From Anne Wilson Schaef's book Meditations for women who do too much

April 20th
Reality/Inventory
you need to claim the events of your life to make yourself yours. When you truly possess all you have been and done, which may take some time , you are fierce with reality.
Flonda Scott Maxwell

Being "fierce with reality" requires that we break through our denial about ourselves and our lives layer by layer. At some point in our lives, we need to stop and take a thorough inventory of who we are and what we have done. This fearless and searching inventory not only focuses upon the things that we have done wrong and the things we wish we had done in some other way, it also focuses upon our strengths and the things we have done right.
So many of us forget that taking stock of ourselves also means writing down what is good about us and the things we appreciate and like about ourselves. After all, honesty is not only about the mistakes, it is also about the good, the powerful, the creative, the loving, and the gentle, compassionate aspects of ourselves.

When we stop and truly possess all we have been, and done, we are on the path to becoming who we are.

So many wouldn't understand this.

All of us need to know who we are.

It's also important to know who we want to be, and that we can become that better person.

SS

april 21st

Self-awareness
Until the missing story of ourselves is told nothing besides told can
suffice us: we shall go on quietly craving it.
Laura Riding

Probably the most important journey we will ever take is the journey inward.
Unless we know who we are, how can we possibly offer what we have?
Each of us is a unique combination of heredity and experiences. No one else
has to offer what we have to offer. Yet, if we do not have the
self-awareness to undergrid our uniqueness, we never make our contribution.
One of the most disastrous effects of our disease is that we never really
have the time for the process of self-awareness, and then when we do, we may
be too exhausted to care.

I NEED to know my story... all of it.

Anne Wilson Schaef

April 22nd

Self-respect

When self-respect takes its rightful place in the psyche of women, she will ot allow herself to be manipulated by anyone.

Indira Mahindra

Being a woman isn't always the easiest thing in the world, but it's what I have to work with right now. There are so many aspects of ourselves that merit self-respect. We are unbelievably competent at what we do. We are flexible and strong and can be both simultaneously. We have good ideas that are practical and creative, and we can articulate them well. We have the ability to deal with several tasks simultaneously and attend to each one. We are organizers, creators and doers and we have great capacity for being. We have much to contribute including a perspective on life that is different from that of the men around us. We are here to stay, and we and others need to accept that.

My self- respect is not only esential to me, it isimportant to the world.

Anne Wilson Schaef

april23rd

Guilt

****** work is infinitely safe. In exchange for doing it you can extract an unconscionable return ... the women's pound of flesh.

Colette Dowling



We are often experts in guilt. Certainly we have learned it from masters. We unquestionably and with great doggedness go about our assigned tasks without a grumble or reproach.

We are armed, however, with our sighs, our clenched teeth, our pathetic looks of acceptance, and ourr sagging shoulders. Our favorite phrase is, "that's okay", but we really don't mean it. One of our greatest skills is suffering, and we do it so well. We get our pound of flesh, and we lose our souls in the process.

Anne Wilson Schaef

Tell me, is it really worth it? Are we ready to give up the guilt game? It gets infinitely boring.

April 24th

Being Projectless

Out of the strain of the Doing.
Into the peace of the Done.

Julia Louise Woodruff

When most women finish a task, they heave a sigh of relief, pat themselves on the back, and give themselves a well-deserved break. Not so for women who do too much. The "peace off the Done" simply does not compute. There is no experience to which we can relate this concept.
Fortunately, as we let ourselves see that we are not just talking about doing too much, we begin to have a different perspective.
We begin to learn that completion and beginning are not the same process. We begin to see that the completion of an important project has every right to be dignified by a natural grieving process. Something that required the best of us has ended. We will miss it.

Being projectless and being worthless are not synonymous.

Anne Wilson Schaef

April 25th

Belief

Th experience of God, or in any case the possibility of experiencing God, is innate.

Alice Walker

We cry to God "out there," and our voices return like burned out space ships that have traversed the universe. We ask authorities how to experience God and realize that they have come to worship their rituals and techniques, yet seem to know little of God. No ancient prophet lost in the wilderness felt more isolated than we do as we buzz around the wilderness of our cities and organizations. How could any God get through this steel and concrete?

