Already Enough: A Path to Self-Acceptance by Lisa Olivera
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
“We so easily forget that accepting ourselves isn’t about reaching some final destination but is more about doing the deep work of slowing down, turning inward, and gently reintroducing yourself to parts of you that you were told you should fix.”
What a joy and gift this book was to read. Lisa Olivera is a kind and gentle voice throughout this book as she walks you through the journey of unpacking your own stories and finding your way back to yourself.
Lisa guides you to spend time seeing and understanding the stories you’re telling yourself so that you can put the distance you need between yourself and the stories and can see the distortion they cause in your life. This book doesn’t contain absolutes, quick fixes or easy answers.
“Looking for confirmation of our stories is a way of consistently validating the belief that they are true, which makes it really challenging to see things through a different lens. But once you start, you can look for proof of the opposite—and make room for the possibility that the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves are wrong.”
Instead it encourages you to look within yourself, ask yourself the questions and create room for the possibility that maybe your stories are not, in fact, truth. Maybe, just maybe, you are creating this lens that is not serving you and you might be able to let it go and choose a different way to see things. She gently pushes you to explore and question and make room for possibility.
“The truth is that unless we do that work internally, a relationship will only mirror the work we haven’t yet done within ourselves.”
This book is not a lecture. It’s an interactive experience. There are many questions at the end of each chapter, inviting you to participate in your own journey. Inviting you to explore. To dig deeper. To be willing to do the work. To show up for your own life.
It gently guides you through the steps of slowly coming back to yourself. Being who you are meant to be without all the distortion. Giving yourself what you need. Creating the version of you that feels most true to you. Reminding you that you get to choose. You always get to choose.
“The truth is that we get to choose who we are. We get to choose how we care for ourselves and how we show up in the world.”
with gratitude to netgalley and Simon & Schuster for an early copy in exchange for an honest review.
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