Inspiring Quotes from Glennon Doyle's 'Untamed' to Empower You

Kelsey Smith 0:00

When I first started really looking for some answers on the next steps I wanted to take in my life one of the first books I read was Untamed by Glennon Doyle. And today I want to read you some of the things that I highlighted from that time and give you a little bit of feedback and insight onto like, really why it got my head spinning and see if it sits with you as well. In the very beginning of the book, Glennon talks about a time that she's watching a cheetah run, and this is one of the quotes from it. Some things off about my life. I feel restless and frustrated. I have this hunch that everything was supposed to be more beautiful than this. I imagined fenceless wide open savannas. I want to run in hunt and kill. I want to sleep under an ink black silent sky filled with stars. It's also real, I can taste it. And then she'd looked back at the cage, the only home she's ever known. She'd look at the smiling zookeepers, the board spectators and her panting bouncing, begging best friend, the lab. She'd sigh and say, I should be grateful. I have a good enough life here. It's crazy to lawn for what doesn't even exist. And I'd say, Tabitha, you are not crazy. You're a goddamn cheetah. Now, I absolutely love this, because this is exactly how I was feeling. When I read this. I was feeling that there were spectators that were bored in my life. And I was tired of the spectators. I was tired of the zookeepers. I was tired of someone telling me what my Savannah and my cage should be and what I should do about it. I did feel restless, and I did feel frustrated. But was I grateful? Or was I just looking for something that didn't exist? And that was a question that I had a hard time with. But then I remembered I'm a cheater. But truly, I would say this phrase back and forth to myself that gratitude doesn't negate desire. And it just took this one book, for me to really understand that was true. And there were so many different things that jumped out of this book. But there were one of the things was really understanding where did your spark go? And thinking back to when I was a child, I recently read something from Jenna Kutcher that said, that she had learned, I think, from Jay Shetty that, to ask yourself, what is something that you no longer do now that your nine year old self would be sad about or disappointed? And I had to think about that. And for me, it's probably dancing, and I still dance around my house in fun ways. But to think about who did I think I was going to be? When I think back to my nine year old self. And I thought back to when I grow up, I want to do this, I want to be this. And it doesn't mean that it can't change. Like I don't want you to get caught up in being like, Well, I mean, I've changed so much since my nine year old self, I didn't even know it was possible. But thinking is there anything that your nine year old self would be like, Well, what about this part of what you wanted to do? How can you show up? How can you do that? I think that that's just really important. Another quote that I absolutely love from her is she talks about really just like believing in it all and feeling it all, and coming back to life. And she says I resurrect myself every day, in every moment that I allow myself to feel and become, it's my daily reminder to let myself burn to the ashes and rise and new. And I absolutely love this quote, because it reminds us that at any point, we can redefine ourselves, we don't have to stay who we are any hour, any day, we get to be whoever we want to be. And I absolutely love that. Another quote that she has in here is, every life is an unprecedented experiment. And it's the same thing. We get to redefine who we are at any point and no one else has walked our life exactly the same way that we have. And we can pick up pieces to our puzzle along the way. We can find resources, we can look for guidance, they can take us down on one portion of the path, but then we may need a new navigator or new leader. It may be us it may be someone else because every life truly is an unprecedent experiment. And we have to allow ourselves to do that. We have to allow ourselves to go all in another place she says it's actually a quote from Gloria Steinman and it says dreaming after all is a form of planning I love this because whether you are right or left brained, this really brings it together. So you may be sitting there and thinking, well, I need to plan. I need a plan. I need to get organized. Yeah. But what if you need a dream first. And if you are a dreamer, and the planning doesn't come as naturally, then what do you need to do to make that dream a reality? What action steps do you need to put behind that to be able to make sure that it actually happens?

Kelsey Smith 5:36

Another point, she talks about her daughter going to get her ears pierced. And she talks about that showing up and being courageous. And being brave doesn't actually mean doing the thing that we need to do. And one of the quotes that she has is, maybe courage is not just refusing to be afraid of ourselves, but refusing to be afraid of others to you showing up for yourself and making a decision to do something or to not do something allows you to be courageous however you define it, and no one else to find your courage except for you.

Kelsey Smith 6:33

Another quote she has on courage says, I will not let the fact that I cannot do everything keeping me from doing what I can. And this is so important for us as moms, we may not be able to show up exactly how we want to for ourselves for others every day. And you may not be able to do everything. But what can you do today? What can you show up as for yourself? How can you show up for yourself? How can you show up for the way that you want to in different things. You may not be able to do all the things at once. But what's the one step that you can take today?

