On Being Human: A Memoir of Waking Up, Living Real, and Listening Hard

by Jennifer Pastiloff, Lidia Yuknavitch (Contributor)

An inspirational memoir about how Jennifer Pastiloff’s years of waitressing taught her to seek out unexpected beauty, how deafness taught her to listen fiercely, how being vulnerable allowed her to find love, and how imperfections can lead to a life full of wild happiness.

Centered around the touchstone stories Jen tells in her popular workshops, On Being Human is the story of how a starved person grew into the exuberant woman she was meant to be all along by battling the demons within and winning.

Jen did not intend to become a yoga teacher, but when she was given the opportunity to host her own retreats, she left her thirteen-year waitressing job and said “yes,” despite crippling fears of her inexperience and her own potential. After years of feeling depressed, anxious, and hopeless, in a life that seemed to have no escape, she healed her own heart by caring for others. She has learned to fiercely listen despite being nearly deaf, to banish shame attached to a body mass index, and to rebuild a family after the debilitating loss of her father when she was eight. Through her journey, Jen conveys the experience most of us are missing in our lives: being heard and being told, “I got you.”

Exuberant, triumphantly messy, and brave, On Being Human is a celebration of happiness and self-realization over darkness and doubt. Her complicated yet imperfectly perfect life path is an inspiration to live outside the box and to reject the all-too-common belief of “I am not enough.” Jen will help readers find, accept, and embrace their own vulnerability, bravery, and humanness.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Self Help, Biography Memoir, Audiobook, Biography, Personal Development

336 pages, Hardcover

First published June 4, 2019

About the author

Jen Pastiloff travels the world with her unique workshop “On Being Human,” a hybrid of yoga related movement, writing, sharing out loud, letting the snot fly, and the occasional dance party. Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild, calls Jen “a conduit of awakenings.” Jen has been featured on Good Morning America, New York Magazine, Health Magazine, CBS News and more for her unique style of teaching, which she has taught to thousands of women in sold-out workshops all over the world. Bring a journal, and open heart and the willingness to grow open and stronger for her workshops.

She is also the founder of the online magazine The Manifest-Station. Jen leads annual retreats to Italy and France and she is the guest speaker at Canyon Ranch and Miraval Resorts a couple times each year. She also leads Writing and The Body workshops with author Lidia Yuknavitch. Jen also offers scholarships to a woman who has lost a child through The Aleksander Fund. Read about it here.

When she is not traveling she is based in Los Angeles with her husband and son and a cup of coffee. Her memoir On Being Human will be published by Dutton books in June 2019 and is now available for pre-order here. She has created a massive online following from her personal essays and teachings. Follow Jen on instagram or Facebook. She is also the creator of @nobullshitmotherhood and @gPowerYouAreEnough on instagram. Her motto to live by is Don’t Be An Asshole. She evens owns the URL. Listen as Jen talks, Love Forward Talks: Inspiration To Love And Be Loved More Than Ever. *Register for Jen’s on-line classes at Yoga Girl.

Reviews

[Kathleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m not one to abandon books, but I’m over 200 pages in and feel done with this one. The message is fine, but the writing, while lovely enough, is meandering.

[Katie Devine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jennifer Pastiloff's debut memoir is a cliche-busting, genre-bending, tour de force story of a woman who lives her life under her own created mantra, "I have done love." This exploration of a childhood shaped around the early loss of her beloved father, and a coming of age haunted by anorexia and depression is so deeply personal and corporeal that it becomes universal and palpable in its telling. When reading about Pastiloff starving herself through her teens and 20s, my stomach ached. When she punished herself in destructive relationships while seeking love, my heart did. There are beautiful pairings of heartbreak and humor, despair and hope as Pastiloff moves through the world fighting and also often denying her grief and eating disorder and depression and hearing loss before discovering, through yoga and writing, how those very things are a part of what make her so very special--and so very human. It is a unique and incredible experience of an author saying to the people she connects with within her story, "I got you," and the reader feeling exactly that: held and heard and supported without being there or saying a word.

