A Weekend to Change Your Life: Find Your Authentic Self After a Lifetime of Being All Things to All People [Hardcover]

Joan Anderson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 4, 2006

New York Times bestselling author Joan Anderson gives women practical advice and inspiration for building creative, independent, and fulfilling lives through discovering who they truly are and who they can be.

Like Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, Joan Anderson’s bestselling A Year by the Sea revealed a far larger than expected constituency, in the form of thousands of women struggling to realize their full potential. After years of focusing on the needs of others as a wife and mother, Anderson devoted a year to rediscovering herself and reinvigorating her dreams. The questions she asked herself and the insights she gained became the core of the popular weekend workshops Anderson developed to help women figure out how—after being all things to all people—they can finally become what they need to be for themselves. A Weekend to Change Your Life brings Anderson’s techniques to women everywhere, providing a step-by-step path readers can follow at their own pace.

Drawing on her own life and on the experiences of the women she meets at her workshops, Anderson shows women how to move beyond the roles they play in relationship to others and reclaim their individuality. Through illustrations and gentle instruction, she illuminates the rewards of nurturing long-neglected talents, revitalizing plans sacrificed to the demands of family life, and redefining oneself by embracing new possibilities.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In her popular A Year by the Sea, Anderson wrote about a time she chose to live apart from her husband on Cape Cod in order to better understand herself. Anderson has turned her private retreat into a program, Weekend by the Sea Retreats, to help women learn how to have a full life apart from the needs and demands of spouses, children, aging parents and careers. Here, Anderson shares the exercises and activities she has developed to encourage change and growth. She draws on Erik Erikson's eight stages of life from infancy to old age and suggests listing the gains and losses from each phase in order to identify one's personal strengths. Another technique is the beach walk, which allows women to get in touch with their bodies and emotions as they trek alone on the shore, collecting shells, rocks and driftwood, swimming, or drawing pictures in the sand. Anderson's warm, inviting tone will appeal to women who feel, as she did, that they need time and space to reinvent themselves. (Apr. 4)
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Review

“Anderson’s warm, inviting tone will appeal to women who feel, as she did, that they need time and space to reinvent themselves.” —Publishers Weekly

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Broadway; 1ST edition (April 4, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767920546
• ISBN-13: 978-0767920544
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #516,388 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Joan Anderson is a journalist and the bestselling author of A Year by the
Sea, An Unfinished Marriage, A Walk on the Beach, and A Weekend to Change
Your Life. She lives with her husband on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and
conducts weekend workshops for women around the country.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

96 of 98 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Beautiful Authentic Book, April 26, 2006

By 

Mary Annan - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Weekend to Change Your Life: Find Your Authentic Self After a Lifetime of Being All Things to All People (Hardcover)

Joan Anderson shares beautifully in this book how to take stock of your feelings, your role with the people in your life, and how you feel concerning your entire life.

Her honest sharing and comforting remedies to restore yourself back to who you are underneath it all, while peeling away the masks, tasks and the ways we learned to appease others while sacrificing ourselves, is revealing, healing and truly beneficial.

I found great comfort in this beautiful book, and could relate to so many things discussed. Once you learn how to face it all, then you can learn how to turn it all around.

If you have "been all things to all people" and would like to finally learn how to be there for you, this book will greatly help you!

This is such a profound and important book that will certainly bring great awareness to you.

If you enjoyed, or are interested in this book, I'd like to recommend another life changing book -"Know Yourself: A Woman's Guide to Wholeness, Radiance, & Supreme Confidence" by Barbara Rose. I feel these two books are profound, & provide the information to help you learn, grow and flourish the way you deserve to.

68 of 69 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best of Many, May 22, 2007

By 

Weewill (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Weekend to Change Your Life: Find Your Authentic Self After a Lifetime of Being All Things to All People (Paperback)

I'm not a big fan of self-help books and am pretty cautious in my response to readings like this. A Weekend to Change Your Life, however is one of the true exceptions I've had the pleasure to read. The author is not preaching or in any way a know-it-all but she challenges very basic feelings and emotions in each and every person, whether we admit to them or not. And in going thru her exercises we are drawn into trying her suggestions and digging deep into our souls to see why we do so many of the things we do. The author has deep, deep respect for the uniqueness and value of every emotion and individual. She doesn't judge or ever try to criticize or downgrade. She teaches us acceptance and deeper understanding of whatever is causing our innermost private thoughts and feelings. It's truly a treasure and one that I highly recommend for every woman, no matter how old. I readily admit that one of the feelings I deal with most often is that "I'm too old; I'm 73 years old; I'd like to do this or that, but I don't have enough time left to start now, etc." Nonsense! Joan Anderson has prompted me to try, even at this ripe old age to at the very least try and to live each day left to maximum fullillment and satisfaction. !

52 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Give this book and yourself a chance..., May 16, 2006

By 

Heather La Ree (Paso Robles, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Weekend to Change Your Life: Find Your Authentic Self After a Lifetime of Being All Things to All People (Hardcover)

If you are standing at your own edges, sometimes desperate--sometimes numbed, please get this book. And if you can, get A YEAR BY THE SEA first and then A WEEKEND TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE.

Joan Anderson is a way-shower -- one who flung herself over her edge and found her breath, her self and her way to her spark, her spirit AND her marriage. No one's story or path will unfold the same but Anderson's certainly spoke to me in a time I dearly needed to know I wasn't alone and her experience expanded my own breath and options.

Her follow-up book, "A Weekend...", offers us tools to tweak and use our unique way. It's just great to know that someone HAS gone down the path and she left the light on for those of us stumbling and rolling behind her.

I found the second half of the book more charged than the first half but that could have been me. It is a book to be highlighted, notes taken and posted, dog-eared and re-visited. Consider it a fabulous class!