We Can Do Hard Things: Book Notes & Review

A reminder: Don’t live each day as if it’s your last — live it as if it’s your first.

Some books arrive when you’re in crisis. Others arrive when you’re on the edge of something new. We Can Do Hard Things is the rare one that works for both. It doesn’t scream at you to change or pressure you to fix your life. It simply meets you — wherever you are — and quietly reminds you that healing is possible, and in fact a constant, in life.

The book reads more like a sacred mixtape than a self-help manual. With 118 contributors, it’s a curated library of stories, truths, and tools — ranging from body wisdom to boundaries, grief to belonging, intergenerational trauma to spiritual liberation. Whether you’re flipping to a random page or slowly digesting it cover to cover, the book keeps giving. Tip: get the physical book if you like to “flip to a page” in a book and gain some wisdom in bite-size pieces.

Here are my biggest takeaways…

Your exhaustion, hypervigilence, and disconnection are not flaws. They are your body speaking to you.

One of the biggest takeaways from this book is that trauma is not only what happens to us — it’s also what happens inside of us in response...and how it stagnates if we do not feel it and face it. And often, the body keeps the score long after the mind forgets. It becomes toxic, like stagnant water that hasn’t been able to flow.

Trauma is defined here not just as catastrophe, but as “too much, too fast, too soon, or too long — without repair.” It’s the rupture without the repair that leaves its mark, no matter what the trauma experience was.

The chapters that touch on somatic healing, ancestral trauma (Galit Atlas), and even historical research like the Dutch famine study, all point to the same thing: Your exhaustion, hypervigilance, and disconnection aren’t flaws. They’re memories. The body doesn’t malfunction — it remembers. And in stillness, we can begin to unravel the layers of coping mechanisms we’ve put into place to combat simply feeling the “bad” feelings (avoidance, overwork, etc).

Life isn’t a game problem or puzzle to solve. It’s a dance — there’s no solving it. Just letting yourself feel and move to the music.

Are you doing well, but not feeling well?

“When your body feels exhausted, it’s not a deficiency — it’s a message.” (Glennon Doyle)

We’re taught that burnout is normal. That exhaustion means we’re doing something right. That our worth is measured by our output. But the book flips this completely.

Burnout, resentment, disconnection — these aren’t failures. They’re signals. They’re the body’s way of saying, “You’ve lost yourself. It’s time to come back.”

Rest isn’t a luxury. It’s repair. And you don’t have to “earn” your way to it.

And this is the part many of us miss: You can be doing well — and still not be well. Your calendar might be full, your Instagram smiling, your work thriving. But if you’re secretly hollowed out… that’s not wellness. That’s performance. And the cost is your soul.

We cling to productivity, to our beliefs and self-images, like we’re staying upright on the tip of the Titanic. Because to sink into stillness would mean dropping into the body — where our knowing, our trauma, our unmet needs live. But that’s also where healing lives. And the only way to get there is to stop clinging… and start sinking.

Healing doesn’t happen through more doing. It happens through presence. Through surrender. Through the courage to sit with what is — without immediately fixing it.

Resentment is actually a big red arrow pointing to where your needs aren’t met.

Resentment isn’t a sign you’re bitter. It’s a signal you’ve betrayed yourself somewhere, or are bitter toward another person/thing for being “worth” what you actually desire. It’s a flashing arrow pointing toward a boundary you didn’t hold, a truth you didn’t speak, or a need you convinced yourself you weren’t allowed to have.

It often shows up subtly:

• Feeling annoyed that someone else took a nap while you pushed through. (How lucky they must be to just take a nap?!)

• Rolling your eyes at someone watching a movie at 2pm and thinking, “Must be nice.” (Doesn’t this person have a 200-item to-do list like I do?!)

• Feeling burdened by a loved one’s request for connection. (He wants to sit on the couch and watch a movie, doesn’t he know I have that 200-item to-do list?!)

The bitterness isn’t the issue. It’s the buried desire underneath.

Resentment doesn’t mean you’re selfish. It means you’re depleted. And underneath that depletion is an unmet need that still wants to be known.

If you trace resentment back to its root, what you often find isn’t hate — it’s longing. And the longing is very often a form of rest.

Anger isn’t to be silenced. It’s unmet need.

Grief isn’t weakness. It’s unspent love.

Forgiveness doesn’t mean reconciliation. It means choosing to stop carrying what’s too heavy.

You don’t need closure. You need release. You don’t need perfect healing. You need presence.

Suffering is the single sign we’ve lost ourselves — it’s actually a gift. It reveals your inner compass.

Are you chooing long-term suffering over short-term pain?

Change often hurts (or feels uncomfortable) — but staying stuck hurts more.

Sometimes we suffer for years to avoid a few minutes of discomfort:

• We stay in a relationship that drains us to avoid the heartbreak of letting go.

• We keep showing up for a toxic friendship because saying goodbye feels too jarring or awkward.

• We cling to an unfulfilling job because the unknown feels scarier than dissatisfaction.

Setting boundaries isn’t the hard part. Withstanding what happens after is. Holding your boundary, reinforcing it, living with the pushback — that’s where the real courage lives.

Things can be hard and still be right. The right decision won’t always feel easy or pain-free — and that doesn’t mean it’s wrong. It just means you’re human. And grief and loss are part of any meaningful transformation.

Endings aren’t failures. Endings are part of the rhythm of becoming. They make space for what’s next.

As one line from the book says: “Recovery is recovering who you were meant to be.”

And sometimes that recovery requires choosing the short-term pain — so you can stop living in long-term suffering.

The edge you’re numbing is actually the catalyst that will change your life.

If you touch a hot stove, the discomfort keeps you from getting burnt again. If you numbed the pain, you’d keep getting burnt. That’s what we do with our lives. We numb away (through things like TV, a glass of wine at night, the doomscroll on the phone, or even overworking) the discomfort that’s trying to signal: Something’s wrong.

Does that edgy, unsettled feeling creep in at the end of the day? Don’t silence it. Face it. Let it speak. That restlessness might be the very whisper that saves you.

Are you running super fast to stay distracted from the truth of things?

You can’t heal without sitting still for a moment (think about wounds! and broken bones! they must rest — be still!)

Stillness isn’t doing nothing. It’s the precursor to everything. It’s where you gather the wisdom to know what hard thing you must do, and the energy to do it…and it’s hard to do (it takes courage!) in the face of a society that values workaholism. But stillness is where you stop and collect the potential energy that becomes the kinetic energy you need to make change and to expand into the best, most feel-good version of you.

There are so many more gems of wisdom in this book — I highly recommend picking it up.

When you feel you need more discipline , you usually need more kindness. When you feel you need more grit, you usually need more help. (Emily Nagoski)

*This post is a guest post, originally posted by Ashley Southard