Sprinkles is one of three book bunnies who review books biweekly at their blog https://bookbunnies.blog/. Today she is delighted to write a guest blog for World of My Imagination, reviewing My Unfurling: Emerging from the Grip of Anxiety, Self-Doubt, and Drinking, by Lisa May Bennett, first published in 2023.
Caption: Sprinkles reviews My Unfurling by Lisa May Bennett.
My Unfurling is a book that fits many categories and so perhaps is really a book that may be one of its kind.
It is, first and most obviously, a book about the author’s journey through her life that takes her through alcohol abuse and delayed dreams on to sobriety and self-discovery. In that way, it could be viewed as a memoir of a recovering alcoholic, and there are many other stories of hard earned sobriety that could accompany this book on a bookshelf.
But this is also a book about writing to discover oneself and one’s identity. As such, it might make good company for books which focus on the craft of writing as a process of self-discovery and self-reinvention. For this bunny who regularly teaches her students that writing is a way of thinking, this is thus a very welcome proof-of-concept.
However, My Unfurling is also something more. It is a vivid and candid exploration of how one can lose oneself in cycles of procrastination, destructive habits, and avoidance, even when they do not seem to be totally derailing that person’s whole life. Lisa May Bennett’s drug of choice was alcohol, but many of us today (can and do) find all sorts of ways (“behaviors that are black holes for […] time and energy”) to dull our senses, avoid facing our demons head on, and waste our “one wild and precious life”. Whether it be binge-eating, video games, or straight-up substance abuse, the perpetrator persists in avoiding her life and her identity. The end result may be broken families, harmful or abusive relationships, and lots and lots of pain. But even when there are no such obvious disasters, there is always a sense of loss. Loss of potential, loss of self esteem, loss of identity.
Caption: Sprinkles is reading My Unfurling by Lisa May Bennett.
My Unfurling is by no means a self-help book. The author writes that she hopes her story will inspire others to take the initiative to remove their dependencies on substances and activities that hinder personal growth and self-actualization, but her goal seems to me to be more cathartic. She is writing to share her own story, and as she is writing it, she is writing the next chapters of her life. She is learning alongside us, the readers, what she needs to honor one’s own self. And yet, as I was reading this book, I could see very clearly for myself how some of my own personal choices have set limitations to my own personal growth and how my own procrastinations were hindering my own personal goals.
Lisa is that girlfriend that tells you about her own problems and how she got to resolve them so that you will get the hint, without being told what you should be doing. For instance, in her Introduction, she asks: “”Why had I been stuck for so long? What was behind my drinking, my penchant for procrastination, and my attachment to distraction?” Even though she poses these questions for herself, it is natural for the reader to ask herself these very same questions. And even earlier, she writes “I wanted to wallow in self-loathing and pity; the trickier task of real introspection was not so enticing”. How familiar! This is a most effective way to cajole those of us, who do not always take blunt direction very well, into taking a good look at ourselves and learning something new.
And indeed Lisa’s voice, throughout the book, is the voice of a real friend. She is funny and engaging, and self-deprecating at times, though she is careful not to go overboard into the land of disrespecting herself. All in all, I found her to be very easy to identify with, even though almost no feature of her life had anything in common with mine. The book was a quick read, very fluid and fluent, though I did end up stopping often to pick up a pen to underline quite a few sentences.
Lisa is anything but self-righteous. She recognizes that she needed some tools to deal with some challenges in her life, and as she did not have them, she resorted to alcohol. It is the human condition after all, there is often pain in life. And many of us are not taught effective means to handle the pain. In such situations addictions and other harmful ways of handling life might indeed seem like life savers. But at some point Lisa decided she had enough. She realized that what had simply been “coping tools and distractions” had begun to “restrain” her. (“What ate at me the most was how narrow and predictable my life had become. How the things I thought I wanted to do weren’t going to magically happen without considerable effort on my part, and alcohol was draining the time and energy required for that effort.”) She quotes a line she read from Laura McKowen at some point: “We feel like we need a real reason to not drink, as if a clear mind, a clear heart, and a still, small voice urging us to stay present are not enough.” This was a turning point for her.
Lisa’s path did not end in sobriety. She moved forward with a full transformation, what she calls her “unfurling”, as she opened herself up to a wide range of introspection-driven changes. She sought out her personal values and determined to live her life honoring her own self-worth. (“The act of unfurling is the great work of my life. Awakening to my own worth and what it means to honor that worth is a revelation. […] Most of all my unfurling is about finding the light so that I can bloom as many times as possible.”)
My Unfurling is a rich and evocative book that proves that our identities are always under construction, that we have the power to remake ourselves, that there is a lot more to life than distracting ourselves to oblivion. Recommended with no reservations, to all adult bunnies who know at least some of this intuitively but think that somehow they are stuck in a rut and feel like they are going nowhere. Readers interested in writing as a path towards self discovery and those who are looking for an inspiring story of sobriety will also appreciate the book.
Caption: Sprinkles appreciated reading My Unfurling by Lisa May Bennett and recommends it to any adult bunny who finds the words in the title page of any interest.
Purchase a copy of My Unfurling on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Bookshop.org. You can also add this to your GoodReads reading list.
