Name: Cindy's review of The Art of Showing Up by Rachel Wilkerson Miller
Item: The Art of Showing Up
Rating: 4
Author: Cindy

Rachel Wilkerson Miller

When it comes to adult friendships, we're woefully inept - we barely manage to show up for our own commitments, let alone maintain our relationships. Even before self-isolation we were experiencing a loneliness epidemic: we communicate through texts and emojis, and rear away in horror from an unsolicited phone call, even if it's from our mum. Flaking out on plans is routine, both online and off. The Art of Showing Up offers a roadmap through this morass, to true connection with your friends, family and yourself. Rachel Wilkerson Miller teaches that 'showing up' means connecting with others in a way that make them feel seen and supported. And that begins with showing up for yourself: recognising your needs, understanding your physical and mental health, and practising self-compassion. Only then can you better support other people; witness their joy, pain and true selves; validate their experiences; and help ease their burdens.

The Art of Showing Up

Cindy

Showing up is what turns the people you know into your people. It’s at the core of creating and maintaining strong, meaningful bonds with friends, family, coworkers, and internet pals. Showing up is the act of bearing witness to people’s joy, pain, and true selves; validating their experiences; easing their load; and communicating that they are not alone in this life. If you’re having trouble connecting with those around you, know that you’re not the only one. Adult friendships are tricky!!! Part manifesto, part guide, The Art of Showing Up is soul medicine for our modern, tech-mediated age. Rachel Wilkerson Miller charts a course to kinder, more thoughtful, and more fulfilling relationships—and, crucially, she reminds us that “you can’t show up for others if you aren’t showing up for yourself first.” Learn to fearlessly . . . define your needs, reclaim your time, and commit to self-care ask for backup when times are tough—and take action when others are in crisis meet and care for new friends, and gently end toxic friendships help your people feel more seen (and more OK) overall!

How to Be There for Yourself and Your People

Liyah 🤎

Read this in a book club with a friend, and WOW. I think every 20-year-old should read this. In the first chapter, half of showing up for yourself is basically therapy, by which I mean lots of the info are things and skills I've learned in the last two years working with my therapist. I think considering therapy can be inaccessible or daunting for some, this is a good way to fill the gap. A huge strength of this book is its specificity. There are literal pages and pages of example sentences or scenarios to help demonstrate concepts. While I think there's a way you could write off the book as being simple platitudes or cliches repacked, there's a way in which the author takes those "basic" ideas like moving is good for you and setting boundaries but gives them a real treatment breaking it down to specifics. it shows how these simple things aren't as simple as they seem. I'm glad I bought this book because it feels like something I can return to in different stages of my life.

A self-help book for modern times (yes, even in the pandemic -- which happened after RWM wrote this!), The Art of Showing Up is about cultivating and nurturing your relationships, starting with the relationship you have with yourself. Normally, self-help books can grind my gears, especially when they err on the side of preachy. This book strikes a nice balance between being overly prescriptive and vaguebooking; one thing that's noticeably refreshing about this book is its emphasis on friendships in the age of adulthood, and how it's so important to nurture and grow your friendships (as well as evaluating and not being afraid to cast a critical eye on your more toxic friendships), as these are relationships that we voluntarily enter and grow as adults. The learnings from The Art of Showing Up aren't tips and tricks I can immediately apply (though the book does leave ample room to talk about effective allyship!), but I do look forward to applying those tweaks and changes into my life to be that much more present.

Cindy &
The Art of Showing Up by Rachel Wilkerson Miller

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Cindy &The Art of Showing Up by Rachel Wilkerson Miller

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Cindy &
The Art of Showing Up by Rachel Wilkerson Miller