After accidentally seeing Brené Brown’s TED speech for a second time this week, I was intrigued enough to pick up her books. Perfectionism is a self destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: If I look perfect, and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgment, and blame. Embracing who we are means accepting that we are not perfect, loving ourselves for who we are, and seeking meaningful connection. Her TED talk – The Power of Vulnerability – is one of the top five most viewed TED talks in the world with over 50 million views. If we want to fully experience love and belonging, we must believe that we are worthy of love and belonging.

It means practicing forgiveness of my and everyone else's hourly failures to live up to divine standards.

In contrast, playing out those roles as correctly as we endeavor, somehow, feelings of shame or inadequacy mess up our heads. It means cultivating the courage, compassion, and connection to wake up in the morning and think, No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough. I'm a struggling perfectionist who doesn't want to feel vulnerable or weak and I want to know how to accept these feelings into my life so that I don't feel frustrated and angry about them.

Many of us are willing to extend a helping hand, but we're very reluctant to reach out for help when we need it ourselves.

Brené is also a visiting professor in management at The University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business. From gangs to gossiping, we’ll do what it takes to fit in if we believe it will meet our need for belonging. The second reason that I am struggling here is that I haven't done anything with what I have learned. Revolution might sound a little dramatic, but in this world, choosing authenticity and worthiness is an absolute act of resistance.

The book is divided into 10 "guideposts" that can help us let go of unhealthy traits and embrace new, healthier ones. While I know that I cannot completely rid myself of my condition I do know that I can control how I feel about it and how I treat myself in regards to it with the help of your work. Happy people are happy because they make themselves happy, they are the ones who think of themselves as worthy of love.Because the nature of the book, this review turned out be more like a summary than a review, and it ended up being much longer than I expected. Perhaps, like me, chronic 'namaste' sayers aspire to a higher way of life that is simply beyond their ability when they are in pain, and suffering. Unraveling wholehearted life guideposts, 10 of them, is unlike any other self-help books but illustrated with Brené’s personal examples of her own stories. Knowledge is important, but only if we’re being kind and gentle with ourselves as we work to discover who we are.