Recommendations

I have been thinking about writing a recommendation for a book I just loved ... and now I have another two things to recommend.

It's been a long time since I felt the strength to do a NRU... honestly, I am still not there. But I read this piece and fell in love. *wink*

We all need a little more inspiration to 1) be ourselves and 2) open to possibilities despite setbacks.

***please note it has been so long since I started this post that I honestly cannot remember the other thing besides the book I was going to recommend.***

The book ... a while back, because I have been moving the publish date on this post for MONTHS, I listened to Hunger by Roxane Gay. I have been listening to books more than reading, but I still call it reading. I hope that is okay.

So, Roxane Gay and her memoir Hunger - wow, WOW, I listened to the author read her memoir. I heard the life in the words. It was amazing.

My takeaway was that every WOMAN should listen to this book. Not read. Listen. There are dark spots, a lot of them, that you need to push through to get to the honey. Because it is sweet when you get past the darkness, when you are deep inside the heart of Roxane Gay, it is all sweetness and reality. And those two things do not always go together as perfectly as they did in this book.

You should listen to it.

You will learn to love your body and hear the story it is telling you every day, at least a little bit you will learn this, by listening to this book. You will, at least, learn that loving your body and listening to its stories is life changing.

Or maybe you won't ... as some reviewers have noted, and Gay herself has as well, this is not a book about transformation. It is not a victory lap. It is not this is how you do it.

But, for me, it was a how to and why to love your body, just as it is, and to listen to your body because it is engaging you in the dialogue every day, even when our too busy minds and emotions are yelling loudly over our bodies attempts at conversation.

You should listen to it.

Read/listen to this book, if you are a woman, or a man, or whatever, and you have not yet committed to loving your body and listening to its stories.

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This is not the other thing that I was meaning to recommend when I started this post, but I have come upon this realization in the past two weeks: I am not only more productive when I listen to books while I work, I am more peaceful. My emotions to do not get the better of me when I am listening to a book and someone asks me for the work item I delivered three weeks ago, or tries to dump their work in my lap because I am a good worker, or tries to organize my work life to make their lives easier. I just smile and listen to my book and do my work.

My blood pressure appreciates listening to a good book. Maybe your blood pressure loves listening to a book, too.