Girl, Wash Your Face: Stop Believing the Lies About Who You Are so You Can Become Who You Were Meant to Be

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Girl, Wash Your Face," honestly, isn't anything new. All the same, I found that it resonated with me in a way that not many self-help books ever have. Part of it, no doubt, is where I am in my own life. I suspect that had I read it even five years ago, GWYF likely would not have hit me in the same way. A bigger part of it, though, is that Rachel Hollis just seems so damn likeable. I'm not normally the sort to fan-girl over the internet famous, but something about Rachel makes it easy to imagine meeting up with her for coffee. Her advice, while nothing new, is presented less like a traditional self-help book and more like an older sister sitting you down and saying, "Look. Let me tell you all the ways I screwed up so you can save yourself the trouble." Comparison is the death of joy, and the only person you need to be better than is the one you were yesterday.” Hollis and her husband went through a difficult time before adopting their daughter Noah, now about a year and a half old, in 2017. They signed up to be foster-to-adopt parents, and Hollis talks throughout the book about their wrenching experience with the adoption process. It was in the middle of these tumultuous few years, full of long days spent in survival mode, that Hollis started drinking more. “Vodka was my copilot, and I was grateful for its presence in my life,” she writes.

Here's an example from the book. Each chapter is named for a different lie us women allegedly tell ourselves, and one chapter is titled "I Can't Tell the Truth." Here is the first tip Rachel lists to help you learn to tell the truth: One of my distant relatives on my mom's side was known in the family for his severe chronic depression. He died about 20 years ago, but the one thing I remember about him was my grandmother's opinion of his life. Whenever it came up in conversation, she would lament, in German: "I don't know why he insisted on being so sad all the time. He could have had such a happy life!"Each chapter is about a lie we're told, and why that lie isn't actually true. It's a motivating read that made me want to go out and conquer the world- or at least my own life! I found Rachel's stories inspiring. This book inspired me to be better, but also not to be so hard on myself when I fail. Laced with humor, relateable stories, and things that will actually resonate and help most of us, I recommend this book to all women. It's a must read! I was anxious but cautious when starting this book, as I've heard a lot about it. My opinion is probably pretty unpopular, but I could hardly wait to be done with it. Book Genre: Adult, Autobiography, Biography, Book Club, Christian, Inspirational, Memoir, Nonfiction, Personal Development, Self Help And the purported goal of her career focuses on helping others achieve what she has gotten all the while balancing family and self-care.

Religious pluralism is basically the idea that all roads lead to God. There’s no right way or wrong way to think about God, and my religion is no better or more right than yours. This is a message Hollis shouts from the rooftops. The only problem? It’s a narrow religious assertion. It’s a belief about God that claims to trump all others. What do I mean? If you claim that all religions are equally valid and true, then you’re excluding all religions that don’t affirm that view. How do you keep taking babies to see parents who aren’t parenting? How do you give up half a Saturday to wait in a McDonald’s playland for addicts who may or may not show up, then hand over an innocent baby and watch them erase whatever progress you’ve made with their daughter? How do you do all of this KNOWING that they’ll be reunited at the end of it all, and there’s nothing you can do about it? If you’re like me, you find a way. But at night, when no one is looking, you drink, and when it gets really bad, you take a Xanax, too.Y’all, would you respect her? Would you count on Pam or the friend who keeps blowing you off for stupid reasons? Would you trust them when they committed to something? Would you believe them when they committed to you? No. She makes a point to say that dreams shouldn't have deadlines, and then in the very next chapter says her goal is to own a vacation home in Hawaii before she's 40. What if the hard stuff, the amazing stuff, the love, the joy, the hope, the fear, the weird stuff, the funny stuff, the stuff that takes you so low you’re lying on the floor crying and thinking, How did I get here? . . . What if none of it is happening to you? What if all of it is happening for you?” When you really want something, you will find a way. When you don’t really want something, you’ll find an excuse.” The main difference between Hollis and the rest of those gurus is that she does a fantastic job of polishing their words and giving it a boost when putting it into her book.

