Narrator: Imagine you're an author, deep in the final edits of a book designed to guide others through grief. You've positioned yourself as a Sherpa, someone who has navigated the treacherous mountain of loss and can now lead others from a place of healed scars. Then, in a seismic shift that happens between one breath and the next, your own world shatters. Your sixteen-year marriage, the foundation of your life, comes to an unexpected end. Suddenly, you are no longer the guide on the other side of the storm; you are right back in the middle of it. Do you abandon the book, feeling like a fraud? Or do you rewrite it from the raw, open wound of your present pain?

This was the exact crisis Rachel Hollis faced while writing I Call Bullshit: Live Your Life, Reclaim Your Joy, and Embrace Your Awesomeness. Her decision to proceed, not from her scars but from her fresh wounds, transforms the book from a simple guide into a raw, shared journey. It’s a powerful exploration of how to navigate life’s inevitable crises by first being brutally honest about how much they hurt.

Narrator: Before any healing can begin, Hollis argues that one must first acknowledge the full reality of the pain. It’s about looking at a terrible situation—a diagnosis, a betrayal, a loss—and giving yourself permission to say, "This is awful. This is unfair. This is bullshit." Society often pressures people to find a silver lining immediately or to suppress negative emotions in favor of a brave face. But Hollis contends this is like trying to fix a structural problem with a coat of paint.

She illustrates this with the story of her first home, which had a bathroom painted a hideous, shiny avocado green. Instead of properly sanding and priming the wall, she just painted over it with a beautiful off-white. For a few days, it looked perfect. But after the first hot, steamy bath, the new paint began to bubble and peel, revealing the ugly green underneath. The steam exposed the shortcut. Similarly, when we cover up our pain with superficial positivity, the pressures of life will eventually cause that raw emotion to bubble back to the surface. The only way to truly remodel is to strip the problem down to its foundation. This means allowing yourself to feel the disappointment, the anger, and the grief without judgment. It’s in this sacred space of raw honesty that the real work of rebuilding can start.

Narrator: Major life crises often trigger a profound identity crisis. The roles that once defined us—spouse, parent to a young child, successful professional—can be taken away, denied, or simply no longer fit. Hollis identifies four primary types of identity crises. The first is having an identity taken from you. She shares the powerful experience of speaking with Gold Star families, women whose husbands, Navy SEALs, had died in service. Their identity as "wife" was violently stripped away, leaving them to question who they were now. Hollis reminded them that their identity as a loving partner was earned and could never be erased, and that they had the power to define what came next, guided by the SEAL creed: "If knocked down, I will get back up, every time."

Other crises involve wanting an identity that is denied, like a promotion you don't get; choosing an identity you no longer want, like the career path that now feels suffocating; or having an identity forced upon you by others' expectations. In each case, the path forward is the same: recognizing that you are an ever-evolving being. Identity is not a fixed state. It is a conscious choice. You are not defined by the role you lost or the expectations of others. You are defined by who you decide to be today, and you are ultimately responsible for what that looks like.

Narrator: In the aftermath of a crisis, especially one involving personal mistakes, guilt can be an overwhelming and destructive force. Hollis makes a critical distinction between genuine remorse, which can lead to growth, and weaponized guilt, which is used by others as a form of punishment or control. She recounts a story from one of her conferences where she worked with a married couple. The wife had cheated, was deeply remorseful, and was committed to repairing the marriage. The husband claimed he had forgiven her, but in every conversation, he would subtly bring up her mistake, using it as leverage to keep her in a state of perpetual penance.

Hollis realized the husband wasn't interested in healing; he was using his hurt as a weapon to punish his wife. The author argues that while you are responsible for your actions, you are not required to suffer for the rest of your life. If you have done the work to atone for a mistake, you must eventually let go of the guilt, especially if it's being used against you. This requires setting firm boundaries. Hollis shares her own experience of being judged by strangers after her divorce, and her resolution to not "hold space for your expectations, your recriminations, or your judgment." Releasing guilt is an act of self-preservation and a necessary step to reclaim your future.

Narrator: Our view of the world is not an objective reflection of reality; it's a lens shaped by our past experiences. Hollis uses the story of a childhood dog bite to explain this. At age five, she was bitten by a neighbor's dog, a traumatic event that created a deep, subconscious fear. As an adult, she logically knows that most dogs are harmless, but her body still reacts with anxiety when one approaches. Her perspective was forged in a moment of trauma, and it continues to influence her reality.

However, the book stresses that we are in control of our perspective. We can't erase the past, but we can actively work to reframe it. Hollis tells of taking a trip to the Leaning Tower of Pisa and, like all tourists, taking photos that played with perspective—making it look like she was holding the tower up. This playful act serves as a powerful metaphor. By changing your position, you can make a monumental problem seem smaller and more manageable. Seeing a crisis as an insurmountable wall is one perspective; seeing it as a challenge that can make you stronger is another. Choosing the latter is not about toxic positivity, but about adopting a growth mindset—the belief that you can learn, adapt, and shape your own abilities to overcome the obstacle in front of you.

Narrator: Many people believe that courage is the absence of fear, a quality reserved for heroes. Hollis dismantles this myth, offering a more accessible definition from Franklin Delano Roosevelt: "Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear." Courage, then, is a calculation. It's a conscious decision to act because the alternative is unacceptable or because what you stand to gain—or protect—is more valuable than your own comfort and safety.

She shares the harrowing story of adopting twin baby girls who were born addicted to drugs. For months, she and her husband barely slept, walking the floors all night with two screaming, suffering infants going through withdrawal. They were exhausted and terrified, but they kept going. There was no other option. The well-being of those children was more important than their fear and exhaustion. To find courage, Hollis advises, you must identify what is at stake. Is it your children's stability? Your financial freedom? Your future self? When you decide that something else is more important than your fear, you unlock the will to act in spite of it. You show up, even when it’s hard, because you have to.

Narrator: The single most important takeaway from I Call Bullshit is that you have agency in the face of suffering. Life will inevitably knock you down, but you are not a passive victim of your circumstances. The book’s central argument is a call to action: to confront pain with brutal honesty, to take ownership of your identity and your response, and to actively choose how you will move forward. Healing isn't about waiting for the storm to pass; it's about learning to build something new and stronger in the middle of it.

The book's most challenging idea is its rejection of the "teach from your scars, not your wounds" philosophy. It asks us to be vulnerable and authentic in the midst of our pain, not just in retrospect. So, the question it leaves us with is this: What hardship are you currently facing, and how might your journey change if you stopped pretending to be okay and instead gave yourself permission to call bullshit, feel the pain, and then consciously decide what you will build from the rubble?