[Francesca Pohlman · Rating 1 out of 5]

100 pages could have easily told the story. Lots of repetition. Seemed a little self-absorbed.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's so much I want to say about this book that I don't really know where to begin. I had never heard of Jen Pastiloff before I picked up this book. I picked it because the title (and the cover) spoke to me.

This book is mostly a memoir of the author as she goes through her life's journey and then there are many sections that could be qualified as self-help through the realizations she's sharing along the way. But the whole time it's about her and it's not lecturing you as if she knows what's right for you. So in that way, it's not really self-help :)

The book starts when the author is really young and loses her dad at a young age which has a profound impact on her life. The family then moves back an forth from California to New Jersey a few times and then she moves to the Los Angeles area and is a waitress there for a long long time before she finds yoga and love and herself and starts running retreats all over the world.

The writing is honest, raw, introspective, unvarnished in the most beautiful way. At times it pained me to read how she was self-destructing so much and to read her pain. But then I was also cheering for her and I took so much of the journey along with her because the writing is so real and you come to care for her so much.

There was much I underlined here, here are just a few:

The idea was this: I can give this away, this love, I do not have to keep it here in the dark, I can give it away and create more, even if I don't remember what it feels like to be loved. I can create it.

I loved this. The giving it away and creating more.

This was a moment my sister lived with me where we were truly happy so I tacked it on the wall above my desk to remind me that nothing is ever one thing, that although there were moments where we hated each other and couldn't stand living together, there were also times like this.

This is so true. I feel this so much of the time, especially with people I love.

Depression is a response to past loss, and anxiety is a response to future loss.

For some reason, I had never thought of this, in this way, before. This helps reframe somethings for me.

We can only be where we are.

Obvious maybe but hard to keep remembering this.

I'm worthy to receive.

I loved this because it's not just about being worthy but about being worthy to receive. Loved this sentiment.

There will always be the one who doesn't like you, the one who says, No, you should not do this, Yes, you suck. And we always always have two choices: keep going or shut down.

Ain't that the truth. Who's going to win? The one?

I have no idea who she is or was or what she's ever done or might do, but my point is, life's pretty filled up with all of us walking around telling stories about each other and to each other and about ourselves.

This also made me stop and think. It's so true that we have our own stories about ourselves, about others, the stories we share. On and on. There's so much noise. Who knows what the truth is.

Instead of getting caught up in who doesn't like you, get caught up in who does. It's much more interesting.

i loved this idea. hard as it may be to implement.

"No one is going to give me a fucking medal," I yelled into the phone as if she were the deaf one. "I have to give myself one." There is was. My whole life I had been waiting for permission, waiting to be discovered, waiting to be acknowledged, chosen, given permission to take up space. All of my life I had been waiting for someone to tell me I was enough.

The lady who left my retreat gave me a gift. She gifted me with the revelation that you have to do all the ard work of loving yourself yourself. In that moment in the kitchen with those ladies and the wine and the chocolate ganache, I finally realized that no one was ever going to save me. No one was ever going to give me permission to be me. I had to do it.

And this. So much this. Not waiting. Giving permission. I have to do it.

If any of this resonates with you, I highly recommend this book, it will stay with me quite a while. I'm grateful for people who share their stories honestly. Even though this author and I have so little in common in our lives/histories, there is still so much I share with her and so much I've learned from her journey and her openness.

Thank you to netgalley and duttonbooks for the advanced copy in return for an honest review.

[Christine · Rating 2 out of 5]

I totally don’t get what all the fuss is about. Some of it resonates, but it’s not anything new:
-Everyone has an inner asshole (IA) to whom you should not listen;
-We are all enough;
-It is incredibly hard to break pattens, how we can’t beat ourselves up when we struggle. We all struggle. Always. It’s part of being human;
-You only need two things — listen and tell the truth
-From noonday Depression “Depression is a response to past loss; anxiety is a response to future loss”
-She plays a game: smile at everyone and be as nice as you an be and watch what happens
BUT there was a lot of Who would you be if nobody told you who you were? What would you do if you weren’t afraid (a la Shery; Sandberg) and writing in journals. What am I missing?

