm already reading your book, lady. You don't need to talk me into it!" The other issue I had was a lot of the book uses Yin and Yang to talk about active and passive, etc, and I profoundly do not vibe with that terminology, and wish the author hadn't felt the need to include religious language.
I think one of the issues I have with this type of book is the author always feels the need to hard sell the benefits for whatever they're talking about, and I'm always like, "I'm already reading your book, lady. You don't need to talk me into it!" The other issue I had was a lot of the book uses Yin and Yang to talk about active and passive, etc, and I profoundly do not vibe with that terminology, and wish the author hadn't felt the need to include religious language.