Book SummaryUntamed, by Glennon Doyle

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of Untamed

In Untamed, speaker, author, and activist Glennon Doyle explores how she freed herself from the strictures of society and embraced her true identity by rejecting the expectations and limitations society imposes on women. Her book is an intimate memoir—telling her personal story of addiction and rehab, falling in love with a woman, leaving her marriage, and rebuilding her family—and a call to action. Doyle wants her readers to use her story as a framework to examine their lives and deconstruct societal expectations, thereby liberating themselves from the metaphorical captivity that limits their potential.

Introduction: Captivity and the Pathways to Freedom

For much of her life, Glennon Doyle has felt like a wild animal in captivity—conditioned not to feel, think, or trust herself. To be free from this captivity, Doyle had to learn how to break society’s rules, upend cultural expectations, and rebuild her life based on her emotion, intuition, and imagination.

Doyle’s Inspiration: The Cheetah

Doyle’s inspiration for the book came when she took a trip to the zoo with her family. She observed a majestic female cheetah tamed by her keepers and trained to chase a stuffed animal around her pen. Doyle identified with the cheetah: She’d been held in “captivity,” trained by society to chase the “stuffed animals” of domesticity and conformity rather than pursue her instincts and intuition.

Considering the parallels between the cheetah’s experience and her own, Doyle realized that captivity is the universal experience of women—their primal instincts have been intentionally suppressed and devalued by society. To regain their freedom, she says, women must rediscover the wildness within them.

Comparisons Between Doyle’s “Wildness” and the Wild Woman Archetype

Doyle’s discussion of women’s inherent “wildness” and their need to return to their primal state is not necessarily new—Jungian analyst and storyteller Clarissa Pinkola Estés claims these concepts are as old as civilization. Estés explores the historical and cultural background of these ideas in The Women Who Run With Wolves.

Estés analyzes myths and fairy tales to reveal common themes and characters that serve as mythological archetypes in stories throughout the human experience. In these stories, the “wild woman” is a commonly-explored figure who resists civilization and lives in touch with nature and her soul. She often lives on the fringes of society, is not bound by its rules, and speaks the truth. Estés says that reading about these figures can help women recognize these qualities in themselves and remember their primal nature.

Received Cultural Messages

As a child, Doyle was creative, impulsive, and intuitive. As she entered adolescence, however, Doyle started receiving and internalizing damaging cultural messages about what women should be: pleasing and agreeable, self-sacrificing, and attractive to men—all while repressing their emotions and desires and deferring to others’ opinions.

Doyle abandoned her unconstrained childhood self to conform to these expectations and began bottling up her emotions, distrusting her intuition, and dismissing her imagination—this messaging took away her freedom and put her in the cage of society's expectations.

Why Social Messaging Disproportionately Affects Girls

Doyle describes how she was susceptible to the messages of her culture and internalized them at an early age. One of the reasons Doyle was so affected by this messaging is that humans place a high value on social acceptance and are therefore constantly observing the behaviors of others to guide their behavior.

In Influence, Robert Cialdini describes “The Social Proof Principle,” which states that when people are unsure of how to behave, they base their behavior on the behaviors of others in the group. Social proofs can be a way to cope with insecurity and pursue social acceptance.

Adolescent girls can be particularly susceptible to social proofs because they are more sensitive to rejection or social disapproval than boys. As a result, manufactured social proofs—social proofs deliberately created to manipulate behavior—disproportionately affect girls. A pervasive example of manufactured social proofs are the messages in advertising that aim to convince girls that they are not good enough. These kinds of manufactured social proofs can have long-lasting negative consequences, including anxiety, depression, and insecurity—all of which Doyle has struggled with throughout her life.

Pathways Out of Captivity

After her experience with the cheetah helped her reflect on her life in captivity, Doyle identified the "pathways" that had allowed her to break free and live a wild, undomesticated life. Doyle introduces four pathways to help you rediscover your wildness.

• Pathway #1: Embracing Emotion—numbing your emotions has stopped you from being able to express your feelings. This pathway encourages you to embrace and express your emotions to be fully human.
• Pathway #2: Embracing Your Intuition—the tendency to look to others for validation has diminished your ability to tap into...