I had never heard of Pastiloff before picking up her book. She has definitely had her share of hardship — her dad died when she was young (and her last words to him were “I hate you”), her mom was abused, anorexia, depression, miscarriage, hearing loss — but she appears to totally be flying by the seat of her pants and admits she doesn’t really know what’s she’s doing. And there were just too many times, when I was like “What?!” Wanting to kiss comedian Steve who later dies — What?! Her oft used phrase “I wanted to throw up in my mouth” — What?! Definitely not my cup of tea.

[chantel nouseforaname · Rating 2 out of 5]

Started off so strong.

Jennifer Pastiloff has many interesting things to share about her personal story, and a few interesting things to say about being human, but tries to stretch her "influence" on the reader WAY beyond its means.

This book could have been 136 pages shorter, or 200 pages (as per my e-reader). I'm definitely not the target audience of this book, I know that now.

First off, where it went right: the Inner Asshole. Everyone has one, that IA is awful, her walk through the concept of IA and why we shouldn't listen to that person was spot on. Chapters 1-20 where she shares her experience growing up, her father's passing, and how she felt her life fall apart and eventually start to come back together was interesting and full of insightful moments.

I appreciate the importance behind why the main things we need to do to help each other and ourselves is listen and tell the truth. Coming from Jennifer, a woman who was hard of hearing and lied about that her whole life, that was infinitely profound. It's something that she was incapable of and then overcame. Lots of lessons in there.

The yoga journey. That's where this book went wrong for me. I had never heard of Jen Pastiloff before scrolling past her and the musician P!nk talking to each other on twitter about how we need to be kinder to each other during this pandemic. P!nk shared with Jennifer how her family has struggled dealing with COVID-19. It was an illuminating conversation speaking at length about the strife the global community is facing with dual pandemics going on, and the trauma that many families are dealing with battling COVID-19 in their lives and in the lives of their loved ones. I was instantly curious about Jennifer after watching that video.

However, right after Chapter 20, this book felt like the Fyre Festival. I hit the quit at 85%. It felt like Jennifer Pastiloff was trying to finesse me.

The way my mind works, knowing that certain kinds of folks get ahead because they use the levels of their visual aesthetic and personal connections to make money off the backs of people who really should seek professional, psychological, help to deal with their traumas; it's all too much to read once you realize what's going on.

I get the magic of having a person captivated in your story because you're sharing yourself, and as humans we seek similarities and the comfort of people telling us, yes it's okay, keep going. I understand it. I understand that it is cathartic to release your demons, and encourage others to release theirs. It's the essence of this book and I think it is an important way to encourage connection. However, it's also chaotic to bring people in and then drown them in your will they, won't they, baby story towards the end with sidebar, "you don't have to have a baby to feel whole" thrown in so people don't catch on to your wave, which turns out to be, a silent - "but I did."

I didn't come here for that. Not that, not the instagram yoga sh!t, etc. etc.

I started this book and How to Be Alone by Lane Moore at the same time. I felt these books had similar themes, and I wondered at the outset, how I'd feel about both of these books at the end, while I read them somewhat simultaneously, American Fighter self-help style. How to Be Alone by Lane Moore is the winner. I shouldn't do that/have done that because every story is its own thing. Every book is its own world. But... I did.

See how that sucks when people try to finesse you. Word.

Give the folks what they came for, what your title states it's going to be.

[Caitlin Snyder · Rating 1 out of 5]

I made it almost half way through this book before deciding to call it quits. I respect Jennifer Pastiloff's life work and the positive reviews that others have shared about this book. However, I could not get past the romanticizing of her eating disorder and the anorexia blue print she laid out for her readers. As someone in recovery, reading her story was triggering, not because she talked about it but because of the unnecessary details shared.
I hope my review can be a warning to anyone struggling that this book contains details that are triggering as well as a reminder that protruding hip bones and starvation is not what most eating disorders look like.

