Hannah Brown - God Bless This Mess: Learning to Live and Love Through Lifes Best (and Worst) Moments

To those in the middle of the mess...

I m a total train wreck.

Thats a pretty big thing to admit, let alone to say to another person. Let alone to say to a stranger. And when I said it back in early 2018, I wasnt talking to myself in the mirror at the end of a really hard day. I didnt write it in my journal. I didnt say it to my therapist or a close girlfriend. I wasnt even talking to my mom.

I said it to a camera crewin front of millions of viewers on TV.

Then I took things one step further: The hot-mess express, I said, when they asked me to sum up my life. And Im the conductor! Toot-toot!

Can you imagine? This was my chance to introduce myself to the potential man of my dreams (not to mention a worldwide television audience) when I went on a little show called The Bachelor, and those were the words I chose to describe myself.

Ill tell you what, though: I wasnt lying. I think a lot of people whove watched me on TV or followed me on Instagram would say I have lived up to that description to a T.

And Im okay with that.

I am a hot mess.

I dont mean it in a negative way. Its just the truth. Im twenty-six years old as Im writing this book. Im smack in the middle of trying to figure out who I am as a person. Lots of girls go through big changes and tough relationships and crazy challenges as they transition from teens and young women into full-blown adults. Im not alone, right? (Please, God, tell me Im not alone!)

At times I feel like Im going through some sort of quarter-life crisis. Is that even a thing? If not, then I think we should make it a thing, because lots of people I know seem to be going through something similar.

The only difference is, Ive been doing it while millions of people are watching.

While this is not a Bachelor or Bachelorette book, my time on those shows, followed by my winning season on Dancing with the Stars, just happened to come when I was going through some of the biggest changes and most challenging struggles of my life. I was watched, loved, hated, admired, scolded, and scorned, all at once, in public, while all kinds of commentators kept talking about my struggles with faith and sex and feminism in front of the whole world, in womens magazines, on competing TV networks, and even on NPR. And that led me to develop an audience of millions of fans of my own on social media; followers who tell me all the time that theyre just so happy to see someone be real on TV; happy to see someone who wears her heart on her sleeve; someone who reminds them a little bit of themselves and what their lives would be like if the cameras captured their reality on TV, messes and all. Mostly, they tell me how refreshing it is to see someone whos so open, which has made me feel empowered to open up even more.

But guess what? My most private thoughts, my private moments, the emotional history that led me to become the mess I became, have all been kept safe in my heart and in my journals. Ive never shared the stuff that I hope is most relatable to you, the person whos holding this book. Until now.

There were nights when my smiling face was out there drawing big ratings for these popular TV shows when in real life I was sitting alone in an empty apartment, eating takeout food with a plastic fork, crying my eyes out, wiping snot from my face, and questioning why God was testing me like this. Why was I feeling so inadequate, not trusting my gut, chasing false trophies, allowing myself to be betrayed by men who said they loved me, not recognizing the difference between real love and something less? Why was I so afraid to express my true thoughts and feelings, not only with men but in so many aspects of my life?

Maybe its because sometimes I didnt even know or understand what my own true thoughts and feelings were.

My life really was a complete mess, and God bless all of it. Because its in the messes where we learn the mostas long as we slow down enough to realize what God is trying to show us.

* * *

For most of my life the idea of slowing down had been a problem for me, but by early 2020 it was full-on out of control. It felt like my hot-mess express was going two hundred miles per hour when the pandemic stood up and pulled on the emergency brake. And then, just like everybody else, I found myself facing the world at a standstill.

All of a sudden I had time on my hands. For the first time since I cant even remember, I stopped moving from one thing to the next and the next and the next. And whether I wanted to or not, whether I was ready for it or not, whether I liked it or not, the quarantine (and a couple of mistakes I made during that time) forced me to take a good long look in the mirror.

Thats a good thing. I mean, it should be, right? How often do we get a chance to stop and really think about what were doing, who we are, and who we want to be? With 100 percent of my new career opportunities in Hollywood on hold for a moment, I finally got a chance to ask myself why I was going so fast in the first placeand why that felt so important.

The thing is, when you live so much life so quickly, you change. Thats not a bad thing, but I realized that whenever someone asked me to explain my experience over the past few years, or even over the past several months, I actually had a visceral reaction. I would take a big gulp, heave an even bigger sigh, and immediately feel my throat close up to prevent the words from coming out. Its like every thought would leave my mind, and I wanted to flee the conversation. I was paralyzed by the wave of emotions that rushed over my body in a matter of seconds.

Why is that?

Maybe it is because Ive lived so much life so quickly. It feels like Ive done fifteen years worth of living since 2018. Ive gone from being a private person, living in small-town Alabama, to being known all over the world. And flying all over the world. I had never even left the country before. Ive gone from single to engaged to single again. Ive dated more men than some women do in a lifetime. I slept with more men in one week than Id slept with in my entire life. And Ive gone from losing touch with my faith to coming back around to find Jesus still loves me, through all of my mistakes, my suffering, my losses, my wins, and everything in between.

Taking the time to try and find answers for myself has been one of those hurts-so-good things. You know what Im talking about? The first thing that comes to mind when I think of a hurts-so-good experienceokay, well, maybe the second (thank you, John Mellencamp)is a deep-tissue massage. Like, super painful and torturous in the moment. You think about turning over and punching the masseuse when she puts her entire body weight on the knot you worked really hard to get from all the stress you figuratively, and now literally, put on your shoulders. But after a few days the soreness goes away, the boulder knot of stress dissipatesfor a little while, at leastand you feel better.

Well, thats what I want to do with this book: to give you a hurts-so-good experience that allows your own soreness and pain to go away for a whileand maybe make you feel a little bit better about yourself while we do it.

* * *

Since long before the quarantines started, Ive been diving into self-help books by all sorts of authors, trying to find solace and answers to all my worries, or at least the feeling that someone out there gets what Im going through. Heres what usually happens: I start reading the book in hopes of gaining some insight, I find a place where the author describes my feelings and experiences way better than I ever could, and then Im like, Gah, why cant I express myself so eloquently? The struggle/experience/feeling resonates with me. But then it seems like the writer always finds a solution, and I realize Im not quite