Play & Book Excerpts
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The Way of the Peaceful Woman;
Awaken the Power of You, Create a Life You Love and Set Yourself Free
(Clarity Books)
© 2019 Amy Beth Acker, LCSW
Who You Are
This book is for every woman who feels stressed, burnt-out, frustrated, and/or stuck. It’s for every woman who puts the comfort of others, even strangers, before her own.
If you’re reading this book, you’ve likely experienced a crisis in your life. In fact, you may even be living one right now. Maybe it’s a test result that served as a wake-up call. Maybe it’s a crucial ball dropped at the worst possible time (like forgetting to pick up a child or blanking on a major deadline at work), or maybe it’s just a quiet voice that has grown increasingly insistent that things simply cannot go on this way.
These crises are life’s way of opening our eyes to what is no longer working for us in our lives. They are blessings in disguise alerting us to the fact that our priorities have gone off kilter. They help us to recognize that the physical, emotional or spiritual abuse we are inflicting on ourselves must change and it must change now.
As women, we are trained from an early age to not burden others with who we are. We are taught that if we are true to ourselves, we will harm others. Taking time for yourself means the people you love most will lose out. Speaking your truth means someone else will be disappointed. Most of us live our lives believing that it is impossible to be authentic and to live with personal integrity without alienating or hurting everyone around us.
That stops today.
This book is designed to help you move out of crisis and into peace. It will give you both concrete tools and new ways of thinking that will help you to recognize yourself for who you really are: powerful and whole with everything you need to create a life you love already inside you.
It is designed to help you prioritize your own needs, to get reacquainted with yourself, and to become the most authentic, peaceful, and joyful version of you. This book is a practice in renewal: literally the act of making yourself new again, repairing what is broken or no longer working, and starting over with fresh eyes and a fresh heart.
I honor you for opening your heart to what this book has to offer. It takes courage to believe that positive change is possible. Whatever happened in the past has been leading to this moment, and I’m glad you’re here as we begin our journey together.
The Burden of Burnout
Most of us have lives that are full of big things like relationships, careers, family and friend commitments, and managing our own health and happiness. They’re also full of the little things like news feeds, buying birthday presents, shopping for new pants, clipping our toenails, and remembering to put the laundry in the dryer. The big and small things all take up space in our minds and our lives either because we believe they will make us happier or because we are told we “have to” do them or some combination of both.
Most of us have worked hard to attain the things in life that we hold closest to our hearts and we want nothing more than to appreciate them to the fullest. Unfortunately, this becomes difficult when we’re stressed, burnt-out, or just plain overwhelmed with the amount of time and energy it takes to keep up with all the moving parts in our lives.
When we try to be great at everything and be everything to everyone, life can start to feel much more like a juggling act with one too many balls in the air, and much less like the joyful journey we envisioned when we pursued these things in the first place.
We feel pride and satisfaction with our lives when we allow ourselves to focus on our achievements and successes (or when we can at least get it to look good from the outside), and we feel overwhelmed, stressed, and frazzled when we get caught up in the day-to-day frenzy of what needs to be done and how much there still is to do.
The truth is we cannot operate at our best in any area of life when we are worn down, from being chronically “busy.” Yet still, we try to convince ourselves that things will be better if we can just get through this difficult day, this hectic week or this crazy year. We convince ourselves that peace is somewhere just over the horizon when we finally get a promotion or change careers or find a partner or when our kids are out of diapers or preschool or out of college. Meanwhile, we’re so busy chasing happiness, we miss out on our lives—especially the good stuff like connecting with the people we love, being attuned to our deepest selves, creative expression, and the feeling of pure, effortless fun.
This book is about learning a new way of approaching the world. It’s about living with intention and living from your soul. It’s about connecting with your deepest desires and fully owning them. It’s about prioritizing yourself not only for yourself but to add to the greater collective good. It’s about giving the world, and more importantly, yourself a gift: the gift of you at your most authentic.
In other words, this book is about finding peace no matter what.
We can’t give to others what we don’t have for ourselves. When we embody the energy and emotions we wish to have reflected back to us, we increase the love, joy, and connection for everyone. More importantly, we become able to give ourselves in each moment what has previously seemed always just out of reach: a life that is in alignment with who we are at a soul-level.
This book is for every woman who feels stressed, burnt-out, frustrated, and/or stuck. It’s for every woman who puts the comfort of others, even strangers, before her own.
