The Brave Art of Motherhood - Review

The Brave Art of Motherhood: Fight Fear, Gain Confidence, and Find Yourself Again

By: Rachel Marie Martin

Publication: October 9th 2018 by Waterbrook Press

208 pages

Genre: Non-fiction, Self-Help

Source: Publisher via NetGalley (Thank you!!)

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Goodreads description--Full-time FindingJoy.net blogger, speaker, marketer, podcaster, and single mom of seven, Rachel Martin presents a pivotal book for moms to spark the hope they need to overcome self-doubt, fear, pressure, and isolation.

This book is part encouragement and part rally cry for moms everywhere who have gotten lost within the pages of their own story, undervaluing all they do every day and exchanging the beauty of who they are for a Pinterest-perfect illusion. It gives you the tools you need to overcome fear, loneliness, and inaction. By drawing on anecdotes and lessons from her own life, Rachel empowers moms to forget their past mistakes, celebrate what they've already accomplished, and dare to be real about their struggles. She teaches them to cheer each other on toward better days, so that "alone" is replaced with "comradeship" and "fear" is replaced with "courage." You can make changes. You can overcome fear and doubt. You can pursue dreams, find yourself, and live a life of deep happiness and uncontainable joy.

First I need to say that I've been extremely busy in my personal life. *I'm planning and executing a joint birthday party for my one year old and three year old. I'm cleaning house in all of my free time and when I'm not cleaning house I've been working on a side project. That's left me very little time to read. And while this isn't a fault of the book itself, it does factor into my experience of the book, I fell asleep almost every time I finally got a chance to pick this book up. It wasn't that the information wasn't interesting. But the slow speed I made progress was really dragging me down. Again the book isn't really to fault for this--real life got in the way.

I will say that the beginning of this book was a struggle to me. Rachel Marie Martin spends the beginning of the book setting up her struggles so that she can through the rest of the book show her personal transformation and how far she's come. And I knew that was likely the case, but as is the case with fictional characters, when they're struggling it can be a challenge for me as a reader to go through the struggles with them. She also discusses her assumptions made upon others and the church which turned out to be false assumptions, but this wasn't easy for me to read either. While I might not always remember that what we see isn't always all there is to other people, I do try not to assume that others have it all together or have a perfect life that I don't have. It does help that the spiritual family I'm a part of is very open with each other about our struggles. But what she was seeing--or assuming that she saw--of ofthers and the church hit some nerves with me. Thankfully the point of this section is exactly to show the error in her thinking.

I ended up highlighting quite a few passages from The Brave Art of Motherhood. Here are a few of my favorites:

-"Be brave," says my spirit. "Wait," says fear. "Have courage," says my soul. "Not yet," says worry. "Dare," says my heart.

-Do you know what is on the other side of hiding? Freedom.

-... the heart, left unchecked, can easily override the brain's logic and accept irrational, unwise, and incorrect agreements about self, beauty, worth, and ability.

-No one can create agreements in our hearts without our approval.

-Worry will never change a situation.

-...when it is harvest time, you focus on the harvest, not on the barn.

The biggest complaint--if you can call it that--is that I don't know how to quantify this book. It isn't really a Christian book, it isn't really self-help, it isn't really a book about motherhood, it isn't really a book about friendship... I'm just not sure how to categorize this book. It is all of these things and none of them at the same time.

I enjoyed The Brave Art of Motherhood even though it took me so long to finish it. I couldn't quite figure out how to categorize this book, but that didn't stop me from soaking up each part of it. Rachel Marie Martin was both inspiring and relateable. The Brave Art of Motherhood gets 3.5 Stars. Have you read The Brave Art of Motherhood? What did you think? Let me know!