Yet, when we stop, we have a glimmer of understanding of what it means to say that the "possibility of experiencing God, is innate." We do not have to look for that possibility. It is already in us.


The possibility of experiencing a power greater than myself has always been there, knowcking on my inner door.

Anne Wilson Schaef

April 26th

Busyness

The season is changeable, fitful, and maddening as I am myself these days are cloaked with too many demands and engagements

May Sarton

When we do not recognize that we have become too busy and overextended, we too find ourselves being "changeable, fitful, and maddening." Our lack of awareness of our needs and our inability to attend to them sets up a situation where our only recourse is to become so obnoxious that others will leave us alone. Then we do not have to take responsibility for stating that we need time to ourselves and taking it. Of course, this particular technique for getting aone time usually results in fences that need to be mended.
There are other ways of having what we need. We can let ourselves know that we need time to ourselves and then we can arrange to have it.


Taking the time I need for myself when I need it may be a lot less exciting than creating a crisis, and it certainly is less messy.


Anne Wilson Schaef

April 27th

Choices/feeling trapped


I discovered I always have choices and sometimes it's only a choice of attitude



Judith M. Knowlton



One of the most devastating characteristics of the addictive process is that our perceptions, our judgment, and our thinking become so distorted that we come to believe that we have no choices and are completely trapped. We have the illusion that there are only two choices (usually to stay or leave) and neither looks attractive.

We do have options. We do have choices, even if the only choice available at the moment is to see that we are stuck and to accept that "stuckness". Amazingly, when we truly accept our stuckness, our situation begins to change. Often it is not the situation that is keeping us stuck but our attitude about our situation.



Choices are part of being human. When I feel I have no choices, I am probably operating out of my disease.



Anne Wilson Schaef

april 28th

Beauty
Oh, it was a glorious morning! I suppose the best kind of spring morning is
the best weather God has to offer. It certainly helps one to believe in HIm.

Dodie Smith

How long has it been since we have allowed ourselves to rejoice in a
beautiful day? How long has it been since we allowed ourselves to notice
that it even is a beautiful day?
Those of us who live and work in cities have given ourselves obstacles that
challenge us to have to work a little harder even to notice what kind of day
it is.
For women who do too much, the beautiful day may be noteworthy only in the
absence of hassle that rain or snow might present. A beautiful day, then,
only becomes the vehicle to get more done. There are other options.



I long for the awareness to say, "Oh, It was a glorious morning!"

Anne Wilson Schaef

April 29th

Fear/Manipulation

All women hustle. Women watch faces, voices, gestures, moods. The person who has to survive through cunning.

Marge Piercy

Most women are accomplished research scientists. We have developed skilld for gathering data that would put most researchers to shame. We are constantly scanning faces, bodies and situations for clues about what is acceptable and what we can get away with. We have, unfortunately, in many situations become people who "survive" through cunning". Our hyperalertness emanates from our fear that whatever we do will not be enough - our fear that we are not enough no matter what we do. We have to be cunning to survive, or so we have come to believe. Some have said that this revolution of women is the only revolution where the outpost of the enemy is in our own heads.



I am enough. We all will just have to accept what I have to give

Anne Wilson Schaef

April 30th
Isolation

One of the reasons our society has become such a mess is that we are isolated from each other



Maggie Kuhn



Isolation is one of the characteristics of adiction. Isolation is one of the characteristics of women who do too much.

We may be surrounded by people all day long but our singleminded dedication to our work isolates us. We do not like to be interupted by friends. We would rather get our work done. We get angry when things don't fall into place, and others are afraid to approach us.

We have become just as locked p and closeted with our working, our busyness, our hurrying around as any alcoholic is with her bottle. We have forgotten how to reach out, and we don't have time for it, even if we remember how. We think if we just had more time to focus on our work we'd feel better, and instead we feel exhausted. Isolation is an energy drain.



I need to learn the difference between isolation and solitude.

Anne Wilson Schaef

May 1

Today

Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it may not always be so. One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in the pillow,or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, your return.

