What Room Are You In
Ask any woman how she''s feeling. Even when things look pretty
darn great from the outside, chances are that at least one thing
(and it may seem minor to others) is nagging at her, making her
feel less than spectacular, bringing her down: I''m too fat. My
husband doesn''t help enough around the house. My friend is going
to be mad if I don''t call her back. Why don''t my kids try harder
at school? My job is less than inspiring. Whatever happened to that
old boyfriend, the one who got away?
Whether it''s the size of our thighs or our bank accounts, there
always seems to be something that isn''t measuring up to our high
standards--and we let the dissatisfaction spill over into other
areas of our lives, distracting us from taking pleasure in
everything that''s going right.
In The Nine Rooms of Happiness, Lucy Danziger, editor
in chief of Self magazine, and women''s-health
psychiatrist Catherine Birndorf use the metaphor of a house to
release us from this phenomenon. In this house, the living room is
where we deal with friendships and our social life; the bedroom is
where we explore intimacy, romance, relationships, and sex; the
bathroom is for issues relating to health and body image; the
kitchen is for nourishment and the division of chores; and so
on.
Our "inner house" can have eight beautifully designed, neat and
tidy rooms, and one messy one, and still we focus on the mess.
The Nine Rooms of Happiness pinpoints common
self-destructive patterns of behavior and offers key processes that
will help readers clean up their emotional architecture. After each
room is "clean," Danziger and Birndorf show us how we can spend
time on ourselves figuring out what is most meaningful to
us--finding larger passion and purpose that makes returning to the
rest of our house a pleasure, no matter what calamity or mess
awaits.
The result After reading this book you''ll think differently
about the things that are bringing you down and be able to live a
happier, more joy filled life, in every room of your emotional
house.
From the outside, you''d think I have it all: beautiful
house, wonderful children, devoted husband. But am I happy I think
so. There''s nothing that has gone terribly wrong. There''s no
reason for me not to be happy. But I don''t feel
happy so much as I feel I''m just going through the motions.
Sometimes I have the feeling that there''s more and I just haven''t
found it yet. But what . . . and how dare I want more Isn''t all
that I have enough
--from The Nine Rooms of Happiness
