Untamed

by Glennon Doyle

We are alive only to the degree to which we are willing to be annihilated.

I decided that the call of motherhood is to become a model, not a martyr.

I am a human being, meant to be in perpetual becoming. If I am living bravely, my entire life will become a million deaths and rebirths. My goal is not to remain the same but to live in such a way that each day, year, moment, relationship, conversation, and crisis is the material I use to become a truer, more beautiful version of myself. The goal is to surrender, constantly, who I just was in order to become who this next moment calls me to be. I will not hold on to a single existing idea, opinion, identity, story, or relationship that keeps me from emerging new.

“Well, maybe I’m trying to be fine. Maybe all I do is try to be fine. Maybe I try harder than anybody.”

She says, “Maybe you should stop trying to be fine. Maybe life isn’t fine, and maybe it’ll never be fine. Maybe fine isn’t the right goal. What if you stopped trying so hard to be fine and just…lived?”

I don’t know if the Ache is trying to protect me or terrorize me. I don’t know if it loves me or hates me, if it’s bad or good. I just know that its role is to constantly remind me of the most essential fact of life, which is: This ends. Don’t get too attached to anything.

I want to be a being that I love, too.

Life is exactly as I remembered it: just the fucking worst.

WE CAN DO HARD THINGS.

We hurt people, and we are hurt by people. We feel left out, envious, not good enough, sick, and tired. We have unrealized dreams and deep regrets. We are certain that we were meant for more and that we don’t even deserve what we have. We feel ecstatic and then numb. We wish our parents had done better by us. We wish we could do better by our children. We betray and we are betrayed. We lie and we are lied to. We say good-bye to animals, to places, to people we cannot live without. We are so afraid of dying. Also: of living. We have fallen in love and out of love, and people have fallen in love and out of love with us. We wonder if what happened to us that night will mean we can never be touched again without fear. We live with rage bubbling. We are sweaty, bloated, gassy, oily. We love our children, we long for children, we do not want children. We are at war with our bodies, our minds, our souls. We are at war with one another. We wish we’d said all those things while they were still here. They’re still here, and we’re still not saying those things. We know we won’t. We don’t understand ourselves. We don’t understand why we hurt those we love. We want to be forgiven. We cannot forgive. We don’t understand God. We believe. We absolutely do not believe. We are lonely. We want to be left alone. We want to belong. We want to be loved. We want to be loved. We want to be loved. If this is our shared human experience, where did we get the idea that there is some other, better, m...

I am flawless, unbroken. There is no other way. I am haunted by nothing.

The only thing that was ever wrong with me was my belief that there was something wrong with me.

What is the desire beneath this desire?

If your desire feels wrong to you: Go deeper. You can trust yourself. You just have to get low enough.

The blueprints of heaven are etched in the deep desires of women.

And what women want is dangerous, but not to women. Not to the common good. What women want is a threat to the injustice of the status quo.

If women trusted and claimed their desires, the world as we know it would crumble. Perhaps that is precisely what needs to happen so we can rebuild truer, more beautiful lives, relationships, families, and nations in their place. Maybe Eve was never meant to be our warning. Maybe she was meant to be our model.

Own your wanting. Eat the apple. Let it burn.

Your body is nature, and nature is pure. I know that’s hard for you to accept because you have been at war with your body for so long. You think your body is bad, but it is not. It’s wise. Your body will tell you things your mind will talk you out of. Your body is telling you what direction life is in. Try

trusting it. Turn away from what feels cold. Go toward what feels warm.”

I trust women who trust themselves.

Maybe dying is just returning—back out from these tiny containers to where we belong. Maybe then all the achy separation we feel down here will disappear, because we’ll be mixed together again. No difference between you and me. No more buckets, no more skin—all sea.

You are not the bucket, you are the sea. Stay fluid, baby.

Keep serving the freaking peanuts, Glennon.

The plot of our lives is largely out of our control. We decide only the response of the main character.

Parenthood is thinking: This is too much. I cannot lead them. But I will do the thing I cannot do.

Must be nice to rest and still feel worthy.