Mary Jean Iron

This moment is right now. It is what we have. How often we have squandered the treasure of today and dreamed of the fortunes of the future, only to mourn for the loss of this day. Today, we can see the excitement in the eyes of the child over some new discovery. Today, we can listen to na old friend before we can get on to the next task. Have we missed today by not being present to it? will we later weep tears of mourning and wish for it's return?How much better to live it today.

Just a normal day - what a gift!

Anne Wilson Schaef

So true - My grandmother used to say "it's a privledge to live!"
I think she was right.

Thanks for sharing CC, I'll be on your other thread soon.

SS

yes so true. we often forget that today is the futur we dreamed of and the memories we will have in the futur!

May 2nd

Courage

Remember, Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but she did it backwwards and in high heels.
Faith Whittlesey

That's right! Ginger Rogers was amazingly good at what she did, and so are we. It takes courage for women to acknowledge how good we are at what we do. We are caught in a strange cultural expectation of having to be simutaneously competent and passive. This often results in teh kind of humility that really is a denial of our expertise.

Also women who do too much seem to vacillate between exaggerating our competence and feeling that we are worthless and totally incompetent. This vacillation between extremes is part of the addictive disease.
The real test of courage is being realistic and letting ourselves know that we are really competent at many things.


Being good at what we do isn't a curse. It's a gift that comes from ourselves and from a power greater than ourselves.

Anne Wilson Schaef

May 3

Despair

That was a time when only the dead could smile

Anna Akhmatova

We have known times like these. In fcat, the point where we realized that we had to admit that doing too much was no longer something we did, it did us, and was or prsonal moment of hitting bottom. Before we completely admitted our powerlessness over our working too much, we despaired, fearing that nothing could change.
Yet we have changed. We have reached the depths of despair and lived through it. We have gone into the abyss and found that God is nothingness too.
We remember our despair, and we are also grateful to it because hitting bottom in our disease has paved the way for our recovery, and recovery is great!


I never thought I would be grateful for this disease, and it has opened up a possibility of a whole new life for me.

Anne Wilson Schaef

may 4

Living in the present

Yesterday is a cancelled check
Tomorrow is a promissory note
Today is cash in hand; spend it wisely

Anonymous

What a challenge to live in the present! We are often so busy kikking the present moment with worries about tomorrow or regrets about yesterday that we kill our todays. Ironically, all we can really do is be in the present.
Living in the present means noticing - noticing when we are tired, noticing when e need to go to the bathroom, noticing when we need to rest.
Living in the present means taking a walk for the sake of the walk, not just to get someplace. Living in teh present noticing and appreciating our now. Living in the present means doing our lives, not thinking about them


If I do my life then I won't be undone.

Anne Wilson Schaef

May 5

feeling overwhelmed

The social workers have named a new syndrome. It's called "compassion fatigue." Why does it sound so familiar?
Anne Wilson Schaef

Careaholics never quite know when it all happened. We were trained to believe that, if we just took care of people and listened and understood, they in turn would take care of us. We firmly believed that relationships are built on people taking care of each other, and if we took care first, we would certainly get the same in return. What a shock to find out that this belief is not only not held by everyone, but the more we take care of people, the more they want.
We feel drained, resentful, taken advantage of, and overwhelmed. Those seem to be normal feelings in the situation. Thank goodness we don't ahve to stay stuck there, however. Just recognizing the feelings helps us begin to check out our assumptions about caretaking.

Loving isn't caretaking and caretaking isn't love. We can't buy love ... it's a gift.

Anne Wilson Schaef

May 6

Gratitude

Make a prayer acknowledging yourself as a vehicle of light, giving thanks for the good that has come that day and an affirmation of intent to live in harmony with all your relations.

Dhyani Ywahoo

As we begin to recover and get clearer, we are often overcome with moments of gratitude. We begin to see the posibility that we are not our disease. We have the disease of overworking and doing too uch, and that is not who we are. We begin to see that we do have moments of clarity, and we truly like the person we experience during those moments.We begin to see the good that we do each day and the good that comes to us each day. We have times of deep, heartfelt gratitude and love for ourselves, our family , our friends, and the world around us. We even begin to have a glimmer of what it would mean to live in harmony with all those around us. We are healing.

I can truly give thanks for the good that is in my life. I can give thanls for being me.

Anne Wilson Schaef