Author Lisa Najarian encourages women to live their life with support instead of in silence.
Friendship, emotional healing and honesty are the prevailing themes in author Lisa Najarian’s book, Girl, Unpack That!: The Trip That Changed Us and the Framework That Can Change You. The book centers around a group of lifelong friends who reunite for what seems to be a relaxing girls trip, but instead, they end up revealing years of hidden emotional baggage.
The book is inspired by the Stillwater author’s own experiences and friendships stemming from her early years growing up as “the new girl” and the resulting moments of loss and connection. “We spend so much of our lives saying ‘I’m fine’ when we’re anything but,” Najarian says. The book dives into the challenges that women face trying to balance their careers, family and relationships along with carrying built-up emotional weight. Najarian uses storytelling as a tool to help women begin to recognize and understand what is going on within their own friendships.
Though Girl, Unpack That! is fiction, it also acts as a guide for reflection and healing. The foundation of the book comes from Najarian’s signature BAGS Framework: Bonding, Awareness, Guidance and Sisterhood, which represents a process for women to recognize what they have been holding in and release it into their friendships. The BAGS Framework is used and shown through the characters’ conversations over the course of the story. This gives readers an opportunity to see the process in a relatable way. Instead of offering temporary solutions, Najarian’s framework focuses on building long-term relationships while encouraging women to strengthen connections they already have around them.
The book also introduces and supports Najarian’s You Go Girl movement, a lifestyle and community built to help women create genuine friendships and support systems in their lives. “This book is an invitation to be honest, to lean on women you trust and finally unpack what we’ve been carrying—together,” Najarian says.
Najarian has one main goal: to help women recognize how hard it is to carry emotional burdens by yourself. Girl, Unpack That! is a reminder for women that being vulnerable can strengthen friendships, all it takes to start is one conversation. She believes that with the right friends, isolation can turn into connection. By opening up and sharing stories, women can learn to support each other.
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