I could not get into this book, sorry. Trying to clean up my netgalley. Didn’t realize that I was forgetting to leave reviews on netgalley itself, My apologies.

This book was really hard to read. I felt there was not a lot of solid tangible takeaways that could be used for someone with true social anxiety.

“Embracing the Uncomfortable” by Deborah E. Gorton encourages readers to stretch outside of their comfort zones and embrace things that are new or uncomfortable for them. She supplements these challenges with practical tips and solutions to make embracing the new, hard, and different attainable.

I enjoyed this book, but I think that in order to read it, you need to be more dedicated to change to embrace it. I felt like a lot of the book was pushing me into something that isn't my personality. It's good to push yourself to be better, but also some people aren't doing to be able to do all the same as others. I think that the biggest thing to remember is to be flexible where you are needed.

I gave this book 3 stars because I wanted it to be more engaging. I didn't feel connected to the writing and it didn't create a desire for growth within me. I do feel like it's valuable, just maybe not as good a resource for me as it would be for someone else.

The author made valid points about what is comfortable and considered the easy choice in situations usually doesn't offer long-term contentedness. By making difficult choices in the short term, we set ourselves up for a more authentic existence filled with inner peace.

This book was a good reminder that there's something to learn and grow from every situation, especially ones that make us uncomfortable. I think it would especially be a good read for those with social anxiety (like myself) who often shy away from the uncomfortable.

This book had some decent things to say.

Its thesis is that most people have values and an identity that encompass great, important things like "family" and "community" and "kindness," but that throughout our daily lives most people find themselves acting in ways that are inconsistent with those values. (Neglecting relationships, making choices based on fear of what others will think, snapping at spouse or children.) In the moment, the choice that is instinctively comfortable will not make us comfortable in the long term.

Continuously choosing short-term validation (overeating for comfort, overbooking yourself) will only lead to increasing dissatisfaction and trouble in the long term, as we stray further and further from what our actual values (a healthy lifestyle, doing your best at every task you undertake) might be. The author advocates "Embracing Uncomfortable" and making the hard choices in the short term, to give yourself a long-term existence that is more peaceful and authentic.

This book is written by someone who is a Christian, though it took me several suspicious chapters to find actual proof of that, but in a broad enough way to encompass people of any (or no) faith. I was just kind of relieved that it wasn't based on Zen.

Aside from that, the author is one of the "type-A, always overbooked, struggles to say 'no' to anything" sort of people who often seem to write self-help books. This is not me at all. My favorite word is "no." So that's always a little interesting; I always have to apply everything the author says by reflecting it into the mirror of my mind's eye and understanding it backwards. She also uses the words authenticity and community ALL. THE. TIME. which is always a red flag. (Take meditative walks in the city!! Leave the door of your inner city apartment open to foster community feeling!!!)

Despite this, she has some big points. The primary strategies offered were:

• KNOWING YOUR VALUES AND KEEPING THEM OFTEN BEFORE YOU (A few chapters on the process of discovering your own values. Can't be true to them if you don't know what they are.)

• PAUSING (Taking "intentional" time to pause and reset yourself, making sure that you're not letting the power of instinct take you off the path you want to be on and towards corner-cutting short-term comfort. AKA meditation? AKA mindfulness?)

• RADICAL ACCEPTANCE (The process of accepting instead of fighting tooth and nail with your own emotions and circumstances, the first step in being able to make changes.)

These were all right, but I found her overall truths to be more helpful than the strategies.

Her points about having to "accept that fear will always be a part of your life" and "picture what moving forward in spite of your fear would look like" were call outs specifically to me. And, of course, her central point that mindless instinct seeks comfort like water flowing downhill, and leads away from the real goals we are trying to achieve. There was a lot in here that I took to apply to my constant battle with eating healthy, but anyone with an uncontrolled behavior that they want to change, but haven't been able to yet, would likely benefit from the clarity laid out in this book.

This has some excellent suggestions and ideas, and some parts I skimmed. Overall, a worthwhile read. Like any book, this doesn't have all the answers. but it does have a least a couple of techniques that will help most readers, depending on what they need at the time. Recommended.

Thanks very much for the ARC for review!!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this arc in exchange for an honest review.

For someone who overthinks a lot, I was determined to read this book and hope to get something out of it. In all honesty, this book was okay. I definitely preferred the second half to the first Which is why I'm giving it three out of five stars.

I thought the first half was full of information and repetition on advice such as:
'Saying No',
the 'power of giving back to others', 'accepting people for who they are'
and 'asking for help when you need it'.

Personally, I believe it was all stretched out to fill this book. I had mostly skimmed this half of the section because I didn't see a point to repeating and reiterating the knowledge and advice already given in such a short span of reading it. Also knowing this information previously, I didn't think that much needed to be written for it however, that is more a personal problem than a fault of the book.

The second half I got more out of and was actually interested and curious to read more about 'Embracing the Uncomfortable'.

As mentioned, this half also had repeated information and the chapters didn't need to be as long as they were, but this time felt more like reflection rather than continuous repetition.

The chapters I enjoyed were:
Radical Acceptance,
Balancing Feeling vs Fact,
Justification, Minimization, and Denial,
and,
Conquering the "Failure" Lie... and Other Battles

With these chapters I really understood what the author meant by embracing the uncomfortable and, by doing so accepting yourself and your life so far.

There are definitely aspects to this book that I really enjoyed and I believe others will get some knowledge or understanding of themselves out of reading this book.

I've tried to download this a couple of times but when I read it on my kindle a lot of the words have letters missing so its quite hard to read. Please can you send the kindle version again so I can try and download it again. thanks

This book was really hard to read. Just really slow. Boring. And what I felt gave no real tangible advise on what I can specifically do as someone who struggles with social anxiety and the ability to truly be uncomfortable. The only example that the author gave that I felt I even was entertained by or connected to was when she spoke of opening her apartment on accident in Chicago for the art walk. Maybe I missed the point or just didn’t connect.