[Genevieve Trono · Rating 5 out of 5]

On Being Human is the best title ever, and before this book, I had never heard of Jennifer Pastiloff...but the cover totally sold me. This book is primarily a memoir of Pastiloff's life from childhood to present. She did not have an easy road and parts of this book were incredibly difficult to read but I so appreciated her honesty and her ability to share in such a raw and open way.

I always love memoirs and think sharing our stories is SO important, even when they are not totally relatable to us at first glance. I ended up connected so much with Pastiloff and found myself nodding along as I read. She has so much insight and wisdom but in a completely approachable manner.

I felt like she was talking to me, not down to me with her writing. And while she now leads retreats all over the world, it felt like I was just talking to a friend who happened to be introspective but also totally real. Pastiloff writes about how we talk down to ourselves and believe our own bullshit stories which can make us think we are not good enough.

Many people have tried to share this message before but it has never come across like this to me..maybe because they felt they have conquered it? Pastifloff it is relatable because this is something that is a lifelong struggle, no matter the hurdles you face and accomplishments you "achieve". She has this humility about her that made this different than anything I have read before.

I especially appreciated her sections on her struggles with her mental health. While it isn't exactly a "self-help" book I found so many thought-provoking lines that I kept underlining throughout.

"Depression is a response to past loss, and anxiety is a response to future loss."

“There will always be the one who doesn't like you, the one who says, 'No, you should not do this, Yes, you suck.' And we always always have two choices: keep going or shut down.”

Sometimes her honestly made me a bit uncomfortable, but I think that is what made this book so powerful. I can't put my finger on it as it took me a bit to get into the book and I wasn't sure about for it a while but now that I am finished, I can't stop thinking about it. She has a unique ability to share in a way that made me think about my own choices and reactions in my life as well and it is a book I won't forget as a reader.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dutton for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Kaila · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately this was not the book for me. I could not handle the writing style at all - it was full of extended graphical metaphors that made me grit my teeth. For example:

"Shh, shhh, it's going to be all right, reaching inside of herself and away from the darkness to that memory of safety and love, and there she found the idea."

That sort of sentence happens every paragraph. Some people might find that beautiful and evocative but I found it grating.

Remember, I'm just a reader on the internet who has NOT written a memoir of her life and so it's really easy to judge someone else's effort. Still, I found myself counting down the minutes until the book was over, listening to it in an hour stint at the end just to get it over with.

It is bad to end up on my "baby or bust" shelf. That last hour was ALL ABOUT BABIES. I did not want an hour about babies.

I was not the audience for this.

[Dan Connors · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am not the target market for this book but was curious. It definitely speaks more to women, especially those who do yoga or travel a lot. The first half was terribly depressing and made me glad I've never had to inhabit a woman's psyche. Holy crap the kinds of stuff the author brings up.


Jennifer Pastiloff apparently has a large following online and on her yoga retreats, but I just can't relate other than to appreciate her victories over deafness, depression, and a myriad of other problems. The best thing I got out of the book was to be reintroduced to Wayne Dyer, who apparently fueled the author's transition. Time for me to check out some of Mr. Dyer's bazillion books.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honestly couldn’t decide between 2 and 3 stars, but I decided to be generous. I think I just wanted more from this book, given that I love yoga and self-help and memoirs. But it was so meandering and all-over-the-place. I had trouble following the chronology. Could have perhaps used better editing. I took away some nuggets — hence the 2 to 3 rating. But overall, I was disappointed.

[Courtney Balleau · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author certainly seems like a nice person and I overall agree with her “glass half full” message but there was SO much name dropping of famous authors the whole book started to come off like a sales pitch. Plus, the “you don’t need a man or a kid to be happy” message was heavily diluted by her “I found a man and had a kid and am living happily ever after, albeit messily” ending. This book didn’t feel authentic or from the heart- again, a lot of mixed messages and I could have done without all the “friends in high places” references.