Untamed Summary Shortform Introduction

In Untamed, speaker, author, and activist Glennon Doyle explores how she freed herself from the strictures of society and embraced her true identity by rejecting the expectations and limitations society imposes on women. Her book is an intimate memoir—telling her personal story of addiction and rehab, falling in love with a woman, leaving her marriage, and rebuilding her family—and a call to action. Doyle wants her readers to use her story as a framework to examine their lives and deconstruct societal expectations, thereby liberating themselves from the metaphorical captivity that limits their potential.

About the Author

Glennon Doyle is a public speaker, author, and activist. She is known for her three bestselling books—Untamed, Carry On, Warrior, and Love Warrior. The main themes of her work are parenting, spirituality, empowering women, rejecting patriarchy and oppression, feminism, and sexuality.

All of Doyle’s books are memoirs, based primarily on experiences from her personal life. _[Carry On,...

Untamed Summary Introduction: Captivity and the Pathways to Freedom

Do you ever feel that there is a more authentic, primal self within you waiting to be free? Author, public speaker, and activist Glennon Doyle has felt this way, too. She used to feel like a wild animal in captivity—conditioned not to feel, think, or trust herself until she learned how to break society’s rules, upend cultural expectations, and rebuild her life.

Doyle’s Inspiration: The Cheetah

Doyle’s inspiration for the book came when she took a trip to the zoo with her family. She observed a majestic female cheetah tamed by her keepers and trained to chase a stuffed animal around her pen. Doyle identified with the cheetah because she also felt that she had been held in “captivity.” She’d learned to chase the “stuffed animals” of domesticity and conformity rather than pursue her instincts and intuition. Society had conditioned her to deny her true, undomesticated self.

As Doyle made this connection, she saw the cheetah looking out past the fences of her enclosure—remembering her wildness.

Considering the parallels between the cheetah’s experience and her own, Doyle realized that captivity is the universal experience of women. Like this female cheetah, women...

Shortform Exercise: Reflect on Your Conditioning

Doyle received messages from society that told her what to be—pleasing and agreeable, self-sacrificing, attractive to men, able to repress emotions and desires, and deferential to the opinions of others. In this exercise, you can reflect on your experiences and compare them with Doyle’s.

What kinds of social conditioning did you experience as a child? How were these messages communicated to you?

Untamed Summary Pathway #1: Embracing Your Emotion

In the previous chapter, we discussed Doyle's argument that women live in "captivity"—an existence constrained by the expectations of society. Acknowledging your captivity is the first step to opening yourself up to the four pathways that can lead you towards freedom—in this chapter, we'll explore the first of these pathways: embracing your emotion.

(Shortform note: While embracing your emotions can be an access point for freedom, it’s important to note that too much focus on your emotions can be oppressive because it can cause you to become self-absorbed. Self-absorption can trap you in an echo chamber where you believe that only your thoughts and ideas matter. This mindset prevents you from being empathetic toward others and makes you needy and demanding in personal relationships. It’s important to be [self-aware and self-critical as you explore your emotions to keep it a largely positive...

Shortform Exercise: Learn From Your Anger

Doyle says that you can learn a lot from anger—such as where your boundaries are or what your core beliefs are—if you approach it with curiosity. In this exercise, you’ll reflect on an angry experience with curiosity to see what you can learn.

Describe the last time you felt angry at someone.

Shortform Exercise: Find Inspiration for Activism

Doyle says that identifying the issues and causes you care most about can be a method for directing your activism. Let’s look at some questions that can help guide you toward action.

Think of the many issues that are facing our world today. Make a list and choose one issue to focus on.

Untamed Summary Pathway #2: Embracing Intuition

We have learned how embracing emotion and not fearing pain can free you from the limitations of your social conditioning. Now, we’ll explore Doyle’s second pathway towards freedom: embracing your intuition.

Embracing your intuition involves being guided by a deep sense of inner truth. When you deeply understand yourself, you can make confident decisions. In this section, we will learn about Doyle’s experiences doubting her intuition, what happened when she finally embraced it, and how she developed a method for tapping into her inner knowledge. We will then explore how you can embrace intuition in your everyday life.

Doubting Your Intuition

Doyle observes that women are conditioned to please and seek approval from others—as a result, they don’t often trust their instincts and search externally for advice and validation. Doyle realized this during a crisis in her marriage.

After she became pregnant with her first child, Doyle married the father of her baby, Craig Melton. Several years into their marriage, Craig admitted to having multiple affairs with other women. Doyle had to decide if she wanted to stay in the marriage, and she looked to outside sources...

