The Art of Showing Up

This is an excellent book for young adults. I am going to have my son read it when he reaches his teen years. But it is also a great book for people of all ages. The book is divided into two sections. The first section is about showing up for yourself (an often neglected line of thought). The second is about showing up for other people (an increasingly neglected line of thought).

The author’s approach is simple and straight-forward, yet illuminating. I’ve covered much of the material in the book with clients and I appreciate the author’s simple, scaffolded approach. Four stars.

The Art of Showing Up is a great guide full of practical and helpful ideas. The book is divided into two sections; one about showing up for yourself, and the other about showing up for others. The book offers great ideas and tips to living a full life by showing up as your best self.

I’m usually not a huge reader of the self-improvement genre, but the offer of an ARC for this book hit right at the moment when the stay-at-home orders started to pour in, and things felt very disconnected. Much like Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up told us things we already knew (if you don’t need it, want it, or use it, get rid of it) in a friendly, more nuanced way, Rachel Wilkerson Miller captures what you have heard about what it means to be a friend and repackages it in a conversational, modern tone familiar to the new adult/millenial population. The first half of the book focuses on taking care of yourself, or as Miller puts it, showing up for yourself. The second half expands on those ideas to take care of your relationships and the people you care about. My big takeaways? Really listen, set and respect boundaries, and allow things to change, including yourself and other people. But Miller has phrased in a much more eloquent manner, while making the book feel like a conversation with a good friend.


I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review.

I have to ask, is Rachel Wilkerson Miller in need of any new friends? If so, I'd like to apply. It doesn't have to be at best friend status--I'd settle for a "deep-shallow" friendship. Her new book of advice for taking care of yourself and your relationships is warm, pithy, and practical. You'll learn everything from why sleep is important and why it's okay to be having a hard time, to how to make friends and how to break up with them. This is self-help at its best.

A timely and playful guide to self-awareness that will help readers show up for themselves and others. Thoughtful exercises written in a conversational style that makes the advice feel like friendly counsel over coffee.

I felt like this one was written just for me! I’ve been not showing up for a good part of my life for neither myself or friends and family. I’ve managed to focus my energy on my kids without looking inward or outward for anything.

To say this has been a problem for me would be an understatement! I’ve been called flakey at times from those who have mattered most and instead of taking their criticism and applying it, I allowed myself to feel the hurt instead.

What I’ve realized now through therapy and a lot of self-work that I had a lot to work out within first. I had to be good with myself in order to be good for others and I’m still working on it.

BUT…I’m a lot better!

I’ve learned to say “no” when I needed to the time, I’ve noticed triggers that set off anxiety, worked on my breathing, and most importantly made attempts to do better. I couldn’t even see the patterns when I was younger and internalized the feelings of unworthiness. It takes a while to let things go, especially when you’re aware of your shortcomings but still isn’t accepted.

This book was a huge reminder to take time to heal, focus on the good, and do the best I can when it comes to supporting others. Most of the time my anxiety got in the way. My worry about something not going right or being judged kept me from building lasting relationships that I now wish I fostered.

If you’re struggling with showing up, especially during this time, give yourself a break, take a deep breath and pick up this book! You will find solace.

I previously worked a mental health therapist facilitating groups for adults with anxiety and depression. Probably the most frequent problem that came up was a lack of adult friendships. Had this book been available back then, I would have definitely used it as a resource! The first part is about showing up for yourself. The second part is basically a how to guide for developing friendships and learning what it means to show up for other people. I love that while Rachel's writing is funny and encouraging, it is also realistic about what it's going to take to develop these friendships, like yes, you are going to have to talk to people! So many people want the close friendships (like the myth of the lifetime BFF that Rachel also tackles), but don't know how or think that it happens without having to change anything. No matter what friendship situation you're in, this book can give you some advice on how to handle it.

This is exactly the kind of book I needed during our stay-at-home orders. After nearly two months of no social activity, drinks with friends, or coffee with coworkers, this hit the spot.

Many of us feel overwhelmed at what is expected of us, our overstuffed schedules, and keeping up. Using written techniques that helped me understand why I am the way I am helped me pinpoint happiness and how to be there for myself so that I can be there for others.

I enjoyed and appreciated the prompts to answer questions by actually grabbing a pen and paper, and now I have pages of thoughts, favorite things, and ideas that are meaningful to me.

It must feel defeating to publish a book in this Covid-19 world, and I think the lessons and thoughts in The Art of Showing Up will preservers!

In The Art of Showing Up, Rachel Wilkerson Miller shares information, examples, exercises, and resources to help you better understand and show up for yourself and others. I love the author’s voice; she sounds casual, warm, friendly, relatable, and encouraging. Reading this book, I felt like I would love to be her friend, which makes me inclined to trust her advice on how to be a better friend.

This is a book I plan to return to often. Some sections work best if you allow plenty of time to explore the suggested questions and practices, while other sections might work best as a reference. The author encourages small steps repeated often to build tolerance to new habits, and she frequently acknowledges that we all have different contexts and abilities, so her advice feels feasible. I particularly loved her guidance on boundaries, which I think many of us struggle with. And I loved her discussion of “body neutrality,” an idea I wasn’t familiar with.

Her discussions of how to cope when difficult things happen, in your own life or someone else’s, are especially relevant during the current pandemic. I found the concept of different levels of friendship very helpful; I now feel more confident about choosing how much to disclose to friends of different levels.

I loved this book so much, and I highly recommend it for anyone interested in living a more authentic, aligned life and having better relationships of all kinds. Honestly, I would love to see everyone reading this book, and then perhaps we’d all have happier, healthier, more conscious relationships with ourselves and each other.

I was provided an unproofed ARC through NetGalley that I volunteered to review.

Rachel Wilkerson Miller's "The Art Of Showing Up" is a great and useful read! The first half is about showing up for yourself (because of course you can't show up for others when you aren't for yourself) and the second half about showing up for others. Full of great. practical advice and written in a helpful/thoughtful and not at all preachy way. Thoroughly enjoyed it and highly recommend!

As a college counselor, I want to buy every student on my caseload this book. This book will lay the foundation for giving young people the keys to identifying toxic relationships, how to have healthy relationships, and to self-advocate for themselves. This should be required reading for all teenagers.

I really loved this book. The vast majority of the time I pick up self-help book, it's a form of continuing education for my psych degree, but this one really did it for me. There's research (yay continuing ed!!), other books to check out, practical advice, and laying out those soft skills that they never explicitly teach you. It's so Millennial I loved it (especially the references to AIM), but that might also make it not-for-you if the casual language of the book isn't your style (I will take the straight talking, jokes, and swearing ANYDAY though). I also really appreciated the secular nature of it too - so many of the books I've picked up have a Christian subtext which is fine, but also not what I came to the party for. I will definitely be checking out any future books she puts out.
I also really appreciated the reminders about showing up for yourself (I made a whole GoogleDoc of SEL ideas for my students), and will also 100% use the sympathy Venmo idea in the future. She has some good ideas and suggestions that were new to me, and does a solid job of explaining why things might happen and how you can respond, but she's not preachy, definitely recognizes everyone is in different shoes/places, and is trying to help people make healthy, affirming decisions/choices.
So, essentially, if you are a Millennial who is here to keep learning and is down with the swearing, pick this up.
Only downside: my ARC had some text missing occasionally which was a bummer cause I really loved everything she was writing.

This was a great read, especially contextualizing it now with social distancing and coronavirus making friendships even harder to maintain. This is a great book for brainstorming ways to really show up for your friends, and makes it much easier to tell your friends what you need from them. Easy to read, funny and insightful.