[Jade]

I saw Cheryl Strayed recommended this book so it was on my 'must read' list but meh, I just didn't connect. I normally love honest, raw women's memoirs but something was a bit off about this one.. I don't know as another reviewer has said that you needed to know her but it just came off as self absorbed and repetitive. It's a shame as she obviously shared a lot but i wouldn't recommend.

[Julia Williamson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Couldn’t finish this one. Maybe her workshops are transformational, but the minutiae of her life eventually bored me.

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Couched in beautiful, often heartfelt, sometimes humorous, and always honest writing, Jennifer Pastiloff spoke to her insecurities growing up and how she hid hearing loss for years and put off grieving her father's abrupt death for longer, all while finding out what she loved to do which is to uplift the minds and bodies of others through yoga and more. We all should kick out our IAs (Inner Asshole- that voice that tells us we can't or are too X) and do what we need to in order to best utilize the time we have, and if you need to seek help or take medication or cry or be angry or brag about success- YOU MUST. I so appreciate her outlook and her support of her fellow humans. Though a memoir, I got a lot more out of this than finding out about her family history and past jobs, she provides some great perspective alongside her anecdotes. People don't get much more real than her. I gobbled up this memoir and I'd be quick to read whatever she writes next.

[Ranjan Patel, Psy.D, MFT · Rating 3 out of 5]

I finished it, which says a lot because at this point in my life I don't waste time unless I'm sufficiently gripped by it. Her story has a lot going for it, and the way she tells it is especially sweet. The writing won't win any prizes, it's redundant in many places, and there's not a sense of cohesiveness. The unfolding and linear timeline of her life is discordant at times. I would've wanted her to write about her relationship to being deaf for most of her life, and also what it was like for her to start wearing hearing aids. As someone who wears them, this is a super rich mine of stuff, which I didn't think she delved into sufficiently. There's a lot written about her ability to touch and move people, which sometimes seems like a testimonial of sorts. But her sincerity shines through. It's definitely worth a read.

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Raw, real and unforgiving in its honesty, this is a book about the messiness of being human. It should be required reading for every human, especially those with an IA - Inner Asshole - as the author calls it. And we all have one.

A few favorite quotes:

“Nothing is lost when you dump the untruths.” - page 118

“The things we take. The things handed to us that we walk around with as they dig into our shoulder and cause us pain and yet we say, ‘No, I’m fine. I got this. I can carry it all. It’s mine.” - page 169

“Instead of getting caught up in who doesn’t like you, get caught up in who does. It’s much more interesting.” - page 311

[Crystal-lee Quibell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jen gets real about all the ways in which we talk down to ourselves and believe our own bullshit stories. Reading this book is like going to coffee with your best friend who asks you, “Now what?!” when you’re in the throes of a meltdown going nowhere. This book will lift you up, dust you off and leave you feeling like you've just returned from the biggest love fest with all of your best friends cheering you on. Throughout the book Jen shares the story of learning to listen fiercely (even though she is deaf) as she comes to terms with the loss of her father at a young age and confronting the IA (inner asshole) we all have that convinces us we're not good enough. I read it from cover to cover and will no doubt pick it up again and again when I need a reminder to not only confront the bullshit stories we tell ourselves but actually take action and do something about it. An inspiring read of love, loss and rebuilding.

[Lyndal Kilgannon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I got 150 pages in and had to stop because it was making me hate reading. This book had been so hyped up and could have been great if it weren’t for the ‘In the workshops I run…’ segways everywhere that put an abrupt end to whatever meandering story or flow that had just begun to take hold. There didn’t really appear to be a reason for these and it consistently felt like a showing off of sorts, a ‘I RUN WORKSHOPS AND THEY ARE GREAT AND SO HELPFUL DON’T YOU KNOW’. Even skipping these parts didn’t really help as there didn’t seem to be any connecting threads between stories or chapters and things were getting somewhat convoluted and repetitive, which made it feel like a very long pity party randomly flicking awkwardly into self-promotion and those bloody workshops.

