Untamed

Glennon opens Untamed with the story of Tabitha, a caged cheetah she encounters on a family trip to a safari park. Glennon watches Tabitha stalk the periphery of the field where she’s kept captive and imagines Tabitha’s inner doubts, and her quick dismissal of those internal questions. Glennon imagines Tabitha saying to herself, “I should be grateful. I have a good enough life.” What does the phrase “good enough life” mean to you? Do you ever find yourself silencing your own inner voice? How does Tabitha symbolize Glennon’s desire and journey to become “untamed”?

When Abby tells Glennon's parents about her wish to marry their daughter, Glennon's mother says, “I have not seen my daughter this alive since she was ten years old.” This prompts Glennon to ask: “Where did my spark go at ten? How had I lost myself?” She soon recognizes that at age ten, she began to let go of her true self to be the “good girl” society expected her to be. She writes, “I was wild until I was tamed by shame.” How would you describe yourself as a young child? Does a particular age in your childhood stand out as pivotal turning point for you?

After meeting and falling in love with Abby, Glennon acknowledges that creating a life with her was the first original idea she’d had, and the first decision she made as a free woman. It forced her to question her faith, friendships, her work, her sexuality—her entire life. Have you ever asked yourself what you truly want, versus what you might be conditioned to want? Are there things you have denied yourself because they don’t “fit” with society’s expectations? Do you believe it’s possible to have what you really want despite a culture that might tell you otherwise?

Glennon recalls that after her first AA meeting, a woman shared some invaluable wisdom with her: “Feelings are for feeling. All of them. Even the hard ones.” Glennon remembers being surprised. She writes, “I did not know that I was supposed to feel everything. I thought I was supposed to feel happy.” What feelings do you think we are supposed to feel? What feelings does our culture tell us are inconvenient or inappropriate? Do you find it difficult to let yourself “feel everything”?

In “Imagine,” Glennon says that there is an “unseen order inside us” and that it is “the vision we carry in our imagination about a truer, more beautiful world.” Can you relate to this idea? Have you ever felt a “hopeful swelling” inside you “insisting that it was all meant to be more beautiful than this”? When? What did that feeling prompt you to do?

Glennon describes befriending Elizabeth Gilbert and discovering “a new friendship memo”—one with “no arbitrary rules or obligations or expectations.” Discuss the friendships in your life. In what ways do they operate by “arbitrary rules”? How do those rules serve you and your friends? If you were to rewrite the rules of some of your friendships, what would the new rules be?

Glennon describes her process of “unlearning the whitewashed version of American history” and beginning to “really listen and think more deeply about the experiences of people of color and other marginalized people” as being similar to getting sober from addiction. What do you think about that comparison? In what ways does Glennon’s “waking up to white supremacy” reflect her path to sobriety?

In “Invaders,” Glennon makes a list of “easy buttons” and “reset buttons.” These are things she does when she is feeling anxious or depressed. The easy buttons (boozing, bingeing, shopping, etc.) allow her to abandon herself; the reset buttons (drinking a glass of water, taking a walk, meditating, etc.) return her to herself. What are your easy and reset buttons?

Throughout Untamed, Glennon shares a story or an idea and then returns to it again later in the book, from a new perspective. For example, please see the chapters titled “Apples” and “Beach Houses;” “Directions” and “Boys;” and “Algorithms,” “Mirrors,” and “Eyes.” How does the way Glennon shares these anecdotes evolve? What new perspective does she bring to these stories when she returns to them?

In the “Imagine” section of Part II, Glennon recalls asking women to write a letter describing “the truest, most beautiful” lives they could imagine. Have your book club take some time in silence during which you all write yourselves letters. In those letters, describe the truest, most beautiful lives/families/friendships/relationships you can imagine. Let your imagination go wild, do not edit yourself. What do you feel when you read the letter you’ve written?

Glennon describes a snow globe she kept on a shelf in her childhood bedroom. She writes, “In its center stood a red dragon with sparkly scales.” She later says, “We’re like snow globes: We spend all our time, energy, words, and money creating a flurry . . . making sure the snow doesn’t settle so we never have to face the fiery truth inside us.” Do you identify with the idea of a dragon of truth inside of you? What do you do to “create a flurry” to distract yourself and others from that dragon inside? On one side of a piece of paper, list the ways you “create flurries” in your own life. On the other side of that same paper, can you list ways you let the snow settle? What does looking at those lists reveal to you?