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

by Joan Anderson (Author)
Key Phrases: sturdy roots, Joan Erikson, Cape Cod, Mary Beth (more...)

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)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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
--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Broadway (April 10, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767920554
• ISBN-13: 978-0767920551
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #89,303 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

65 of 65 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.

40 of 40 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!

54 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finding Your Authentic Self: A Fine Book For Men As Well, July 29, 2006

By	Dr. Richard G. Petty (Atlanta) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (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)

It is a sad reality that so many people have their identities molded by the wants and needs of others. And I think that few would dispute that this is more likely to happen to women. There are powerful social and perhaps biological reasons why this might be. But the important point is that there are millions of people who are not fulfilling their potential. And there are many men who are stuck in the same bind.

We are all combinations not just of male and female biology but also of a set of identities that together form our sense of self. There is very good evidence that the female sense of self is closely related to her relationships, while the male sense of self is usually more closely linked to achievement. Though there are clearly personal and cultural variations, the implication is that most men and most women will likely find different techniques of healing and integration to be effective for each of them.

This is a terrific book in which Joan Anderson shares some of the exercises and activities that she has developed to encourage change and growth. One of her models is based on the work of the German-born psychoanalyst Erik Erikson, who delineated eight stages of life from infancy to old age. Joan suggests listing the gains and losses from each phase in order to help us identify our personal strengths. This is a fine example of drawing strength from the natural reversals that we all experience and using them to develop resilience. She also guides us to other exercises and techniques that make very good sense, and some of which I've found very useful, despite having a Y-chromosome!

So while designed to help women, this is also a book for men who want or need to learn more about their feminine nature, and who care about the women in their lives.

This is a book that is practical, wise and compassionate.

Highly recommended.


Richard G. Petty, MD, author of Healing, Meaning and Purpose: The Magical Power of the Emerging Laws of Life