Hello everyone!
This month we’re going to be reading one of my personal favourites, Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed. Tiny Beautiful Things is a collection of advice columns that take us through the ups and downs of many life stages. I really love this book because Cheryl Strayed, under the pen name Dear Sugar, offers such insightful, sentimental, and heartwarming advice on navigating life's many complexities. While the advice sought after by those who write to Dear Sugar is vast and may not always relate to our current situations, a lot of Dear Sugar's replies may resonate in some way shape or form giving us the opportunity to reflect and perceive the world a little differently. It allows us to take what feels meaningful, and find compassion for ourselves and those around us.
So grab your copy, sign up for our newsletter, and get reading! Our next meeting is scheduled to be in person on June 28th at 6pm.
Happy reading,
Taima
Reflections:
Oh Tiny Beautiful Things! This book always evokes so much emotion. I found myself crying, reminiscing, pondering my place in the world, reflecting on relationships and laughing at how profound and silly all those things simultaneously are.
The first quote that really resonated for me was on page 22 when Cheryl explained, “This is how you get unstuck, you reach”. You reach for help, you reach for a hand to hold, you reach for a glass of water, you reach for anything that will pull you out of the darkness. And as Cheryl explains, you reach not to let go or forget about who you once loved, but to feel lucky that you had the privilege of loving them.
To reach is also to realize that we are in charge of our own lives and capable of changing them. On page 205, Cheryl explains, “You don’t have a right to the cards you believe you should have been dealt. You have an obligation to play the hell out of the ones you’re holding. And, dear one, you and I both were granted a mighty generous hand”. Although it can be hard to grapple with the cards we were dealt, and like Cheryl says on page 97, “it will never be okay” that we were dealt the cards we were dealt, we get to play them. We get to take charge and be creative with how we handle our situations. We might curl up in a ball for days, neglect our responsibilities, and rewatch the office for the 7th time. But ultimately, it’s up to us to reach, when we’re ready to do so. And while I find that sentiment somewhat exhausting, I also find it empowering.
On a similar note, we’ll face many, many decisions throughout the course of our life. It might be difficult to choose one life over another when it comes to the big decisions but “We’ll only know that whatever that sister life was, it was important and beautiful and not ours. It was the ghost ship that didn’t carry us. There’s nothing to do but salute it from the shore.” (Strayed, 248). I love this quote. As devastating as it can be to mourn the life we didn’t choose, it's kind of beautiful to think of it as a ship sailing away that we can wave to from the shore of the life we did choose.
Another theme throughout the book that we see is the theme of forgiveness. On page 189 Cheryl explains, “Forgiveness doesn’t mean you let the forgiven stomp all over you once again. Forgiveness means you’ve found a way forward that acknowledges harm done and hurt caused without letting either your anger or your pain rule your life or define your relationship with the one who did you wrong.” It reminds me of Cheryl's earlier quote on page 159, “Something ugly happened to you and you didn’t let it make you ugly”, or Kurt Vonnegut's quote, “Don’t let the world make you hard. Don’t let the pain make you hate. Don’t let the bitterness steal your sweetness”. I love all of these quotes. Shitty things happen to us all the time. They impact us in all sorts of ways, and they shape the people we become. But we ultimately get to decide what influences us and what we want to focus our attention on. Of course these ugly experiences are going to impact us, I’d be more concerned if they didn’t. But again, it's up to us to reach. It’s up to us to go to therapy, to put some work in and work through those experiences. It’s like that other saying, it isn’t your fault but it is your responsibility and ties into the concept that we don’t choose the cards we were dealt, but we do get to decide how we play them.
At the end of the day, we get to turn the things, the painful things, the scary things, the unrelenting things, into tiny beautiful things. This book has given me so much strength to move forward, to take the hurt and turn it into something beautiful. Maybe it still hurts, but accepting it and all the beauty that surely accompanies it in whatever capacity, is how we heal. As Cheryl says, “I had that feeling you get - there is no word for this feeling - when you are simultaneously happy and sad and angry and grateful and accepting and appalled and every other possible emotion, all smashed together and amplified. Why is there no word for this feeling? Perhaps because the word is ‘healing’” (p. 311).
I can’t wait to hear your thoughts at our meeting on June 28th at 6pm, in person at 353 Church st.
All my love,
Taima
Reflection Prompts:
- Did you have a favourite column? Or a column that really resonated?
- Strayed talks a lot about forgiveness. What does forgiveness look like to you?
- “No is golden. No is the kind of power the good witch wields” (Strayed, 190). How do you practice saying no and setting boundaries?
- Why do you think Cheryl Strayed titled the book Tiny Beautiful Things? What are the things you consider tiny and beautiful in your life?
- If you could ask Sugar a question, what would you ask? How do you think she would reply?