Already Enough

November 22, 2021
In this compassionate debut about fostering self-acceptance, Instagram-famous therapist Olivera outlines practices for readers seeking to change the stories they tell themselves about self-worth. Olivera begins by recounting her difficult background: she was abandoned as a newborn, which led her to question if she “was not enough.” But she determined to “rewrite” that narrative (“my new story goes like this: I am a person who is innately lovable”), and coaches readers that “it might be time for you, too, to tell yourself a new story.” She organizes her advice into three parts: “Getting Honest” (confronting beliefs), “Getting Brave” (including pressing through fear and negativity while rewriting scripts), and “Getting Free” (which entails “embodying... our full humanity, our goodness, and our inherent enoughness”). Olivera poses reflective questions that teach readers to unpack and start rewriting internal scripts, with a final “Ten Steps to BS” (aka “bogus stories”) that includes the necessity of repetition, to “tell yourself the new story, over and over, even if you don’t believe it at first.” Examples, including painful ones, from Olivera’s life are supplemented by anecdotes of her therapy clients, such as a persistent perfectionist who flipped her self-talk. It’s a brave and welcoming guide that will resonate with those who may have questioned whether they deserve to be loved. Agent: Laura Lee Mattingly, Present Perfect Lit.