If you’re reading this book, you’ve likely experienced a crisis in your life. In fact, you may even be living one right now. Maybe it’s a test result that served as a wake-up call. Maybe it’s a crucial ball dropped at the worst possible time (like forgetting to pick up a child or blanking on a major deadline at work), or maybe it’s just a quiet voice that has grown increasingly insistent that things simply cannot go on this way.
These crises are life’s way of opening our eyes to what is no longer working for us in our lives. They are blessings in disguise alerting us to the fact that our priorities have gone off kilter. They help us to recognize that the physical, emotional or spiritual abuse we are inflicting on ourselves must change and it must change now.
As women, we are trained from an early age to not burden others with who we are. We are taught that if we are true to ourselves, we will harm others. Taking time for yourself means the people you love most will lose out. Speaking your truth means someone else will be disappointed. Most of us live our lives believing that it is impossible to be authentic and to live with personal integrity without alienating or hurting everyone around us.
That stops today.
This book is designed to help you move out of crisis and into peace. It will give you both concrete tools and new ways of thinking that will help you to recognize yourself for who you really are: powerful and whole with everything you need to create a life you love already inside you.
It is designed to help you prioritize your own needs, to get reacquainted with yourself, and to become the most authentic, peaceful, and joyful version of you. This book is a practice in renewal: literally the act of making yourself new again, repairing what is broken or no longer working, and starting over with fresh eyes and a fresh heart.
I honor you for opening your heart to what this book has to offer. It takes courage to believe that positive change is possible. Whatever happened in the past has been leading to this moment, and I’m glad you’re here as we begin our journey together.
The Burden of Burnout
Most of us have lives that are full of big things like relationships, careers, family and friend commitments, and managing our own health and happiness. They’re also full of the little things like news feeds, buying birthday presents, shopping for new pants, clipping our toenails, and remembering to put the laundry in the dryer. The big and small things all take up space in our minds and our lives either because we believe they will make us happier or because we are told we “have to” do them or some combination of both.
Most of us have worked hard to attain the things in life that we hold closest to our hearts and we want nothing more than to appreciate them to the fullest. Unfortunately, this becomes difficult when we’re stressed, burnt-out, or just plain overwhelmed with the amount of time and energy it takes to keep up with all the moving parts in our lives.
When we try to be great at everything and be everything to everyone, life can start to feel much more like a juggling act with one too many balls in the air, and much less like the joyful journey we envisioned when we pursued these things in the first place.
We feel pride and satisfaction with our lives when we allow ourselves to focus on our achievements and successes (or when we can at least get it to look good from the outside), and we feel overwhelmed, stressed, and frazzled when we get caught up in the day-to-day frenzy of what needs to be done and how much there still is to do.
The truth is we cannot operate at our best in any area of life when we are worn down, from being chronically “busy.” Yet still, we try to convince ourselves that things will be better if we can just get through this difficult day, this hectic week or this crazy year. We convince ourselves that peace is somewhere just over the horizon when we finally get a promotion or change careers or find a partner or when our kids are out of diapers or preschool or out of college. Meanwhile, we’re so busy chasing happiness, we miss out on our lives—especially the good stuff like connecting with the people we love, being attuned to our deepest selves, creative expression, and the feeling of pure, effortless fun.
This book is about learning a new way of approaching the world. It’s about living with intention and living from your soul. It’s about connecting with your deepest desires and fully owning them. It’s about prioritizing yourself not only for yourself but to add to the greater collective good. It’s about giving the world, and more importantly, yourself a gift: the gift of you at your most authentic.
In other words, this book is about finding peace no matter what.
We can’t give to others what we don’t have for ourselves. When we embody the energy and emotions we wish to have reflected back to us, we increase the love, joy, and connection for everyone. More importantly, we become able to give ourselves in each moment what has previously seemed always just out of reach: a life that is in alignment with who we are at a soul-level.
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Amy Beth Acker, LCSW, is a psychotherapist in private practice in Somerville, NJ. She specializes in working with professional women who are struggling with anxiety, perfectionism, or people-pleasing.
Her first book, The Way of the Peaceful Woman: Awaken the Power of You, Create a Life You Love, and Set Yourself Free was released in May 2019 and is excerpted here in Sanctuary. Amy received a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and English from Rutgers University, an M.S.W. from New York University (NYU), and holds certificates in trauma and mindfulness. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and two daughters. |
