You're Not Enough (And That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love

Product Information

From one of the sharpest Christian voices of her generation and host of the podcast Relatable comes a framework for escaping our culture of trendy narcissism—and embracing God instead. How are you so sure? Like you can believe in any religion and be a shitty person, you don’t have any guarantee. I don’t know what you’re facing now. Whether it’s more or less serious than what I faced in college, I can tell you for sure: you’re not enough. Just like me, you don’t have what it takes to heal yourself: from the addiction, the rejection, or the depression. Your self-­contrived solutions to your problems won’t work, and your attempts to fill your emptiness with more of yourself will fail. Your insistence upon “doing you” by choosing only what feels good in the moment will only defer the pain until it becomes a crushing burden.

The message of this book is so important, for the most part I enjoyed the read. It was thought provoking and really made a lot of good points. The only problems I had were all the long words, I was reading aloud as a devotional with my sisters so I got tongue twisted pretty often and we often has to read something twice and pause to let the sentence and it's long words fully register. She includes stories from her past and those of others, as well. Basically, her book is about how people strive to find their identity, satisfaction, worth, and happiness in everything, but Christ and how that's wrong. No matter how much time, energy, and focus you put into self-love, self-care, self-discovery, and the like, you will always end up feeling empty, unhappy, disappointed, or incomplete . It is possible to have the abilityto do, be, or have all the things butthe truth is, you will never have the capacityto fulfill that deep desire to be complete, whole, or perfect. The new self sees these expectations as good boundaries set by the Father who loves her, not inhibitions hindering her 'true self,' because her 'true self' is the person God calls her to be, empowered to love him and others and to pursue holiness. This means mistakes and failures and sins do exist. They're not just experiences to learn from, and they're not other people's fault or harmless habits typical of our personality type; they're choices to regret. Not everything taboo needs to 'destigmatized' or 'normalized.' For the Christian, some behavior has a stigma and is abnormal because God says it should be." (102-103)

Success!

I appreciated that Scripture and theology were mentioned throughout the book. I don’t recall if she mentioned what denomination she follows, but she quoted C.S. Lewis several times and mentioned Ligonier at least once. I’m thinking she may be leaning reformed. I’d been deep in the culture of self-love: doing what I wanted and focusing on my wants in an effort to live my “best life.” Ultimately my self-centeredness blinded me to the damage I was wreaking on my life. Book Genre: Christian, Christianity, Christian Living, Christian Non Fiction, Faith, Nonfiction, Religion, Self Help, Theology

One of the topics Allie covers a lot on her podcast is the toxic culture of self-love and "trendy narcissism." She has really opened my eyes to how prevalent it is in our culture, so I was excited to hear she was covering the topic even deeper in her book. She covers five myths that self-love culture tells us, and lays out the truth from God’s Word that is so much better. It really is so freeing to know that we are not enough, but God is! She tells us that we are told, especially if we're little girls, that we are perfect from childhood. This is where I face-palm repeatedly at her inability to recognize just how often little girls are shown and, yes, told that they could never be perfect unless they measure up to an insane number of impossible standards that society thrusts in their faces. This idea that any child is given the opportunity to think that they are perfect is so ludicrous that I'm honestly mind-boggled by it. I don't know where she gets this idea that people tell children they are perfect, but it's a lie.

It is a refreshingly honest book that exposes some of the biggest self-focused lies many women believe and diagnoses the toxicity of “trendy narcissism” by directing the reader to seek the healing salve of God’s unchanging truth.

The problem is that you’re being fed a lie. You’ll never “be enough” because total emotional or spiritual self-sufficiency is impossible. However, that doesn’t mean you have to live without joy and meaning. To bring endless love into your life, you just have to stop searching for it inside yourself. As these blinks show, you can instead turn to an abundant source that will never let you down – God. The first thing she talks about was how she wanted to be like Britney Spears when she was a kid, and I groaned inwardly to myself. I decided to continue though to see where she was going, and I’m glad I did. And honestly, to this, the main thing I have to say is what the hell? When women push this sort of patriarchal and controlling agenda, I want to scream. "God" forbid women be their own person, forbid they make their own decisions. No, their abusively controlling "god" must dictate their actions and choices. Their husbands lay down the law further. I pity this woman and all who agree with her.And yet, as an adult, you’re hearing a different message from lifestyle bloggers and spiritual Sherpas. According to them, you are enough. You have what it takes to achieve everything, from fulfilling your responsibilities at home to acing it at work. In the moment, this may comfort you. But eventually, something will contradict what you’re being told. Perhaps your toddler won’t sleep during nap time, or you miss an important deadline. Or maybe you find that you just can’t love that reflection in the mirror, no matter how hard you try. Then, feeling like a failure, you’ll convince yourself that the next practice or life change will be the one that finally works. The call for Christians is not to be the best version of their personality type, but to be like Christ. No matter what our natural inclinations, strengths, or deficits may be, we are all called to live holy lives.” Regardless of where you are in your season of life or walk with Christ, You’re Not Enough (and that’s okay)is a book well worth the read for any millennial or Gen Z woman. It’s one of those books that is easy to read and contains truth that is freeing to receive. In a word, it is relatable and I’m sure it is a book I’ll be recommending for years to come. Her opinion on the matter amounts to telling those who've made the mature decision to hold off on having kids to "grow up" and have them already. She suggests that it is women's "god-given" purpose to be a mom more than anything else, "pouring [themselves] out, even when [they] don't feel filled up" because even though they are not enough, "god" is. She even goes on to say that anyone married, mentally stable, and physically able is ready for children, entirely leaving out a whole slew of other reasons why someone might not be ready.