Kelsey Smith 7:38

I don't know about you guys. But I've definitely had moments where I've played silly or dumb or down, played myself. And I actually remember about probably two years before I chose to change up my career. I had a person that was in a leadership role above me at the time, and we were going into a meeting. And he said, Hey, I'm gonna ask a couple questions in the meeting today. I know you know the answers, but I don't want you to answer them to the group. And it really pushed me off. I was really frustrated. I was like, What am I like? What do you mean, what am I here for? Then? He said, I need I know that you know, what the questions and answers and I know that you have the ideas and I but these other people are in these other roles, and I really need them to show up. And wow, as I've grown and evolved, I've been able to understand some sides of that. At the end of the day. I didn't because I wasn't going to downplay myself for someone else to be able to show up in a way that was comfortable for them or to test someone else. And one of the quotes that she has in here is that she says she talks about Oprah, and it says I want sat with Oprah Winfrey at her kitchen table. And she asked me what I was most proud of in my life as an activist, writer and mother. I panicked and started mumbling something like Oh, I don't feel proud. I feel grateful. None of it's really me. I'm surrounded by great people. I'm just incredibly lucky. And she put her hand on mine and said don't do that. Don't be modest. Dr. Maya Angelou used to say modesty is a learned. Modesty is a learned affectation. You don't want modesty. You want humility. Humility comes from the inside out. I think what she said to me every day, I think of what she said to me every day she was saying, playing dumb, weak and silly is a disservice to yourself and to me and to the world. I want to read that last part again, playing dumb, weak and silly is disservice to yourself and to me and to the world. She goes on to say to be humble as to be grounded and knowing who you are. It implies the responsibility to become what you were meant to become to grow to reach into fully bloom as high and strong and grand as you were created to. It is not honorable for a tree to will and shrink and disappear. And it's not honorable for women to either. And then at the end of it, she says, First reaction, who the hell does she think she is? Second reaction. She knows she's a goddamn cheetah holla fuckin lujah I try not to swear on the show. I'm not a big swear. But watch that one if your little ones are listening. But this is really important because we can't downplay our talents and our abilities and who we're meant to be because we're worried that we're going to make someone else uncomfortable. When you do that you are doing truly the world disservice, you're doing yourself a disservice you're doing your family a disservice. Because you're not stepping into who you're really meant to be. You're meant to be whoever you want to be. And whoever you feel is the calling inside of you. And if you're playing dumb, and you're not stepping up into who you really can be, it's not fair to you or anyone else. It's really not.

Kelsey Smith: 11:26

One thing that we as moms can often have a hard time navigating as control. Because we often need to be in control, we often need to show up for our family, we need to set up schedules, we need to pack lunches, we need to help plan college plans or jobs or anything else that's going on. But sometimes we can definitely overdo it. And in one part of the book, she talks about control, she says, I'm beginning to unlearn what I used to believe about control and love. Now, I think that maybe control is not love, I think that control might actually be the opposite of love. Because control leaves no room for trust. And maybe love without trust is not love at all. I'm beginning to play with that idea that love is trusting the other people feel, know and imagine to maybe love is respecting what your people feel trusting that they know, in believing that they have their own unseen order for their lives pressing through their own skin. I think this is so beautiful, because so often we can feel misunderstood. And you may be, but also you don't have to control the way that someone else understands you. It's your responsibility, like we said, to show up for yourself and grow full out. But you don't have to know if someone else understands. You don't have to control how someone else perceives you or how they align with it. It's your ability, it's your way. It's your it's your it's your responsibility to show up for yourself. It's not your responsibility to control how anyone else receives it. And you're maybe doing them a disservice by not giving them the confidence and the trust that they do know. You don't need to control it, they may know how this is like as simple is not respecting how someone packs the dishwasher to how they define anything else in life, right? We so often hear that people say Oh, I'm so and so never helps me whether it's my kids, my partner or whatever, but you don't allow them to show up in a certain way you control the situation, you don't give them an opportunity to show up for you or the chores or anything else. So think about that. Think about how you can let go some control. I know that some people have control out of a response to trauma, you may feel that that's the only way that you're safe. But you have to allow yourself to look for other opportunities you have to allow yourself to show up in a different way. So I'm gonna end this with at the end of her book she says here's to the untamed may we know them may we raise them may we love them. Maybe we read them. Maybe you like them maybe we beat them. And I think it's just so important to remember that you can be untamed and whatever that means to you. Anytime that you want. You can show up boldly big Lee untamed whenever you desire however you desire. So lack of control, allow yourself to be a cheetah. Don't worry about the zookeepers or the bystanders. Allow yourself to be humble. Allow yourself to be confident in don't to yourself or the world or disservice be untamed.

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