Shortform Exercise: Experience Your Intuition

Doyle developed an approach to self-reflection that involves connecting to a deeper version of herself and asking this inner self for guidance. In this exercise, you can reflect on Doyle’s methods and consider how you might incorporate her practices into your moments of self-reflection.

What kind of self-reflection methods have you used in the past (for example, journaling, prayer, meditation)?

Untamed Summary Pathway #3: Embracing Your Imagination

You now know how to embrace your emotions and how to access your inner wisdom. These abilities give you the tools you need to pursue the next pathway: embracing your imagination. Doyle explains that your imagination can help you visualize a life beyond captivity, change your life, and change the world.

Lessons From Falling in Love: Imagining Your Fullest Life Into Existence

Doyle had learned to embrace her emotions as she dealt with her addiction to alcohol and learned to embrace her intuition as she dealt with her husband’s infidelity. Her newfound connection with her emotions and intuition laid the groundwork for her to fully, freely embrace her imagination when her life took an unexpected turn.

In 2016 Doyle wrote a book (Love Warrior) that celebrated her decision to reconcile with her husband. While she was on a book tour for this memoir, Doyle met and unexpectedly fell in love with soccer star Abby Wambach.

She describes her experience meeting Abby as love at first sight. When Abby walked into the room, Doyle saw her future path emerging—although she had never met Abby, Doyle could clearly...

Shortform Exercise: Imagine Your Future

Doyle recommends expressing your wildest dreams for your life and the world so that you can act on them. This exercise will help you identify and articulate these dreams for yourself.

Write down your five wildest dreams for your future.

Untamed Summary Pathway #4: Embracing Deconstruction

We have now explored embracing emotion, embracing intuition, and embracing your imagination. We’ve learned how these pathways can release you from a state of captivity by showing you how to live free of society’s restrictive messages. Now that you are following these pathways, you can examine areas of your life where emotion, intuition, and imagination are suppressed. By deconstructing those areas, you can let these powerful aspects of yourself shine.

Deconstruction requires dismantling old beliefs and practices inherited from your culture, giving you a clean slate upon which to reconstruct a new life that better reflects your current values and goals. (Shortform note: Deconstructing your beliefs not only allows you to create a new life that’s more aligned with your values, but also allows you to more easily engage in change and creativity. In Think Again, Adam Grant says that the crucial ability to rethink your beliefs allows you to develop new solutions and ideas for breaking free of old mindsets.)

In this chapter, we'll explore how Doyle deconstructed her beliefs and practices about marriage, motherhood, and family in creating...

Shortform Exercise: Change Your Beliefs

Doyle achieved freedom from her captivity by systematically deconstructing her beliefs and assumptions. In this exercise, you will reflect upon the beliefs you’ve adopted and how they’ve changed over time—and you’ll identify which beliefs may need deconstructing.

Choose one of the following topics: gender roles, parenting, religion, or race. What were you taught to believe about this topic?

Untamed Summary Conclusion: Reconstruction and Rebirth

The four pathways we have discussed helped free Doyle from captivity. As these four paths converged, they empowered Doyle to reconstruct her life to reflect her truest self in four ways:

• The Pathway of Embracing Emotion: By feeling difficult emotions, she can face the future confidently knowing that her difficult emotions will help her grow into the person she needs to become. Doyle built a new purpose based on empathy and activism.
• The Pathway of Embracing Intuition: By accessing her intuition, she can understand herself more deeply and feel secure when making difficult decisions. Doyle formed a new understanding of her inner self.
• The Pathway of Embracing Imagination: By envisioning and articulating her deepest desires for the future, she can rewrite her story so that these imaginings can become her reality. Doyle built a new marriage based on imagination.
• The Pathway of Deconstruction: By deconstructing prior beliefs, she can separate herself from social structures and institutions that do not reflect who she is and what she believes. Doyle built a new family, faith, and worldview based on consciousness rather than complacency.

Doyle now lives...

Shortform Exercise: Write a New Message to Yourself

Doyle recommends that you write new messages about who you are and what you believe. In this exercise, you can identify the things you value most about yourself, your core beliefs, and the promises you can make to yourself going forward.

What do you like about yourself? How can you honor these qualities and treat yourself with respect?