What if life isn’t happening to you? What if the hard stuff, the amazing stuff, the love, the joy, the hope, the fear, the weird stuff, the funny stuff, the stuff that takes you so low you’re lying on the floor crying and thinking, How did I get here? . . . What if none of it is happening to you? What if all of it is happening for you? It’s all about perception, you guys. Perception means we don’t see things as they are; we see things as we are. Take a burning house. To a fireman, a burning house is a job to do—maybe even his life’s work or mission. For an arsonist? A burning house is something exciting and good. What if it’s your house? What if it’s your family who’s standing outside watching every earthly possession you own burning up? That burning house becomes something else entirely. You don’t see things as they are; you see things through the lens of what you think and feel and believe. Perception is reality, and I’m here to tell you that your reality is colored much more by your past experiences than by what is actually happening to you. If your past tells you that nothing ever works out, that life is against you, and that you’ll never succeed, then how likely are you to keep fighting for something you want? Or, on the flip side, if you quit accepting no as the end of the conversation whenever you run up against opposition, you can shift your perception and fundamentally reshape your entire life.” There’s a lot more I could say, but putting the faith part aside, I still hated it. I cannot even deal with people who run around spewing “Love my tribe!!!! Hustle!!!!! Positive vibes!!!!” I can’t roll my eyes hard enough. She said “I run a lifestyle media company” more times than she referenced the Bible. She CONSTANTLY brags about working with A-list celebrities. I am zero percent impressed and one hundred percent annoyed. She talks about going to the Oscars and the “internet going wild” over her glammed up pictures, but she tries SO HARD, you guys, to make us believe that she’s not glam!! Sometimes she pees a little when she jumps on the trampoline because she’s had babies! Giggle!!! I could not get over the amount of shameless bragging and conceit. Logically, this sentiment can’t be true—because all religions contradict each other at some point. And Christianity, by nature, is exclusive. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me” (John 14:6). Religious pluralism is a dogmatic religious belief—and it contradicts Christianity. ​Lie 4: Judgment Is Bad Two reads completed, several passages highlighted, and a whole new perspective on life and the pursuit of happiness. :) Girl, Wash Your Face is littered with references to self-love and self-care. In fact, the theme is so pervasive that it shapes how Hollis responds to everything—from hardship to trauma to parenting to working out.Moving doesn’t change who you are. It only changes the view outside your window. You must choose to be happy, grateful, and fulfilled. If you make that choice every single day, regardless of where you are or what’s happening, you will be happy.” You are in charge of your own life, sister, and there’s not one thing in it that you’re not allowing to be there,” Hollis writes. But Hollis’s glibness makes clear that her “sisters” are only such if they look like her, share her padded bank account (and her priorities), and don’t venture too far into the real and wrenching difficulties of life. Rachel Hollis tells her story in a funny,extravagant way yet one can still feel the underlying tone of encouragement and motivation there.Simple truths are not sugar-coated lies.How could this girl experienced so many things but still amazingly unbreakable? She is one of us,I can tell. You might remember that name from a scene in The Grapes of Wrath, in which a watchman at the migrant worker camp in Weedpatch tells the Joad family about the “Holy Rollers” — Pentecostal ministers — who had been coming through town. They kept asking for money, so the camp’s Central Committee decided that “‘Any preacher can preach in this camp. Nobody can take up a collection in this camp.’ And it was kinda sad for the old folks, ’cause there hasn’t been a preacher in since.’” Following in the footsteps of tough-love doyens before her, Hollis’s audience of mostly white, middle-class women will probably be glad to have someone to tell them what to do, how to follow their dreams, to give them permission never to break a promise to themselves. But, in what many people would consider to be a moment of full-blown cultural crisis in the United States, are white, middle-class women the people who most need a champion telling them to prioritize themselves above all others?