Girl, Wash Your Face – Girl, I Just Don’t Feel Ya!

I’ve kept this book on the shelf for six months. I kept meaning to write about it. Also, I didn’t. Mean to write about it, I mean.

Yes, there’s a story.

When I wrote about Rachel Hollis‘ other book, Girl, Stop Apologizing, I called it, “Fantastic!”

I might have called Girl, Wash Your Face “Fantastic!,” too.

Except.

See, it all began when I started my health journey and went in search of videos of encouragement from weight loss gurus. I found the YouTube channel ObesetoBeast and started watching because he lost a boatload of weight, had loose skin surgery, and I liked his mojo.

Then I found his videos on “Health at Every Size” and “Body Positivity” – both resonated with me deeply.

I began to check out all of his stuff. That’s when I ran across this:

Of course, I remembered her from the first book I mentioned above. I had the second one in the queue ready to write about.

“Yikes,” I thought!

Ay-yup, I needed to know more!

I got off YouTube and went to Google. This is what I found there:

• Girl, Wash Your Timeline – a NY Times article
• Why the author of Girl, Stop Apologizing had to apologize twice in a week – a Vox article
• Rachel Hollis, paid relationship pro, doesn’t ‘know a lot about relationships’ – a Mashable article
• I Was Totally Duped by Rachel Hollis – a Medium.com article
• Girl, Take A Seat: How Rachel Hollis is Spreading a Harmful Message to Women – a blog post by Jacksonville Mom

There was, as you can tell, A LOT.

And, I haven’t even gotten into the ONE THING that hurt, angered, disgusted and upset the apple cart MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE…

What is it?

It’s called Toxic Positivity and it’s anything-but Positive!

verywellmind.com defines Toxic Positivity as: The belief that no matter how dire or difficult a situation is, people should maintain a positive mindset. It’s a “good vibes only” approach to life.

It doesn’t sound that bad until…

According to thepsychologygroup.com: Just like anything done in excess, when positivity is used to cover up or silence the human experience, it becomes toxic. By disallowing the existence of certain feelings, we fall into a state of denial and repressed emotions. The truth is, humans are flawed. We get jealous, angry, resentful, and greedy. Sometimes life can just flat out suck. By pretending that we are “positive vibes all day,” we deny the validity of a genuine human experience. 

Oh my gosh, there’s just SO MUCH about the connection between Hollis and Toxic Positivity online and I don’t want to spend the ENTIRE BLOG POST talking about it… so, I’ll just drop a video to one very deep dive to finish off this part of the conversation…

So, with all of the above in mind… you can understand why I held off writing about this book or Hollis herself.

Dang.

Sometimes, I think it would be good to NOT know so much. Blissful ignorance can be very comfortable, you know?

This book really is a lot like the first one I mentioned. It’s easy reading, conversational and … what appears to be authentic. And that’s the trouble, isn’t it? Is it authentic? Who knows?

And that’s why I say that sometimes, I’d rather not know all the muck. I could read a book like this, find the good in it, apply it (or not) to my life, and go along on my merry way.

But that ISN’T the way it is and it ISN’T the healthiest choice, either. Also, blindly telling you – my readers – that this is a super book without sharing what’s been happening behind the scenes isn’t who I am or what this space is, which is why I do research.

So, all that said…

Hollis’ books are fine. Good, even.

Her life? That is the question.

Luckily, we all get to choose how we will spend our time. I won’t be spending anymore time with Hollis… at least as it stands. If things should change, I’m all for giving second chances. If not, then it’s a permanent goodbye.