[Tali Nay · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not really my thing, but most of that stems from the fact that I assumed from the way the book describes itself that it was a memoir of her time working at the restaurant; what she learned about life and people while working there. That’s what I wanted to read. The slivers we get of that we’re my favorite parts of this book. Mostly it just felt like one big motivational speech, not to mention a bit of patting herself on the back for being such a success, paragraphs and pages that are quotes from things she’s told her retreat audiences to encourage and inspire them. I’m sure this works and resonates with a lot of people, I’m just not one of them.

[Renata · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was completely unfamiliar with Jen Pastiloff when I picked this up--which was interesting, because a good chunk of the memoir is about how her increasing online popularity changed her life, etc. But you can't win everybody I guess! I'm glad I heard of her now!

This is definitely a bit woo-y and The Secret-adjacent, but in the way that I like, not the kind that full-on blames poor people for being poor. The writing is lovely. It's very good for the kind of thing that it is; if you don't already like this kind of self-helpy memoir this one probably won't convert you.

[Elizabeth Popielarz · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were parts of this book that I loved, but then there were parts that I couldn’t wait to get through. For some reason, I was looking for more depth, but her style of writing didn’t warrant this for me. It seemed like she went on and on about certain things (her waitressing) yet it all came off so topical in nature. Towards the end, I was counting the pages until it was done. If you don’t mind choppy writing and a book that reads more like a social media post, then perhaps you’ll get more from the content than I did.

[Kat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved her journey. Loved how she honored those who supported her and made her successes possible. Raw at times. Grown up words. ❤❤❤ The kind of story that makes you better for having heard it.

Everything I was hoping from Girl Wash Your Face.

I listened to the audio version read by the author. I loved hearing her voice impacted by her inability to hear. If you are particular about readers, the print version may be better for you.

[Natalie Park · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book spoke to me so much that I found the closest workshop (in Seattle) and signed up for it on the spot. She shares so openly, honestly and authentically that I highly recommend listening to her in the audiobook. If you’re open to it, it could be life changing!

[Steph LaPlante · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jennifer Pastiloff recently became one of my favourite yoga teachers after I started taking her classes on Yoga Girl.com. Her classes are full of thought provoking questions and beautiful messages, and her book was exactly that.
I loved the formatting of the book, the moment of the past blending in with the lesson.
A lot of what Jennifer was saying resonated with me and that made my experience with this book that much more.

[Dajana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somewhere between 3-3.5 ⭐️ . Definitely trigger warnings for eating disorders, death, and ectopic pregnancy. Not a bad book, but for a good portion of it towards the end I felt like it was dragging and I wondered if overall I was the right audience for this.

[Amy Bond · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jen Pastiloff's message is about love. full stop. She is the embodiment of giving and lifting up others and believing that there is enough for all of us to be our truest, most selfless versions of ourselves.

Jen talks about her experience waitressing, surviving with depression, trying to make it as an actress in LA, yogaing, deafness, fierce listening and through it all, overcoming her own self doubt to make her life about service to others. I can't think of a more beautiful message to share with the world. She is inspiration to so many and I'm so grateful to have this book - a capsule of the giving life that she leads - in my hands and my heart.

<3 <3 <3

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jen Pastiloff is a beautiful and generous soul. She is a master at getting people unstuck in their lives. Her book will help you get unstuck, too.

[Susie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I devoured this book!!! I loved her raw honesty and humility and enjoyed seeing her grow and rise. I love her perspectives on life and will reflect back on her wisdom often. Beauty hunting. Just so lovely.

[Martha · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't know if I'd like this because I'm not a huge yoga fan...I pretty much always wish it was over the whole time I am doing it...but I heard good things about her writing, so I thought I'd go for it. I'm glad I did. It was an interesting memoir of someone who dealt with the loss of her father at a young age, as well as anorexia, deep depression and hearing loss. These experiences led her down a winding path to becoming a yoga instructor and opened her up to become a radically compassionate person, to both herself and others. As an aside, I got excited about her Karaoke Yoga idea. That might be my kind of yoga. 3.5 stars