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

~ (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: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #66,462 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

77 of 77 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.

50 of 50 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

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. !

42 of 42 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!